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I appreciated what this story was meant to do and how it was meant to convey the horrors of Auschwitz to a younger reading audience. Unless you have a general understanding already of what happened at the concentration camps, though, the holding back and changing of words (from Bruno's ability to understand and comprehend what's going on) could honestly be a bit confusing.

The ending definitely took me by surprise and I was not expecting it at all. Seeing the behavior of the soldiers to the 9 year old protagonist was a surprise and helped add a little bit of tension. I mean, if they treat the children of the man in charge of the concentration camp in this manner, just imagine how horrible it is on the other side of the fence.

However, my biggest gripes concern the young main character. I absolutely cannot suspend reason and believe that a male child of a high-ranking Nazi soldier would not have been raised in a way to understand who was on the other side of the fence and why. It also felt like Boyne wanted Bruno to be on the spectrum, but couldn't bring himself to actually put it into writing. But really, my biggest issue is just that you feel bad for the family in the house because you're learning everything that's going on. Even after the ending, you find out how much the family is devastated by what happened, and it came across like you were expected to feel sympathy for the family that was in charge of the concentration camp instead of those trapped inside. it just felt really icky and put a foul taste towards the book from the get-go.

It feels like it was written to calmly introduce the insanity of what occurred at the camps to a group of people that might not have a good grasp of what went on, but it places a completely fake ending that never happened in real life in any record at all and detracts from the people that were nearly wiped out, and just makes you want to feel bad for Bruno's family instead of feeling horrible for what the people in the camp were experiencing. It's not one that I would ever recommend to anyone to read. It's off the mark for those that don't know much about the history of WWII, and way too lackluster for those that are well-versed in the events that happened.

I found this to be a quick read, despite the length of this book. I listened to the audiobook, and it was a great option to hear the chants and words spoken instead of my mind butchering them. Fantasy is a genre that I haven't really delved into very much in the past but have been wanting to give it another go. This one honestly intimidated me at first, and I was hesitant to pick it up even with so many recommendations coming from readers with similar tastes. I'm sad I pushed it off as long as I did, but I'm really excited to continue on and see where the story goes, especially with so much being established in this one.

The attention to detail in this world-building was great and there wasn't a lot repeated just to fill in space, so each area felt like a new experience with its own difficulties. The characters are also well-built to the point that while they seem fully confident in their goals and desires for the future, they struggle with those decisions when faced with challenging circumstances. It's not just a quick flip-flop and there is constant questioning of what they should be doing in the background.

There were a few moments where I just scratched my head in confusion, but the story and pacing and world-building more than made up for it. This one came across my radar while trying to expand the diversity of my reading, and I cannot begin to describe how much I felt for the characters and how much it reflected into the real world. I absolutely recommend that you pick this one up if it's been on your TBR.

But I digress. This book was alright. I'm not sure if it was just the translator's doing or if it's how it was originally written, but with what should be some heavy moments, it just felt devoid of emotions. This comes across as a cozy book but I've read other cozy books that still have emotional topics that allow you to feel those emotions while still feeling it's a cozy read.

I was sucked into it at first because the premise of it was so interesting and refreshing. You can travel forward or backward in time for as long as the freshly poured coffee is warm, cannot have any influence on what has already happened, and the chair that you must use is only available for a short period of time once a day because it's occupied by a ghost lady until she needs to use the bathroom. Which, I really want to know more about the ghost lady honestly.

I did appreciate the overall flow of the books and the structure of the chapters because it made it very easy to follow along and not get lost, even with new characters being introduced and seeing how the previous ones are utilized. I don't think I'll be continuing with the series, though.