Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
truly moving, 17 Oct 2005
This is an incredible book and I'm loath to even write this review as I know it will echo almost all the other reviews written about it.I first chose this book in order to gain some more understanding of the historical situation, but in reality this book is not so much of a historical reference. Anne Frank was a remarkable girl, intelligent beyond her 12 to 15 years (the age period through which she wrote it) she portrays the reality of her situation with an incite that is truly engaging. It's by no means simply a childs version of the war. Anne had a strong will, charisma and optomism which shined through her writing. She was modest, caring, witty and above all truthful to her diary and herself. It's a humbling and deeply moving experience to be privy to her thoughts during those desperate times. There was innocence in her writing, and her character analysis was frought with her own teenage angst. She drew simplistic conclusions to situations that occured, simplistic but still exceptional for her years. One should read this book to feel good about how different times are now. I'll never forget it.
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58 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
Anne Frank, 14 Oct 2004
The diary of Anne Frank is an inspiring self-portrait of a teenage girl struggling to live a normal life during the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam.
Anne Frank kept a diary from 12 June 1942 to 1 August 1944 when Holland was under the Nazi regime.
In July 1942 Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse. Anne was thirteen when the family went into the secret Annexe and, over the next two years she vividly describes in her diary the frustrations of living in such confined quarters, the constant threat of discovery, the hunger and fear. Her diary rapidly ends in August 1944, she and her family were finally discovered by the Nazis.
This diary has a combination of humour, teenage high spirits and heart wrenching despair at the terror that controlled her days and nights in the warehouse. The diary also reveals Anne's innermost thoughts and feelings about her fears of being discovered in her hiding place, the people she is living with, and the experiences of growing up. Therefore, Anne is not afraid to express what she thinks about the individuals and as a result shows her honest emotions.
"I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support." This truly shows she is a lonely teenager looking for a friend and she does treat her diary as one, sharing all her secrets and even giving it a name, "Kitty".
In this young girl's accounts, you'll meet a real girl, still a child and forced to mature before her time in many ways, because of the war. Anne is no perfect person; she has sibling rivalry with her sister Margot, battles with her mother and intense hatred of the other Jews forced to share the Annexe with her family.
She attempts to preserve her own sense while having very little privacy, but the constant fear that at any moment the Gestapo would discover the rooms hidden behind the bookcase and take her entire family away to die in a distant concentration camp haunt her continually.
Despite the worry and tough living conditions, however, Anne does not allow you to pity her. Her personality and of the seven other people she shares a cramped attic come alive through the pages.
The writing style of the diary is very personal and warm. One of the aspects of this book is the changes Anne takes on so many different levels. The most noticeable one at first is her writing style and maturity of her thoughts. When she starts her diary, you can see her bubbly personality; it draws you into the story, and attracts you to Anne.
Then, when Anne and her family go into hiding, there is a sudden, change in her writing. Before this turning point her diary was just another friend, to be talked to or ignored like all of her other friends. Now, however, it was the only place she could turn to with her thoughts and feelings; and when she did try to share them once in a while with one of the others in hiding, she was laughed at or scolded. So she unavoidably has to deepen herself as she keeps everything inside or in her diary.
Anne writes about her family and the others in the secret annexe so descriptively that we feel as though we know them. She describes daily life in hiding, and the fear that governs all of their lives, so well that we feel as though we are there, and when Anne's diary suddenly ends we are shocked, knowing that, for Anne and her family, hiding was only the beginning of the horror.
Anne accomplished her dream and desire to go on "living even after death." She was so confident that no one would be interested in reading her diary and yet today, her diary has sold millions. Her diary is one of the most important documents ever discovered. We wonder with deep sadness what Anne might have accomplished if she had lived, but perhaps with her diary she accomplished more than she thought. She wondered if anyone would be "interested in the unbecoming of a thirteen year old schoolgirl".
Anne is innocently optimistic throughout most of the book, but in the end she lost it. Her painful cry, "Let the end come, even if it is hard!" came true, and sixty years later this disturbing quote speaks, telling readers exactly how difficult conditions of the secret annexe were and how close to suicide Anne was.
Anne Frank was a person, no different from you and I and this amazing diary of the life she lead in hiding ought to be read.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A fantastic read, 6 Nov 2006
This is an amazing book. By the end, you real feel like you know Anne. She's an incredible girl, and tells of her amazing journey through teenage life in hiding. This book is filled with powerful emotions, there are sad bits, frightening bits and happy bits. I just couldn't put it down. As you read about Anne's life, you began to feel you know her, and when you find out what happens to her at the end, it real feels like loosing a member of your family. I was in tears. She's such a brave girl, and didn't deserve such an awful life. Read it, it really is an amazing story.
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