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I Don't want a detailed critique, all I want is for you to comment on sentence structure and the flow of the piece.
Book review: Boy in the striped pyjamas
The boy in the striped pyjamas is a historic-fiction written by the Irish author John Boyne. It was publishes in the United Kingdom in 05/01/2006 by David Flicking Books. As said in the Blurb this book is not one for a nine year old. It is set during WWII and is the story of the tragic fate of a young boy, on a search for his new friends’ father.
The story is portrayed from the point of view of the Protagonist, a nine year old boy, called Bruno who longs to be an explorer and on one of his expeditions; he finds a friendship in the most unlikely of places, with one of the most unlikely of people.
The other main characters are: Gretel, his Hopeless case of a sister; Elsa, his mother; Ralf, the commandant and Bruno’s father; Kurt Kotler, one of Ralf’s soldiers; and Shmuel, the boy Bruno has meets.
The book shows the events of Bruno’s move from a five story house in Berlin to a three story house in Poland called Out-With. After seeing the ‘farm’ and a long fence that stretched as far as the eye could see, out of his bedroom window, Bruno ~ who couldn’t do much exploring in the new house ~ decided to follow the fence and see what he could find.
On that first day exploring, he finds a speck that then became a dot that became a blob that became a figure that became a boy, sitting on the floor on the other side of the fence. He, and all the other people, on the boys’ side of the fence, and Bruno’s potato peeler, were all wearing striped pyjamas.
The tight friendship that the two boys form is powerfully written and portrays what a friendship made at that looks like with all but perfection.
I think the author has got the perspective from the main character almost perfect and the language used is simple, like what a nine year old would use, but is written in a powerful, moving way.
I really enjoyed the ending, even though you can almost see it coming, it is still a surprise when it happens, it is well written very moving, showing the emotion of the mother and father in an extremely believable, life-like way.
His character has been described by readers as naïve, but how was a nine year old boy meant to know about what was happening in ~ what he thought were ~ farms, when most of Germany had know idea.
In conclusion, I think it is a really good, well written, emotive book, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a quick read, I read the book in about four hours, but most people can read it quicker than that. I think Mr Boyne had done a good job here and in my opinion has portrayed all the characters in very precise detail and emotion.
The sentence structure and the flow of the piece made the book easy to follow. When I realised this book was written from the point of view of a nine year old I thought it would be patronising and almost be written for someone of that age, but I was totally blow away when I read the book.
As I said before, this is not a book for nine year olds, but is worth buying and a really good, but simple read.
Also, please can you tell me if after reading this you would want to go out and buy the book.
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