Saturday, May 7, 2011

Yay! First post!

This is my first review I ever wrote and I admit, it's a bit...lacking, but I promise, they get better. =)
Book Review for Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
I have always been interested in WWII novels, and have been meaning to get my hands on this one for so long, but never got around to it until a few months ago. I started out reading it with a feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach- what business was it of mine to be reading someone else’s diary?! How would I feel if my diary got published? If it became a classic and popular read? I would be truly mortified. But, as I was already rather engrossed, I continued to read. I realized that Anne wrote very well, which surprised me. I noticed a trend in what she wrote about- it was mainly food. But can we really blame her? What else was there to write about, stuck up in an attic with a handful of other people she didn’t get along with? She also wrote a lot about her feelings for Peter, which slowly developed over years of being in close contact with him. I doubt those feelings would have blossomed they hadn’t had to go into hiding. I also doubt the depth of her feelings for Peter. She claimed to have been in love with him, but from what she wrote (and from the fact that she was only about 12 or 13 at the time) I don’t believe that to be true. I didn’t find any real affection in their relationship aside from them enjoying each other’s company, and I imagine that they both had a bad case of loneliness. They were, as you know, the only young people in the attic those many years. I was disappointed to hear of the lack of motherly affection Anne received from her mom, and it nearly broke my heart to hear that her mother considered her more a friend than a daughter. Anne’s passion for Peter might have also attributed to the lack of male attention in her life. Her relationship with her father was not as shattered as her relationship with her mother was, but I felt that Mr. Frank was kind of spacey and disinterested in and towards Anne. But despite her gloomy circumstances, Anne’s writing was not at all depressed or troubled in the least. She had her share of low days, as any young girl does, but most of her entries were delightful, light-hearted, humorous, and hopeful. She never gave up on the idea of her family’s re-entrance into the world, even when bombs exploded outside her tiny window, or when the radio gave dismal reports of casualties. Although her life was short, her legacy speaks for all the Jews who suffered during WWII, and her memory will never fade from our minds.
Quick Content Review:
~Oh, how is one to critique a classic???~
Profanity- None
Violence- None
Sexual- None (Anne dreams of Peter but not in a dirty way)

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