The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
I recently finished John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. I would rate this tale of two unlikely friends 3/5 stars. When choosing to read this book, I did not know what to expect. I hadn't even heard of it before. I was surprised that I enjoyed this book at all because I usually read more stories about horror and fantasy rather than historical fiction.
I thought the book had a great concept and a unique point of view. Many people don't think about what the Holocaust would be like from a child's perspective. Although, this caused some confusion for me. Since the main character, Bruno, didn't know what all was going on at the time, the author was forced to be vague about some events to keep in character. This confused me because it was difficult for me to pick up right away what was going on during certain parts of the plot. One example of this is when Bruno first finds out that he's moving to somewhere close to "Out-with". As the reader, I did not know what "Out-with" was and didn't make the connection that Bruno was referring to Auschwitz until later in the story.
Another part of the story that I did not like is how little we know about some of the characters. One of the characters I would like to know more about is Shmuel. His story was never directly talked about, only hinted at. I feel as if this would be confusing to readers that have little knowledge about the Holocaust, and didn't know many of the events that happened during that time period.
Overall, I enjoyed this book but I would not recommend it to high school students for anything but pleasure reading, it being an easier to read story that doesn't challenge your knowledge of vocabulary.
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