I have a rule that has been put in place since my NetGalley backlist is currently over 900 books (shh! If I pretend it isn't there then maybe it will go away) and the rule is that I am not allowed to stick with a book if it isn’t gripping me. I will give it a good try but if I'm not getting along with it then I will have to put it down. Life is too short for books I am not enjoying. Unfortunately, The Hiding Game fell into this category.

I feel bad because I am sure others have loved this book. It may have been a case of right book wrong time but at this point in my life I cannot continue with a book that I can't remember the names of the main characters for when I am over 10% into it. It just isn't for me.

The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood is available now.

trigger warning
<spoiler> homophobia, misogyny, mention of suicide, mention of genocide, trauma </spoiler>

When Paul joins the Bauhaus, a prestigious art school, he expects to learn about art. What he doesn't expect is to fall in love, with a person so many others seem to love, and that they're all nearing their doom.

Setting ist 1922 Germany, first in Weimar, then Dessau, then Berlin. At first, times are tough in a country trying to find it's own feet again after a devastating war, and through their youth, the students are able to forget everything.
Then, a guy called Hitler rises, and the reader <i>knows</i> what's up.

This was not what I expected, at all. I wanted dark academia, because I enjoyed The Secret History and If We Were Villains, but I did not enjoy this at all.
We're told from the beginning that one character won't make it out of a concentration camp, because this book is made up of Paul's recollections. He sits there, at the end of his life, and tries to paint his own portrait, a realistic portrait, despite being an abstract artist.

I did not enjoy being in Paul's head. He's insecure, constantly worrying but trying to ignore his own thoughts. It's exhausting.
I did not enjoy the plot of people trying to get together, through intrigue if necessary.
But: This all boils down to personal taste. As much as I don't like it, somebody else might love it.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

Naomi Wood’s Mrs Hemingway ranked highly among my favourite books of 2014, so I was delighted to discover this new novel, and even more delighted to be offered an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in return for this free and unbiased review. With The Hiding Game, Wood proves her superb skills in researching modern history, homing in on unconventional storylines, and developing these using a cast of intriguing characters.
In this novel, Wood transports us to pre-war Germany where six friends meet at the famous Bauhaus Art School in an era of avantgarde writers and artists, philosophers and thinkers. These friends are Paul and Charlotte, Walter and Jeno who are covertly conducting a same-sex relationship, and Irmi and Kaspar. Spanning an arc from the final years of the Weimar Republic through to the rise of the Nazi regime, much of this novel consists of Paul’s recollections, produced several years after the events. Whilst introspective accounts almost always make tough demands on the reader, who has to build up a certain affinity with the relevant character, I found Wood’s way of presenting a turbulent chapter of modern German history very accomplished and compelling. This is not an easy read, written to a tried-and-tested formula, but something new, a novel that showcases Wood’s skill as a versatile novelist.

1922, Paul rebels against his father, a manufacturer, and goes to study art at the newly opened and radical Bauhaus school in Weimar. there he falls in with a disparate group of fellow students whose lives, loves and art are influenced by the Bauhaus, Germany between the wars and the rise of the Nazis.
Although I found the first third of the book difficult to engage with, by halfway I was really interested. I think this had a lot to do with the way that Weimar Germany was depicted and the slow, insidious rise of the Nazi party. The deprivations of life in 1920s Germany were depicted well, hyperinflation was astonishing. Although the fate of each student was mapped out from the start, story was still gripping and ultimately very sad.

Although the premise of the novel was absolutely intriguing, my expectations were sadly not met; it is strongly reminiscent of Tartt’s The Secret History, in terms of atmosphere and of the exclusivity of a group of students, however it falls flat story-wise.

The Hiding Game is set in the Bauhaus Art School in the 1920s and 30s; Bauhaus artists were encouraged to 'be' their art as well as to make it, so students were encouraged to take up sexual relationships, drugs and alcohol that they might not have otherwise. Behind all of this heady living, the Nazi party are gathering momentum.
The novel moves forward to the 1930s - and then post-War, where the decisions that the artists have made come back to remind them,
An interesting subject area and lots to take in but with a lack of likeable characters, it is hard to completely warm to a book

The Hiding Game tells the story of a group of friends attending Bauhaus when Germany was about to enter its darkest period. Doesn’t it sound beautiful and exciting? It has art, history and an academic environment which I love to read. When I first saw it, I thought it was written just for me. However, after reading a few chapters, I realized that the book would take a lot of time to finish. I was neither able to give up reading nor was dying to read it.

Although it is a character-driven novel, I could not get to know any of the characters well. So I could not warm up to any of them. I read that strange web of relationships between them with pleasure. However, I found their reaction to happenings unnecessarily strong and meaningless. I learned a little more about the Bauhaus but still couldn’t help getting bored reading the book.

A close knit group of six student of the famous Bahaus art school,and the way their lives and loves interweave.
Theres betrayal,obsession,unrequited love and a lot of guilt in this book.
It also has a fair few selfish characters,who put themselves before anything else when times are at their toughest.

Naomi Wood's novel is a blend of fact and fiction, unsettling and disturbing historical fiction informed by art, specifically the influential Bauhaus art movement in Germany that began post WW1, with Walter Gropius's minimalist take on architecture. In 1934, Paul Beckermann fled Germany and the Third Reich that had taken over the country for England, only for his haunted past with secrets to raise its head when an old friend invites him to the funeral of Walter Konig, a man for whom he harbours resentment and blamed him for the tragic death of his adored Charlotte. This triggers his reflections back to when he was a young man n 1922, when he was part of a group of 6 idealistic art students at the Bauhaus Art School, urged to look beyond the normal and ordinary, to see the other more radical possibilities in the expression of their art and creativity under the Weimar Republic.

The background of the tensions and turbulence of the rise of the Nazis influences and finds echoes within the lives and relationships between the group of friends, as relationships reconfigure and shift through the years. Their lives that take in love affairs, betrayal, obsessions, deception, guilt, drugs and drink, and the threats, horrors and dangers posed by the Nazi regime to the group and to the Bauhaus Art School itself, which moved to Dessau and then Berlin. In this beautifully written, character driven narrative, it is the intimate portrait of the lives of the six friends that dominate as Paul's self deceptions and secrets are revealed. Wood evokes the historical period brilliantly with her rich descriptions and details, I particularly appreciated the information on the Bauhaus movement. This is likely to appeal to those interested in Germany at this time and/or the Bauhaus Art Movement. Many thanks to Pan Macmillan.