What would happen if Adolf Hitler were cloned? Blitzball, a new book by Barton Ludwig, attempts to answer that question. This is the story of Addie, a soccer player for Reichfield High, and his discovery that he was not who he thought he was. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Every weekend, Addie plays soccer against North Prep, their rival school. As our story begins, Addie and his best friend Thomas have debilitated the star player on the other team so he can’t play. Shaylee, a girl, ends up playing on the team instead.
As a reader, you might notice something strange about their little town. Reichfield High is nearly all white (with the exception of one Jew). North Prep is predominantly non-white. The students at Reichfield High are encouraged to have racist viewpoints. They refer to themselves as “Aryan” and have a lot of unkind things to say about people of other races. They also don’t like homosexuals or transgender people. Reichfield students also learn German. This is a typical Nazi town, located in a modern neighborhood in a place that looks a lot like the United States.
Addie begins to have feelings for Shaylee, which he fights initially, because she’s not Aryan, and Addie has been taught that you really shouldn’t develop feelings for people that aren’t white. Together, they discover that Addie was a clone of Adolf Hitler. Addie doesn’t even know who Hitler is at first; for some reason people that live in Addie’s town don’t have access to the Internet, although Shaylee and her classmates do. As he discovers the truth about himself, he tries to defy his genetics and upbringing and become his own person.
What I Liked
There were a lot of things that I liked about Blitzball. Addie was an interesting character. He behaved a lot like you would expect someone to behave if Adolf Hitler grew up today. In a way, the story reminds me a lot of Er ist Wieder Da, a really funny movie where Hitler resurrects in a German park and is found by a photographer, who treats the guy like he’s a joke. Addie grows as a character throughout the book, which is pretty important when you start off a Nazi. By the end of the book, he becomes an enemy of the Nazis in this story.
The setting of this story was unique. It reminded me of The Truman Show. Addie lives in this small “country” where life pretty much revolves around him. The people at his school are in on it. Not only was he a genetic clone of Adolf Hitler, he is being raised in similar circumstances to him.
What I Liked Less
While I found Blitzball to be interesting overall, there were parts of this story that I liked less. The last part of the book seemed to be a little too much, although I liked the epilogue. We also never find out why someone created a genetic clone of Hitler and went through all the trouble of raising him to be another Hitler.
There are a lot of German words in this book (mostly swear words). As a German speaker, it didn’t really bother me, but it’s possible that non-German speakers might find that it makes reading the book more difficult. I’m not a very good judge of this because I am literate in German, but it’s something to be aware of.
Final Notes
I wouldn’t recommend this book to younger YA readers. There are some situations that aren’t really appropriate for younger readers. In addition, the characters of Reichfield High have very racist attitudes; someone with less maturity might not realize that these students are supposed to be the bad guys.
Overall, Blitzball was an interesting book that I enjoyed, but I can’t really put it on the same level as some of the more amazing books that I’ve been reading this year. If you find the premise interesting, I recommend reading it, but it’s not a book that I will rush out and tell everybody that they need this on their TBR right now.