Title: Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl

Author: Anne Frank

Number of Pages: 352

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most inspirational, emotion-tangling, and intriguing books I have ever read. I say this with confidence. The book is about a young girl in hiding from the Nazis in World War II. She hides with seven others in unimaginable places with living conditions that will make you cringe. They hide at the secret annex at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam. They stories told by Frank are so detailed and intense that there were times where I had to stop reading and take a deep breath. I got lost in this book in all aspects. The group, including Frank, were deported to a concentration camp for Jews after about 2 years of hiding in Amsterdam. At this point, the book takes a hard turn and you really start to get sick to your stomach from the awful (and truthful) things Anne Frank and her family went through. When the group is at the concentration camp, they suffer from hunger, disease, separation from each other, and death. Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, is the only character of the group that survives by the end of the novel.

This book is absolutely amazing. I think that Anne Frank’s writing style and skills are what makes the read so compelling and heart-wrenching. If someone else with limited writing skills wrote the book, I think I would take away more of the awfulness of the holocaust in itself, rather than what the personal experiences of the poor souls who were in it were like. I have never seen the movie to this novel and I’m not sure if I want to. I don’t know how good the reviews are on it, but I would imagine that only the best filmmakers and screenwriters in the world can portray the raw emotion and detail that Anne Frank demonstrates in her writing. I love this book and I will read it again. It’s the perfect example of a “bittersweet” read, because the events are so incredibly horrible, but the way they are described are so tasteful, detailed, and will make you keep flipping pages until your eyes burn.

I would recommend this to someone who loves to read, and also someone who can handle the weight of such an intense subject. As far as my friends go, I would recommend it to them because of the sole reason that they’re great readers and can take a lot of emotional stress. As far as the general public, I would recommend the book to them, but also warn them for tears smearing the ink of the book, not to mention feeling a sense of depression when you’re done reading it for the day.

By: Ryan Schoenmaker