Reviews - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

7.37k reviews for:

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I'm only giving this a 4 stars because I read it a long time ago. I do want to pick it back up again, I remember loving it!

Reread:

I will stick with my 4 star review.

I had a surprisingly clear memory of the events in the book. It was a lovely story, with dark puns, moving tragedies, and an innocent protagonist. I really recommend it for any age and especially as a starting point for younger readers who want to read about WW2 because it isn't quite as heart-breaking as most can be.

luke_port's review against another edition

1.0

I’ll start by saying that Bruno and his 12-year-old sister, Gretel, don’t act like their ages. They act more like six and nine. Bruno is naive, and doesn't know about the Holocaust but.. I really don't see that. Children, back in the 40s, especially living in Europe, were completely aware of the holocaust and why it was going on. Bruno believes that “Heil Hitler!” Is a fancy word for ‘hello’. Bruno, at one point in the book, witnesses Jewish people imprisoned in the concentration camps shot and killed and thinks they are just falling asleep. Bruno doesn’t know what Jews are, even with the book taking place within the timespan of a full year, which means he has lived near Auschwitz for that long. Somehow, Bruno manages to talk with Shmuel, a nine-year old boy, every day near the fences that were guarded with Nazis every day. How did Shmuel survive a full year in Auschwitz? I don’t know. I also don’t know how Bruno didn’t get electrocuted during his attempt to save Shmuel, resulting in both of their deaths, at the end of the book. The amount of historically inaccurate information about the holocaust in this book is honestly, to me, pretty offensive. Overall, I dislike The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas because of the traits of the main character, the historically inaccurate information depicted, and the ending designed to emotionally manipulate the reader. I give this book a 2/10.

dustilane's review against another edition

1.0

Edit May 2022:
I originally gave this book the benefit of the doubt apparently. I swore I gave this one star but apparently I gave it 3??? This book is awful. Do not read it. If you're going to read about the Holocaust, there are sooo many better options out there!

Original Review from 2013:
I didn't quite cry at the end of this book, though I felt I could. it was an incredibly sad and disturbing book. The story was good. It was.
However, there were a lot of what you would call, I guess, historical inaccuracies. Just a lot of things didn't make sense and bugged me. Plus, Bruno was such a naive brat. Ugh.

The "idea" itself: 5 stars
The actual book: only 3, sorry.