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A review by embi
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
3.0
I've been wanting to read this since it came out, but never quite got round to it. Then, last year, I was standing in the bookshop at Dachau looking at all the copies with "10th anniversary edition" on the front and thinking "surely it's not been that long?!" I managed to talk myself out of buying it at the time, on the grounds that going all the way to Germany to buy a book I could buy in my lunch hour was more than a bit ridiculous. Still took me a few months to get round to the lunchtime buying!
I think what is most impressive is that in all of the last 12 years I've managed to avoid learning anything about the story beyond what's obvious from the cover. Whatever I thought the ending would be, it wasn't that.
Still reflecting on the rating, so 3* is a bit of a placeholder. The book's aimed at children, so I wouldn't expect it to be too explicit about the horrors on the other side of the fence. I don't know if enough of a sense of it would come across to a child reader though, given Bruno's obliviousness. I'd mind less if it wasn't such an important, and topical, subject.
I think what is most impressive is that in all of the last 12 years I've managed to avoid learning anything about the story beyond what's obvious from the cover. Whatever I thought the ending would be, it wasn't that.
Still reflecting on the rating, so 3* is a bit of a placeholder. The book's aimed at children, so I wouldn't expect it to be too explicit about the horrors on the other side of the fence. I don't know if enough of a sense of it would come across to a child reader though, given Bruno's obliviousness. I'd mind less if it wasn't such an important, and topical, subject.