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Baby Panda Occupations

Games and Education

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Do you want to become a hairdresser, and create cool hairstyles? Do you want to become a driver, and...

DigimonLinks

Games and Entertainment

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In Digimon Links connect both the real and digital worlds! All your Digimon favorites come to life...

Car Mode - Complete Car Dashboard System & Sat Nav

Auto & Vehicles, Navigation and Utilities

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**LIMITED TIME REDUCED PRICE** Turn your iPhone or iPad into a luxury car dashboard system with...

Connected Couples Eight Roadmaps for Mastering Love and Connection in Healthy Relationships

Andy T. Fenske

10.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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A practical handbook for how to successfully navigate through “Love Land”. Are you still...

Self-help Healthy Relationships Family Health

Hara05 (11 KP) rated The Tattooist of Auschwitz in Books

Jun 30, 2019

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

Heather Morris | 2018 | Biography, History & Politics, Religion

8.7

(74 Ratings)

Book Rating

The premise raised awareness of The Holocaust (0 more)

The Writing (0 more)

Does not live up to the hype!

Since my interest in the Holocaust started at the tender age of 7, I have devoured any book on the Holocaust that I can get my hands on. Before release, The Tattoo Of Auschwitz was all over my newsfeed and I pre-ordered, excited for another book on the subject.

Boy, what I disappointed.

The premise of this book offered so much potential but from the first page, I found myself cringing. I haven't read a book so poorly written since the Fifty Shades fiasco and although I'm loathe to compare the two (one a poorly informed erotica and this one, a book on such a important and harrowing topic) I find that I cannot help it.

As I've said, the premise offered so much potential. A true story of the Holocaust from a little explored prospective which shines a light on the suffering of all those forced through the gates of Auschwitz and Birkenau, this book could have been something truly special, resonating with so many readers on so many levels. Instead, the reader must grapple through pages of unrealistic dialogue, clunky exchanges and at times, very simplistic prose which simply makes the reader bored. We must never be bored when it comes to The Holocaust - of anything, the horrific event should have us all squirming, almost in a sea of distress as we turn each page for how else can we learn from this? How can we take on board the lessons that must be learned when we cannot connect with the characters?

The fact that this is a true story just adds to the disappointment. So many survivors spent their lives too afraid or too completely isolated to ever want to share their experiences with the world and yet, here we have a brave survivor , willing to do just that and their story is completely ruined by awful story telling. Whether all of the survivors story is true or not is not the issue here, it's how the story has been presented and bundled up beneath an eye catching cover.

So bad is the writing, so terribly constructed is the prose, that I found myself forcing myself to finish. By the time I did read the final sentence, I was relieved. Not my usual relief of 'Thank God, they survived!' but instead, relieved that I had managed to get through it. By the time the end came, I still did not feel any connection to the main characters other than the sympathy that they were forced to live through that ordeal. Of course, I was routing for them but not because of anything included in the book rather because they were real human beings who found themselves in such a place.

What is so disappointing is the fact that, with all the media attention and advertising this book received, it could have been at the forefront of the movement to raise awareness of The Holocaust. With so many survivors now gone, most without having shared their own stories, this book could have really been something special. It could have educated masses of people and made us take a long, hard look at ourselves and the world around us.

Instead, it is only memorable it's disjointed prose and simplicity, when it's premise is anything but simple.