You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
I read the second book first not knowing a thing about this series and I’m kind of glad that I did. This was such a heartbreaking telling and perspective of the war and up until the last page had my heart in pieces. John Boyne is truly one of my favorite authors book after book.
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Leí el libro antes de ver la película, lo cual recomiendo ampliamente, a mi como tal no me hizo llorar, pero si reflexionar sobre los acontecimientos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y el contexto actual. Lo recomiendo si quieren una lectura rápida sobre una novela ambientada en esta época historica
Everyone says this book is good, but it honestly wasn't that enjoyable for me. I feel like it being written from the perspective of a child is an interesting idea, but I feel like it makes the writing sort of dull. And honestly that's not how I thought like as a child.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is the type of book that should be required reading in school. For such a short one, it packed a powerful punch. Telling such a story through the eyes of a young boy who doesn’t understand what’s going on made it all the more heartbreaking. And that ending really, really got me. If you haven’t read this one, you absolutely have to.
dark
lighthearted
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Not knowing details about the holocaust, even i know how much reality/history would have to be ignored in order to make this fiction work. just... no.
Just my opinion. The main issue most people seem to have with this book is that it's "too light," or doesn't delve deep enough into the graphic horror of the holocaust as a whole. I see that criticism, but I also think this story is, fundamentally, from a perspective that is realistic. Realistically, it is possible for a nine year old boy under the circumstances of Bruno to see his world this way. If you want abject and sweeping horror, there are other books, documentaries, survivor interviews, and so forth that tastefully recount that reality (which, of course, is important to remember). This is something different, and I feel the way that this is done works. I feel it's done in earnest, and if you treat it with the same earnest approach, you'll find that there are layers to this story that make it just as compelling and respectful to history as many other works about this terrible tragedy.
emotional
medium-paced
Clumsily written, unbelievable cardboard characters, boring dialogue, jarring POV changes and grammatical errors. This reads like a first draft and a poor one at that. I never got brought into the story because the characters were so unidentifiable.
To top it all off we have an author who somehow thinks that 9 and 12 year old German children would somehow mishear and be unable to pronounce simple two-syllable German words. A four-year old could pronounce them correctly: I checked, she got it first try and she only speaks English. I understand that it was for the sake of the surprise - hey, they're at Auschwitz! Spoiler! - but when plot devices like this are predicated upon the total inanity that German children would mis-pronounce German words as a meaningless collection of English words in a pun that only makes sense in English, it completely undermines any remaining authenticity in the story. I lost total respect for the author at that point.
As to the subject matter really anyone who has read an account from a Holocaust survivor should be able to tell that this book is filled with inaccurate, unresearched tripe. It's embarrassing that a published author would allow this to happen. Fact-checking should be fastidious for the tiniest detail let alone historical events, people and places of magnitude. It seems the author has called this a 'fable' so he could eschew fact-checking completely and get away with it.
There's a particularly good treatment on that here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/646557556?book_show_action=false&page=1
I rarely stop reading books part-way through but this one made me walk out on it.
To top it all off we have an author who somehow thinks that 9 and 12 year old German children would somehow mishear and be unable to pronounce simple two-syllable German words. A four-year old could pronounce them correctly: I checked, she got it first try and she only speaks English. I understand that it was for the sake of the surprise - hey, they're at Auschwitz! Spoiler! - but when plot devices like this are predicated upon the total inanity that German children would mis-pronounce German words as a meaningless collection of English words in a pun that only makes sense in English, it completely undermines any remaining authenticity in the story. I lost total respect for the author at that point.
As to the subject matter really anyone who has read an account from a Holocaust survivor should be able to tell that this book is filled with inaccurate, unresearched tripe. It's embarrassing that a published author would allow this to happen. Fact-checking should be fastidious for the tiniest detail let alone historical events, people and places of magnitude. It seems the author has called this a 'fable' so he could eschew fact-checking completely and get away with it.
There's a particularly good treatment on that here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/646557556?book_show_action=false&page=1
I rarely stop reading books part-way through but this one made me walk out on it.