Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 3
Pace: 3
Plot development: 3
Characters: 4
Enjoyability: 3
Ease of Reading: 4

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

Sylvia True's <I>Where Madness Lies</I> is an intergenerational look at mental illness focusing on Germany in the 1930's and America in the 1980's. Two women are struggling with long-term mental health issues that go undiagnosed, but ultimately find themselves in mental health institutions. Rigmor is a young Jewish woman who comes from a family of great wealth, but their money cannot heal her problems. She has a domineering mother, an absent father, and a sister who is determined to heal her. She ultimately finds herself hospitalized at Sonnenstein, an asylum at a time in Germany that it was not good to be considered "mentally defective" or Jewish. Sabine is a young, new mother in the Boston area who voluntarily admits herself to McLean Hospital, a well-known mental health facility when she finds herself in a deep depression. She does not realize that admitting herself with separate her young daughter from her. Linking these two women is Inga, who is Rigmor's sister and Sabine's grandmother. Inga tries to make amends and right wrongs with Sabine that she was unable to do for her sister.

True's book allows the reader to learn about an area of German history that one may not know a lot about. Treatment of mentally ill individuals in Germany was not as well publicized as other Nazi atrocities, and it is interesting to read how ideas around eugenics and sterilization lead to a final solution over time. She also highlights how trauma can be passed through generations, both genetically, and through the environment. The reader is able to witness it through four generations.

Thank you to John Hunt Publishing Ltd and NetGalley for providing me with this advance copy for review.