I just finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz. (Spoilers.)

[CrystalTipped]

What a strange novel...

There's no drama or tension. In an account from a survivor of three years in a concentration camp... It could almost have been a soap opera. Lale and the Friendly Nazis Who Help Him Find Love."If you are savvy enough, Auschwitz is a piece of cake!"

He gets caught by the Nazi's with a mattress of jewels and money, comes back from getting a severe beating after his girlfriends' friend gets her SS boyfriend/rapist to free him, then goes straight back to what he was doing. And pays off the guard for the female block so he can have private dates with his girlfriend in her bunk.

He gets caught by the Russians after escaping, and gains their trust so quickly that he simply walks away when he's had enough of being a pimp and wants to find his girlfriend. (By the way, the girls he procured for their parties every night had a great time. The Russians were known for being considerate lovers around that time, ignore anything else you might have read.)

It's just so light hearted and lovely... And I'm no historian but some of the events described seem very unlikely to have happened. But apparently it's going to be a film.

I'd put this one next to The Help in the genre "Yay, it wasn't so bad after all! (We didn't think it could have been...)"

There has been a lot of discussion about how the events can't have happened at Auschwitz despite it supposedly being based on a true story. I enjoyed it though.

i couldnt get past the first page. disliked the style/narrating too much.

book has done well though!

Yes I disliked it for the same reasons. I thought it was terrible and frothy and vapid.

The following one "Cilka's Jouney" or something was such terrible drivel that i could not finish it and i have pretty good tolerance for drivel. So i am relieved to find i am not the only one. That book is all: but she was beautiful so everyone went easier on her. Bollox they did! This was in a Russian Gulag ffs!

Glad I found this thread -will give it a miss

I've just finished it too, it really did seem oddly written... that while all the horror was going on this love story developed and all the guards were on Lale's side. He did appear incredibly lucky.

I'm about a third of the way through the audiobook and basically given up on it. Boring.

I enjoyed the book to an extent, but I found the ending to be quite rushed which was a shame. He was a very lucky man if events happened how they are depicted in the book.