The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have to admit I was quite late when I finally laid my hands on The Diary of a Young Girl. What's probably even more delayed, is my review.
Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl, who wakes up one morning to find that in order to survive, she must hide. This diary of hers, records her days with her family and a fellow Jewish family in a dilapidated old house. As she struggles to comprehend what it means being a Jew in Nazi Germany, this little girl also discovers the first pangs of adolescence. This diary is thus a bit of both: a memoir and a coming-of-age book.

Reading Anne Frank's diary can be a bit of a task sometimes. (It's a teenager's diary, after all! What do you expect? Yours was probably much worse when you were thirteen!) What took me by storm when I read it is how precocious Anne was! After a while, I found that her observation was probably keener and better than an adult's.

It's a slow read but more importantly, it's a very very real account of the Holocaust, as seen from the eyes of a real person. If I have to use a literary reference for it, I'd say Anne Frank was, in her own way, the real Leisel Meminger (ref. toThe Book Thief)minus the book stealing.

Not worth missing if you're a Holocaust fan!



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