By Mitch Albom
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 1/2 (Goodreads:4.61)
GENRE: Historical Fiction
PART OF A SERIES? No
WORTH READING? Yes
SUMMARY:
Nico is an 11-year-old who has never told a lie. When the Nazis invade his home in Greece, Nico is given a chance to save his family. He must stand at the station and convince his fellow Jews to board trains heading ‘north.’
Only when Nico sees his family being herded into a boxcar does Nico realise he’s been deceived… and that he has unwittingly been deceiving others and sending them to Auschwitz.
After that, Nico becomes a pathological liar.
Narrated by the voice of Truth, this is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits and the power of love to overcome.
Opening lines: “‘It’s a lie’. The large man’s voice was deep and hoarse.”
Mitch Albom has a unique way of introducing all four main protaganists in The Little Liar. Nico, Sebastian, Udo and Fannie are all fascinating in their own way and I found myself obsessed with finding out what was happening to/with them.
Nico was my favourite character for the first half of the book, but Fannie for the second half (I’d be interested to know if this is the case for anyone else, also). He is resourceful, loveable, caring, and kind.
An atrocity occurs very early in The Little Liar, but Mitch Albom doesn’t feel the need to go into great detail about it. We can simply tell how traumatic it is by the relative’s intense reaction. And that is skilful writing right there. Albom simply says that the ‘relative howled’ and the ‘prisoners trembled’… and leaves it up to us to imagine the horrific scene.
To give you an insight into Albom’s lyrical writing. “He stacks his plate high with lies sizzled in hate, then feeds them to his armies. The armies grow. They follow him over the border…”
There are so many themes covered in The Little Liar. These include friendship, resilience, love and survival of the spirit. It is a story that is at times disturbing and devastating, and at others uplifting and enlightening.
The Little Liar is one of the best historical fictions I’ve ever read. It is definitely in my Top Ten favourite books about the Holocaust. This is a book that shows us atrocities, but more importantly, the remarkable endurance of the human spirit.
Mitch Albom has written an impactful novel that tugs at the heartstrings. Now all I want to do is greedily suck up any other book by this skilful storyteller and have already reserved several at my local library.
Click here if you would like to purchase The Little Liar
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