A different take on WWII Nazi occupation than I’ve read before. The main character is basically a house; a massive, uber-modern, glass and chrome house in Czechoslovakia. A young, wealthy honeymooning couple has it built shortly after their wedding but once Nazis invade they must emigrate and abandon their home. It’s later taken over by various factions and people.

It took me a long time to get into the book because most of the characters are quite like the house: cold and flat. Also, it’s odd to read about Jews living in Eastern Europe in the 1930s who all exit the time period relatively unscathed. The no-longer-newlywed couple moves to Switzerland to escape the Nazis and while it’s sad they have to abandon their home, the wife’s complaining felt petty given what happened to those who didn’t have the money to jump ship. Granted, she likely had no idea what was actually going on. Nonetheless, it made me care less about the humans in this book than I already did.

In addition to the characters being mostly flat, sex (or lack thereof) defines and shapes almost all the relationships. No, you can’t have a male architect who’s just an architect or a female best friend who’s just a friend. There must be a bit of lust going on – man, woman, old, young. There’s even a scene where the author uses breastfeeding in a sensual manner, which was quite bothersome.

That said, the writing is lovely and descriptions of the house beautiful (it’s based on a real place). One of the characters, Hana, is filled with life even though her rampant sexual exploits got a little old after awhile. An interesting read but I didn’t find it worthy of all the “best of” lists and award nominations.