Recommended by the Reviewers Club
The sequel to The Boy in the Stripes Pyjamas.
You really need to read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas first. Gretel, the main character, is a young girl in the first novel, and is affected her whole life by one life changing event. All the Broken Places examines how she copes with guilt, grief, and feelings of complicity by this one event.
The setting moves from Paris 1946 to Sydney, Australia in the early 1950’s, to London in 1953 and involves a bigger cast of characters than in The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas, some of whom are reintroduced in this sequel. The darting back and forth in time and geographical place can be confusing, but well worth the reader’s concentration as the novel is well written, has a compelling storyline, and an unexpected ending
4.5/5 Stars