Ok guys, so I have read this entire book and I have some mixed emotions, especially about the last scene of this book. So far the book has been about a kid growing up during the Hitler regime and taking part in his army. When the narrator starts to train for the war arising, that's when the book goes towards the end. In this last section, Heinz who is the narrators friend, is promoted to one of the generals so he has to move away to the front of the war. This is huge for the narrator because Heinz is his biggest helper in dangerous situations so now you can see a coming of age within the narrator because now he has to grow up and care for himself. Due to Heinz departure, the narrators squad has to find a new leader. Gunther who is one of Heinz's and the narrator's friend is promoted to the new general spot because of his rifle skills. For the narrator this is fine but when he visits his parents he finds out they are very disappointed. The reason why is because he is not promoted even though he has been with this Hitler youth group for the longest. In Germany, for your child to be the head of any platoon was a great honor so the narrator's parents are very infuriated when they learn their son is still a minor soldier. The very end is when they are being attacked in their bunker and chaos and fire surrounds them and the narrator cries out for Heinz to help him.
This ending is where my emotions start to mix up a little bit. I thought the whole time that this book was going to end with the narrator escaping and getting away from Germany but I was very wrong about that one. This ending is definitely a cliffhanger which is what I didn't want because I just wanted to end the book right here. The author made me feel like I was actually in the bunker with the characters and was going through the warfare and the chaos. The author does this with first person feeling and the description about every character around the narrator and what they feel. This makes the book more interesting to read and follow because of all of the emotions swirled with the characters that I can connect with. For example, the conditions got so bad for the kid soldiers they would either run away or just kill themselves. The reason why I can relate is because if I were in those conditions, then I would try to run away as well! What the reader has to understand is that they are just kids, not men so they are not used to being away from parents and they are definitely not used to being in harsh weather for hours at a time. This last section was for sure the most interesting because thats when the war takes action in Germany and minorities in Germany were treated by slaves.
So in the end, I thought this was a very informative book but lacked on character development. It was more factual about the holocaust then actually telling the story with characters. It felt like a text book rather then a novel, know what I mean? I wish he could of talked more about his inner feelings like what he felt about this whole Hitler take over and if he ever had thoughts of running away. If he did that then this book would be 10 X better. But anyway I thought this book was good especially to blog about. So this is Dylan D getting off with my final blog so I do recommend this book and hopefully you will have a more unique view then I had!
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