All the Broken Places by John Boyne is a powerful book. It moves back and forth in time between Nazi Germany and 2022 London. Gretel Fernsby is ninety-one years old. Opinionated, but lives a quiet life until emotions are stirred up by her downstairs neighbors.
Her memories are churned up as she thinks about her escape from Germany at age 12, knowing her father was killed for being a Reich commandant of an extermination camp. She managed to start a new life and create a new identity after time in Poland, Australia, and now London - oh so many years later.
But she hears and witnesses abuse by the husband living below her to his wife and young son.
cover blurb - Back then (in Germany), she denied her own complicity; now, she must interrogate her guilt, grief, and remorse and risk revealing the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting.
Whoa! As each chapter builds and connects, back and forth in time, the tension rises. Gretel is a complicated woman, wise and strong. What will she do as she confronts the bully husband? What secrets could spill out? Lots of twists and turns and then a dramatic wow. Well done!
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