"A frightening chronicle of one of the worst times in human history told from the eyes of a girl who is forced to grow up in a terrible situation and who must learn independence and self reliance in the most unusual circumstances." 4 Stars
Pros: Every girl who has gone through puberty can relate to the inner turmoil of Anne's thoughts and feelings/We see Anne's struggle to both be seen as an adult and her wish still have the carefree life of a child/
Cons: Everything is, of course, one sided, as it is all told from Anne's point of view. We only know her thoughts on the situation and no one else's/Some of the characters are a bit jumbled and confusing. People that Anne has probably known her whole life but to the reader, they are strangers, again though, it's a Diary, I'm sure she had no intention of writing to an audience.
Full Review:
Otto Frank and his family, his wife and two daughters went into hiding to try and escape the persecution of the Jewish during Hitlers regime. They hide in plain sight, using a secret annex, basically two uninhabited floors of Otto's warehouse as their hiding place. There, along with the Van Daan's, a Husband, Wife and Son, as well as a Dentist named Dussel, they live for two years.
We are shown these years through entries that Anne writes in a Diary that was given to her for her Birthday shortly before the family went into hiding. One day blends into the next, often peppered with quarrels and "rows" with the other members of the Annex. At first, it's easy to view Anne as childish, selfish, playing the "woe is me" card but the reader also has to take into account the situation she has found herself in and that she is also only thirteen years old.
Having to spend every day staying quiet and hidden, only allowed to talk freely at night when the risk of exposure is not so great because no one is in the Warehouse, it's a truly gut wrenching prospect. And through the Diary entries, as time passes, we see Anne start to mature and grow as a person.
She struggles with her relationship with her family, her Mother in particular. She feels distant and disconnected from her. But as time passes, she tries to analyze the situation with a more mature eye, as well as her relationship with the Van Daan family. They are no longer seen as unkind, judgmental, stingy people who are constantly berating and judging her. They are seen as simply human, with all their gifts and flaws. Anne does her best to empathize and understand them, as much as a thirteen year old girl can.
It is when they have been in hiding for about a year and a half that Anne really starts to mature as a person. She also starts to notice the son of her housemate's, Peter. They bond over the fact that they both get so irritated at being judged all the time that they just can't hold it in and feel that they'll explode if they don't let it out. Anne has her Diary to vent to and apparently Peter used to turn to violence but while living in the secret annex, he has instead grown quiet and introverted. Anne feels a kinship with him that she hasn't felt since school days with her girlfriends, when life wasn't so difficult. And his mere presence helps soothe some of the restless longing she's begun to feel day in and day out.
What starts as a general friendship soon blossoms into love, at least on Anne's part. There is the usual confusion, the days of elation just spending time in Peter's company, then there are the days of doubt and fear that he doesn't feel the same way. It's all very dramatic but she was living a dramatic life so it's completely understandable.
What's also amazing are her thoughts on the future. She wonders if she will ever "be" anything. She wants to be more than just a "mother." She wants to leave her mark on the world. She wonders what it would be like if people were to remember her for her writing. And it's sad that she never got to see how profoundly her Diary impacted the world.
They learn of happenings in the outside world from those who have helped hide them and also by listening to their forbidden radio. It in on D-Day, June 6, that they really start to have hope that the invasion will happen and they will be free. They will be able to return to their normal lives. Anne knows she musn't hope too much but she finds herself excited at the prospect of returning to school and being able to live free once more; to wander in the beauties of nature that she has only had glimpses of during the night through shaded windows. Her dreams of freedom are cut short though as the Gestapo are informed of their hiding place and raid the secret Annex. She, along with the rest of her housemates are sent to Auschwitz and then Anne and her sister are sent to Bergen-Belsen, where, only two months short of the camp being liberated, she dies.
The ending is truly heart breaking, to know how close she was to freedom only to die. It left me feeling cold, empty and sad. This was a stark, unflinching view of a terrible time in human history where people were persecuted for their beliefs and practically exterminated just because a group of men thought the Jewish were "inferior." It was a quick read but not an easy one because the reader already knows what is going to happen. And as you get closer to the end, your stomach fills with dread, as Anne's entries become more optimistic, the reader is weighed down with the knowledge of what will happen.
I would recommend this book to anyone, absolutely anyone. It is a look into a time that the world was in chaos and it is told from the eyes of a young girl who is far more mature and "worldly" than most girls her age. It shows the mundane tasks of her life in hiding, how they spend their hours reading, writing, completing school lessons, preparing ever dwindling stores of food and hoping that their isolation will one day end and they will once more be able to venture outside without fear of persecution.
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