A review by beckyyreadss
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I decided to read this book because I bought a poster with 100 books to read in your lifetime. This is the thirteenth book I've read on this poster. I never got to read it in school and even though I knew what was going to happen, it broke my freaking heart.  

This book is following nine-year-old Bruno and he knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no-one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives in a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation and in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process. 

This book has a hidden powerful message that it’s one of those books that I feel like everyone should read no matter what. If you only read five books in your lifetime, let this book be one of the five. This book comes across as so innocent and sweet expect for the ending . . . obviously. I'm glad that John Boyce did this from a young child’s point of view rather than the soldiers or someone older from the camp. I loved the friendship side of it, and I would have loved for Bruno and Shmuel to have survived and been best friends. Both characters have their own personality, and I would have loved to get additional chapters from Shmuel, I think that would have been a heartbreaking but an interesting perspective especially because Bruno seems to be in the dark about the “thousands of people on the other side of the fence” but Shmuel knew what he was and why he was there.  

This book was heartbreaking but heartwarming with the innocence friendship formed between Bruno and Shmuel.  
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