I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fourteen year old Dita is a prisoner in Auschwitz along with her mother, father, and thousands of other Jewish people. Dita and her family are learning to live with the terror that is living at Auschwitz, and one small glimmer of hope for Dita is Block 31 and the Family Camp. It is here that Dita finds her place among the terror as she takes on the role of Librarian caring for the books that have been snuck in to the camp. Disguised as an activity center for the children on Block 31, the adults are really using it as a secret school, hoping to keep some kind of normalcy for everyone.

Dita and her family were not always at Auschwitz though, when the Nazis first came to her town, her and her family were moved to a ghetto. She could never imagine the horrors she would witness though when she is moved to Auschwitz. On a daily basis she observes horrors that are hard to imagine, most especially those at the hands of the Mengele, one of the camp’s leaders who is known for his notorious human testing. Worst of all, he appears to have his eye on Dita. What will be Dita’s fate be?

I found this book to be a decent account of the horrors that millions faced during World War II. I did not realize when I started the book that it was actually the story of a real person, in the end that really made the story hit home. I found that with the story going back and forth in time, and switching to various people’s points of views, it was easy to get lost. In the end, this made the story drag in some parts and it really took me a long time to get through this one. One thing for sure though, Thwaites does a great job of capturing the horrors that people went through, which even though it is hard to read and imagine that this all happened in real life, it gives the reader a first account look of what happened which hopefully be a reminder to us all and keep us from allowing something like this from ever happening again.