Two Brothers by Ben Elton – Book Review

There are two boys growing up in Germany in the years before the Nazis come to power. What they don’t know is that one has been adopted into the family; one is Jewish and the other isn’t, and both are in love with a local beauty, the daughter of a rich Jewish man who owns a department store. As Hitler rises, they need to find ways to survive, with or without each other.

I really enjoyed this book – although I find that ‘enjoyed’ is always a problematic word when describing a book that covers these kinds of tough times. It’s odd, because I didn’t write this straight after reading as I usually do, but a few months later when I realised I hadn’t reviewed it. I had to do a quick look online to see if I could find the character names, and it seems that this book was not very well accepted by the critics. I’m surprised, as I thought it was great – at times tough. It was less funny that most Ben Elton stories, but that’s hardly surprising given the material.