When I heard Dakota and Elle Fanning would be starring in the movie remake of this book, I looked it up. I was disappointed to find out the plot would be about WWII because it seems to me that nearly 50% of books that exist are about WWII and it's pretty impossible to tell an original story on the subject.
That said, if this was the only book I'd ever read about WWII, I would have found it compelling and meaningful. As it is, it is a hodgepodge of every WWII era story ever told. It includes just about every trope: the husbands sent to war, the spies working for the resistance, the young German soldiers wrestling with their humanity, family heirlooms
exchanged for food, Jews who hide but are ultimately caught and sent to concentration camps, a list of orphans kept to reunite families after the war, and, of course, romance that is accelerated by the fact
that no one knows if there will be a tomorrow. It has
all the hits.
In the end, all of the main characters survive the war and it teaches them what is really important in life.
I’m
sorry if it makes me a jerk for saying this and I should stress that this is well told story about an important subject.
It might be perfect for younger readers who haven't spent their lives reading these stories. I'm always shocked to hear that there are people, technically adults, who never read Osama bin Laden's Letter to America and never heard of Aushwitz. But for anyone in their forties or beyond, this will not feel like a new take on an old tale. I should have just waited for the movie, which I'm sure the Fannings will give the proper care it deserves.
