Anne Frank's World Re-Visited

Annexed by Sharon Dogar

In Amsterdam in the middle of World War II, two Jewish families--the Franks and the Van Pels--hide away in an annex above an office, praying for survival and the downfall of the Nazis. In Annexed, Dogar has created her vision of what it was like in the annex with Anne Frank from Peter van Pels' point of view. To take a time and character so closely scrutinized by the world and so well documented--by the world renowned diary of Anne Frank--is a challenge, to say the least, but Dogar has done a good job at not over-sensationalizing the material. She also manages to stay true to what she believes might have gone through the mind of a teenage boy in a time of personal and world-wide crisis. Following Peter from the morning before seclusion to his death (potentially, according to records, in a concentration camp sick bay), readers see the hope and the despair, two sides of many moments he experienced as his memories are shared in the book.

Full of hate and fear, love, shame, sexual longing, wavering faith, and all the “why” questions one could ponder, Peter examines life both inside and outside the walls of the annex and tries to make sense of it all, all the while experiencing the morphing relationships inside the hideout as tensions flow between the families and genders. Why, Peter asks, must I hide instead of fight? Why do we have to be the chosen people? Why does being Jewish have to define everything about me? Will I ever experience life beyond this point?

Dogar’s writing is powerful and conveys life in the annex as it probably was: stifling, claustrophobic, lacking in privacy, and frustrating while at times also joyful, grateful, and full of the knowledge that beauty truly is in the small, unnoticed things. As Dogar examines the emotions Peter, the lone adolescent male, might have felt as he matured, readers also get a sense of the other characters through Peter’s descriptions of them. And unlike other narratives, Dogar follows Peter and imagines--with the aid of research--what he must have gone through after capture, both in Auschwitz and on the death march that followed in his final days.

I highly recommend this, whether you're a fan of literary fiction, historical fiction, coming-of-age stories, or just about any other type. It's not a light story, as the premise indicates, but it's worth the journey. This as Dogar's first historical fiction, and she worked hard to get the research right (though she admits in the back to altering minor timeline events for continuity's sake). The whole product is well done, emotional, and absolutely worth the read.

-Jenny

Age 13+ (some mature content)
Copyright October 2010
ISBN: 9780547501956
Available as an eBook
Image from www.goodreads.com

Real-life Drama with a Kick

The Uninvited by Tim Wynne-Jones

I picked this book while randomly scrounging the teen shelves at the local library, and I'm really glad I did.

In this emotional, whirlwind drama, Mimi is a spunky film student at NYU who has an affair with a married professor. When she breaks it off, he takes a turn for obsession and Mimi runs far, far away to her father's "house on the snye," a small, unoccupied cottage in Canada. Her plan: work on a new screen play, ignore all calls from her ex, and get some quality alone time. When she arrives, however, she discovers that she is not alone--already living there is Jay, a music graduate student who just happens to be a half brother Mimi never knew she had, another product of her run-around artist father. Despite the emotional tangle, Mimi decides to stay, and she and Jay build a close bond.

All is not well, though, as Jay has been dealing with harassment at the Snye--break-ins, a snake skin on his pillow, a dead bird placed at his doorstep, new inclusions in his music recordings. Enter player three in this dramatic triangle: Cramer, a local, poor, early-twenties guy working overtime to take care of his manic-depressive mother, all the while trying to connect silently with the guy he knows (privately) to be his half-brother, Jay.

Wynne-Jones weaves together the lives of three young people who were born into different worlds sharing the same blood. Wynne-Jones entangles love, hate, fear, lust, affection, and romantic confusion as Mimi, Jay, and Cramer meet each other first as strangers and friends and then as family. Each chapter alternates in perspective, and while this could be confusing, it instead adds to the reader's understanding of each person in turn.

The Uninvited is all set against the beautiful and whimsical background of "the Snye" where Mimi's father started the journey for all of them, finally culminating in tragedy and then rebirth. Sometimes dark, sometimes flirtatious, the characters are thrown into a strange family drama, but this is no soap opera. It's a suspenseful and emotional story with some creepy overtones thrown into the mix. A solid emotional drama that embraces forgiveness, understanding, personal flaws, and overcoming isolation.

-Jenny

Age 14+ (mature content: sexual allusions/curse words/violence)
Copyright May 2009
ISBN: 9780763639842
Available as an eBook
Image from www.tower.com