One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead Book

I'm surprised that I'm giving this such a low rating, because I really expected to like it a lot!

The main thing that's holding me back from really loving this story is the fact that the characters feel really underdeveloped. I get that it's based on real people and events, but I still feel like the characters could have been explored a lot more.

Else was the worst in this sense imo - even after reading about practically her entire life, I still had no real sense of who she is, or how she even feels about anything.

Wegener was a bit better, but there wasn't really any insight into who he was as a person, or why he made the decisions that he did. In the last half of the book especially, it felt like I was just reading a wikipedia biography or something. In fairness, it would have been about the coolest wiki article I've ever read, but that's not really what I pick up a novel for, you know?

Ultimately this book was very well-researched, and I definitely appreciate that effort, but it felt like there was no real heart in it. It had some really beautiful passages, but the character arcs just seemed really stilted and restrained. I'm glad other people enjoyed it more than I did, though!