Caging Skies

By: Christine Leunens

Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen

Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

An avid member of the Hitler Youth in 1940s Vienna, Johannes Betzler discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa behind a false wall in their home. His initial horror turns to interest - then love and obsession. After his parents disappear, Johannes is the only one aware of Elsa's existence in the house and the only one responsible for her fate.

By turns disturbing and blackly comic, Christine Leunens' captivating and masterful novel examines this world of truth and lies, laying bare the darkest corners of the human soul.

©2019 Christine Leunens (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

An incredibly deep and real story from the heart

The story really feels real and shows so many emotions, I’m only 16 but I can really understand the feelings and my love for ww2 history can really get down and feel as though I’m there because the realism of how they were treated and how they were made to feel. Also being able to see the development of Johannes and Elsa’s personality and their forms of madness, the actual aging of the characters really emphasizes their growth. My outlook of the book really has changed throughout each of the chapters. (Spoilers) after he looses all of his family and is left with only Elsa, it really changed way the story felt. Overall I really feel the story was incredible and felt real. My favorite book as of now.

A well told story

The story is of a young man's coming of age experience in Austria during WWII. The story is well told and I appreciate the narrator's perfection in German language readings- a difficult task to carry on with throughout the book. I do wonder, however, why there are periodic change in vocal tone at, what seems to be, the beginning of each paragraph. A light, whispered tone to start off, then the normal, relaxed voice. That was the only observation I made as it was a distraction. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the book on my days off from working at the hospital. Thanks.

Don't Buy a Book Without Reading a Synopsis?

No, this is not Jojo Rabbit.

However, it seems like reading up a little background info on it instead of assuming that all film adaptations are faithful to the book and not sometimes just springboards for creative expansions on the more basic ideas from the source—which still need to give credit to source material because that's how intellectual property works—would have helped most everyone complaining about how this "isn't Jojo Rabbit" and nearly ruined their life because of the vast difference in tone.

It's not the author's fault that you were expecting a very different, uplifting story and this was the opposite. You could have returned it when you realized it wasn't “Jojo Rabbit”—no harm, no foul.

That being said, this is a very well-written, unique book. It's not uplifting. It's not happy. Johannes isn't very likeable. He's very flawed.
He was also in Nazi training and war since age 10. In the book, he goes through the Hitler Youth group for young boys then graduates on to the regular Hitler Youth where the idea of choosing Hitler over a loved one is normalized and considered very virtuous. He ends up fighting in the war and loses most of one of his arms and disfigures and paralyzes half of his face.
“Jojo Rabbit” essentially catches Johannes *before* he's endoctrinated to a point of detriment that is never truly reversed by an outside force. Johannes, in the book, is disabled in the war at 15, not 10. He surpasses age 10 by chapter 4.
So, yes, he's not a cutie-pie kid. He's a messed up, immature young man. [MINOR SPOILER:] He essentially remains all but walled off from society along with Elsa after his mother dies. He doesn't finish school. He even staves off getting a job.

It's a very interesting character study. If you don't like those kinds of narratives, no, you won't like this book at all. If you don't like books without a hero, you won't like this book. If you need a happy or decisive ending or a book that spells everything out for you—nope again.
But this IS a good book if you go into it with the right expectations.

Dark Skies

This is the darkest book I’ve read in years , I hope it was the writer’s intention as she’s succeeded in putting me in a foul mood . I can’t imagine how they made a comedy film Jojo Rabbit from this format , strange minds !

Wow... just wow

I, like many others I'm sure, picked this book up due to Taika Waititi's adaptation "Jojo Rabbit." Without spoiling anything, this book is incredibly well written with the ability to make you feel loathing and sadness for a certain character. Tonally, as well as other aspects, this is not the same story as the movie. It certainly kept me interested, as Christine Linens puts together a story that you want to end, but don't want to step away from. Well done.

A book with two separate personalities

I got this book because of the movie Jojo rabbit which was “inspired” buy this book. I was fully aware that that means it is not a movie about the book, just that the director took the ideas from the book and ran his own direction. That being said I read this in one sitting. It is a book with two distinct personalities. The first half takes it’s cue from “private lives of the master race“ but the second half turns into A drawn out vision of a dysfunctional relationship between two people that you don’t want to know. I’m not sure what the author was planning when she started this book but apparently she decided to take a sharp turn about halfway through and head in a different direction. I am not a literary critic by any means but the best interpretation I can give on the second half of this book is that it somehow represents post World War II Germany but other than that I found it relatively taxing to endure. I found the first half populated by way more interesting characters, but they are all gone before the second half. I am not sure who I would recommend this book to, I would recommend the first half of the book to World War II fiction fans, the second half to Jerry Springer fans. And by the way, The movie is based on the first half…

Good production, poor storyline

While I certainly enjoyed the narrator and the quality of production, this book was not at all what I was expecting. In good literature, the unexpected is often a welcome surprise or an exciting plot twist; in this book, however, I cannot say the same. I feel the author simply tried to fit too much into a storyline that simply did not have the range or flexibility for it. The style of writing was captivating, almost to a fault; I finished the book, but at times I felt my skin crawl as what I anticipated being a historical fiction depicting the confrontation of two diametrically opposed worldview quickly turned into Anne Frank meets 50 Shades of Grey.

Wanted to not believe all the other reviews but then I read it

The book was amazing in the first half and is worth reading just because of that. The second half seems forced and added on to make the story longer. Idk first half is so good tho.

Good book about uncomfortable tooics

Read this after watching Jojo Rabbit. The books handles the borders of love and obsession.

Hard to hear yet I couldn’t stop

I really enjoyed this book. I was often horrified with the treatment of Elsa always hoping for her freedom.