STOLEN BY NIGHT

In Watkins’ latest, a French teen girl must resist and survive when France falls under siege during World War II.

In Nazi-occupied Paris, 14-year-old Nicolette glides around the streets on a bicycle with her best friend, Jules, by her side. But bicycles shift from childhood entertainment and symbols of a national pastime to a vital means of transportation and a form of defiance as the pair start to distribute Resistance flyers and paint over Nazi propaganda. As the Nazis’ propensity for violence and brutality escalates, Jules recruits Nicolette on a grenade-throwing mission. Soon, the Nazis capture and torture Nicolette, before casting her off into the cruel realities of life in a concentration camp. There, Nicolette bears witness to the executions, torture, medical experimentations, and murders committed by the Nazis. Watkins uses Nicolette’s voice to shed light on numerous atrocities, almost as a form of remembrance. Though the author’s effort to represent the horrors of the Holocaust in all its historical accuracy is commendable, the novel shifts wholly toward depictions of pure brutality after Nicolette becomes a prisoner, providing a tight focus on violence with little respite. Empathy for the victims, however, never falters and is supported by the connections Nicolette forms during her sometimes-brief exchanges with other prisoners.

A brutal, harrowing portrayal of Nazi horrors.