Book Review · Books

The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank [BOOK REVIEW]

the diary of a young girl anne frank diary german hitler nazi penguin book review books blog

★★★

We have all heard about or read this book. I remember reading it in high-school as a project. And since I never had written a proper book review, I decided to read it again.

I went to the library, and they only had the short Penguin version, with the most important diary entries of Anne Frank. It is only 65 pages. So, I decided to also grab another book – The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank by Willy Lindwer, so I can write a full overview.

This is a diary of a young girl, and she was writing these stories during two years of hiding. Anne Frank and her family are jews and they live in The Netherlands. After the Germans invade, many people are captured and go to designated camps. A few manage to escape and go into hiding. Anne’s family hides in her father’s office.

If you are reading this diary, without knowing anything about history – this could be a happy story. These diary entries are filled with love and hope, dreams of a young girl, beliefs, opinions, descriptions of her first crush and planning a future.

But this is not a happy story. This girl doesn’t get the chance to grow up. This girl doesn’t get the chance to experience freedom, and live to get to know her grandchildren. This is a sad story of not just Anne Frank, but all these people that have gone through that painful journey.

While this book deserves to be read by every person, and this history needs to keep being told many years after us, I feel the need to make a proper book review.

This is not a well-written book, with a great plot and amazing description. So based on that, this doesn’t stand up to the standards. But this book has a meaning that makes up for all the amateur writing. After all, this was a teenager writing it, without even knowing this will someday be shared with the world.

To all of you that haven’t read it yet – I highly recommend it. If you don’t want to go with the long version, read the short Penguin one, like I did.

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Postcards

Fear of moving out

Annette has a fear of moving out. We all do when we’re young. It means new life, new friends, new environment. It is one of scariest things for one kid.

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Annette has a fear of moving out.

Annette is a girl from Japan. She sent me this card by  Postcrossing, with the ID of JP-799542 and she told me she’s from Kagashima, Southern Kyusha. Right now, she might, or might not have moved with her family. In the card she was really scared.

Everything is so unsure and my life currently is on hold… 🙁

Annette, let me tell you something. Moving to a new place is not the end of the world. I don’t know whether you moved or not, but moving doesn’t always means a bad thing. It’s not always about losing everything, house, neighbourhood, friends… Sometimes, you have to think on the better side. It means gaining new ones , and that means a new start in your life. It means new friendships, new smiles, and new adventure, that will bring new memories. Don’t say no to life. Don’t say no to destiny. Say yes to the opportunity for something new. Always find the positive side in everything you do.

Postcards

Why “Die Mosel von Trier bis Koblenz” made me sad

There have been many posts in which I’ve said how much I adore postcrossing. I discovered the site so randomly, well, I didn’t even search for it. It just came to me by itself. If somebody asks, I still don’t know how I found out about postcrossing, but I know how much I love it and how much fun it brought me during these months. 

Today postcrossing made me sad. I received this beautiful postcard. One of the few long ones that I have, and also from Germany, a country that I love. 

Apparently, DE-5105480 is Jo’s last card, because he decided to close his postcrossing account in June 2016. This made me think…

How many times I’ve been sad and mail came. How many times I’ve checked my e-mail to find out people received my card and  it helped them. It’s such a nice feeling that the quotes I put inside the card helped them make the right decision and even months after, they keep messaging me to thank me over and over again. 

That’s why Jo, I love the card, but I am so sad it is your last one from postcrossing.I don’t know the reason, but I am really sorry people would no more have the opportunity to get such beautiful cards from Germany like I did today…

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