I won an ARC of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. 
 I'm not sure why I keep thinking that broadening my reading to include more mainstream fiction is going to make me happier. It rarely does. But that is neither here nor there. 
 The Women in the Castle follows three women, primarily in the aftermath of World War II in Germany, though with portions that flash backwards in time. It serves as a character study into each of these women's lives, their backgrounds, how they were able to perceive the events of Nazi Germany, and how they view and judge each other in the wake of those events. 
 Marianne von Lingenfels is the central figure who connects these women's lives. She comes from a liberal, intellectual, aristocratic background, and supported her husband and his cohort in a resistance effort against Hitler, for which all of the men of the group were executed. She once made a promise to provide for the wives and children of the resisters in the event of their failure, which is how she ends up shepherding Benita, Ania, and their children into her well-intentioned but overbearing care in the dilapidated castle of the title. Marianne may have lost her husband and fallen on relatively hard times, but she is extremely fortunate to have come through as unscathed as she has (I mean, she has a castle). She knows this, of course, but doesn't really get it, and she is incapable of putting herself in the shoes of others who haven't had the luxury to be able to hold a moral high ground from the start. As well-intentioned and heroic as she is (and the book does not dispute her heroism), Marianne's personal failings are more central to the story. 
 Benita's and Ania's backstories unfold in their own due time. Marianne and Benita have known each other since before the war, but Marianne's obsession with Benita's husband's heroism stifles Benita, who comes from a humble background and was never politically motivated herself, and who of the three seems the most capable of forgiveness and starting anew. Ania is a mystery until late in the book, but her perspective is a necessary one, though hard to stomach. 
 I think I went into this hoping for a more redemptive story about women's relationships, but I'll admit that was naive of me given the historical subject matter. This book probably needs to be as tragic and hard to stomach as it is, and the characters as hard to love and forgive as they are.