This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.
This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
C.F. Yetmen’s The Pretense of Memory follows Oskar Gruenewald, a law student in 1958 Wiesbaden whose life begins to tilt after Professor Brehmer accuses him of plagiarism. Oskar survived the war as a child and was raised afterward by Anna and Henry Cooper, yet his nightmares and panic attacks keep parts of his past just beyond reach. When his defiant response to Brehmer pushes him out of university, he meets Romy Erlanger, an art student using posters to ask what happened to people Germany would prefer to forget. Oskar’s closest friend, Max Dietrich, brings him into the family insurance office, where old files and new names begin connecting postwar respectability to wartime crimes. Oskar has to decide how far he will go to prove that memory can still challenge power.
C.F. Yetmen’s The Pretense of Memory is superb postwar historical fiction, and Yetmen makes Oskar funny even when old fear keeps catching him. The university scenes are fantastic because the plagiarism accusation tests the law Oskar wants to serve: he answers Brehmer by writing about the Nazi People’s Court, so a class dispute becomes a young lawyer’s first act of argument. I also love Romy, whose cafeteria posters force names and faces back into public sight before the danger around Strobe fully forms. The family material is beautifully handled through Cooper, the American who helped raise Oskar; the late kitchen conversation finally names the distance between them and makes their awkward love feel completely real. Well written and quietly humane, readers who enjoy postwar historical fiction will adore this.
