This is such a moving and ultimately uplifting book showcasing the human mind's capacity to stretch and rebound in the face of abject suffering. Edith Eger, a Hungarian Jew and now a renowned psychologist in her nineties uses her experiences in one of the blackest places in Human History to provide treatments for patients seeking release from their own traumas.

Edith's Story is at once hauntingly familiar and yet surprising. She has an astounding spirit and has an amazing capacity for forgiveness. She is heroic and human and I am blessed to have now taken a small peek into her experiences and this book is wonderful reading both as a memoir, but also as a hopeful and positive message that all can be well if you can open up the wound, allow the poison out and allow it to fully excise and then let it go. Acceptance and forgiveness go hand in hand if true healing is ever to be truly attained and maintained.

Heartily Recommended

What an amazing book. A privilege to be able to share in the life and journey of a very brave woman learning to cope and then live again after a horrific and traumatic early life. It makes those of us living now in a peaceful country so grateful and also inspired to help those going through loss and pain today.

It is impossible for me to "review" this book. I am not capable of saying how much the writing of 90 year old psychologist Edith Eger affected me. What an incredibly beautiful and yet difficult book. The author lived through the Holocaust and then became an amazing adult who helps people through trauma. At all times, she is positive, loving and supportive of others. An amazing story and one to read whenever you feel your life is hard - compared to this, no it isn't. She is a brilliant inspiration.

I was given a free copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Random House, and the author Edith Eger.
This was an incredibly beautiful and enriching book to read, a sort of companion piece to Frankl’s 'Man’s Search for Meaning', and one which has many parallels.
Like many other books which cover this incredibly dark chapter in human history, The Choice reveals both man’s darkest and most evil side, and the incredible strength and resilience of the human spirit. I think the following excerpt from the book’s introduction summarises the book perfectly: “With all the power of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, but exceptional in its own right, The Choice is life changing. Warm, compassionate, and infinitely wise, it is a profound examination of the human spirit, and our capacity to heal”.
Highly recommended, 5*s.

I don't feel I have the right to comment on this book. The subject matter is too important, too huge for me to think that anything I've got to say about it is of any relevance. Edith Eger is a remarkable woman. Like many other survivors, she has made her life count. She has contributed to society in myriad, priceless ways. I am humbled to be allowed to read any word she writes. Her experiences were beyond hell, unimaginable torment for the pampered and indulged generations that came after. How she turned her trauma into a tool that was in no way for her benefit, but for the good of others, is a lesson for all of us. For Edith's generation the 'selfie' would never have taken off, they just weren't egotistic enough. This book should be on every school curriculum throughout the world. Stop thinking about yourself and do something to benefit others. Find the positive in life and be less self centred and self indulgent. Ms Eger, I remain your faithful servant, and forever in your debt. Thank you. A thousand times thank you.

At 90 years of age, Edith Eger sat down to finally write the heartbreaking yet at times heart-lifting memoir of the most traumatic time of her life - when she was a teenager and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. This book is not about the terrible things that Edith went through but the long journey in which she came to deal with her past, and how she slowly began to learn to live and enjoy life once again.

Edith Eger is one smart lady - there's such a beautiful voice in this book, within the words on the page and it definitely feels like Edith is speaking directly to you. It's not hard to see why she became such a popular psychologist amongst her patients, and she's definitely a very calming person but also someone that has a mischievous edge to her.

I actually like that this book ended up being a little bit different to what I thought it would be. Edith's time in the death camp is actually only a very small part of the book - about the first quarter - and the rest is her slow journey through her PTSD and how long it took her to accept all the parts of herself and eventually confront her past in an intense trip back to Auschwitz.

Edith shows an amazing respect to human life, and all human conditions in her book. Even with what she's gone through, she never puts one person's pain over another and treat every one, and every patient, the same which is honestly remarkable. I just felt so calm and reassured as I read Edith's words about accepting oneself, loving yourself and striving forward despite difficulties. This is the kind of book you could pick up at any point in your life, through different difficulties, big or small, and read something that would resonate and help you.

Beautiful words from a beautiful lady. If we can all learn a little bit from Edith, the world would be a better place.

A very moving book about survival, the holocaust, psychiatry and people. The memories, the cases and the family, all intermixed, a truly remarkable book which has shown me how to enjoy life, and make 5e most of it. You can’t change what happened, but you can make the most of life afterward, Dr Eger is a remarkable woman, if you only read one biography, it needs to be this one. It is truly inspirational.

This book is up there with the best books I've ever read. Edith Eger is an amazing woman and she has a lot to teach us.
This start off with her story of her early life and losing her early life to Auschwitz. But it is even more than that, it's about how you rebuild and forgive after trauma. Her later life is devoted to treating others as a psychologist and she tells some powerful tales of those she has treated.
I will be thinking about this one for a long time

Well written and a very interesting read about a horrific time in history and a persons ability to overcome the horrors both seen and experienced.

Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to tell you how good this book is. It's not just another Holocaust survivors life-story, it's so much more than that ... it's extraordinary!

Dr Eger is now 90 years old and what an amazing woman she is ... this book tells the story of being a teenager and her relationship with her parents and sisters, the truly horrific time she spent being a prisoner of the Nazis, her astonishing strength and bravery before, during and after the war and of her life once freedom had been achieved.

Once again, I can't tell you how good this book is. It's beautifully written and flows exceptionally well. Highly recommended.

My thanks go to the publisher, Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing via NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest review.

Really enjoyed this book even though it is about one of the most horrific events in history. Very well written and explains clearly how the author came to terms with her past.

I have read many books on the holocaust and it's survivors but apart from Anne Frank they have mainly been from the perspective of male survivors.

What I regarded so highly in this book was both Edith Egers writing style and was astounded by her ability even all these years on to not only face the horror head on but use it for the benefit of others.

She admits early on that "I am happiest when I am alone, when I can retreat into my inner world...". Something that is constantly referred to is the choices she has had to make and that have been such an integral part of her life and whether focus should in fact be on those things we lose or to the things we do have in our life.

One quote from her mother has stuck with me even now "No one can take away from you what you've put in your mind".

I still find it awe inspiring the inner strength and determination to kindle light in their futures from such darkness and despair.

Having read Viktor Frankl earlier this year I was unaware of the help his form of psychology and friendship had aided Edith in her search for self.

Ultimately this book shows all who read it that healing from such trauma doesn't take time, it is the time you spend choosing to follow a path of light that can get you through.

A fantastically written story of survival, resilience and mental strength to survive being a young jewish girl in Auschwitz and how she has fought to combat the flashbacks that have existed since this horrific experience. This book details how Edith has turned this experience around to make a life herself and her children and how she has confronted her experience in Auschwitz to help her to help others.

A harrowing story that it is a privilege to read as this is an important part of history and this book will help to educate future generations of the impact Auschwitz had on survivors and their future generations. This book aptly named Choice reminds you that everyone has Choices to make throughout their lives and how each choice can have a knock on effect. A choice to fight to survive.

I cannot believe I have not come across this book sooner. This is, without question, the finest book I have read this year.

Dr. Edith Eger has created a book about one of the greatest human tragedies in history, covering some of the most haunting and bleak experiences a person could imagine going through, and found a way to make it both uplifting and inspirational.

This book is primarily a memoir; beginning with Dr Eger's early life and continuing through her time spent at Auschwitz and to her life varied and interesting life following this. However, in no small part, this book is also a look at some of the case studies of the work Dr Eger has undertaken in her professional role in psychiatry. What makes this truly engrossing is seeing the positive and uplifting outlook with which Eger is able to treat her patients having read through what she herself has undergone.

I am not sure quite what I expected when I began this book, but I did not anticipate that a book I thought was going to be about the holocaust could leave me feeling so positive and happy by the end. At times I could have cried, but I finished the book feeling that I had actually gained some coping strategies of my own to use in future when things aren't as bright as I'd like them to be.

This really is a fantastic read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

What an amazing book. I finished this nearly a week ago and am still living it in my mind. The story could be deemed to be fairly innocuous as it is purely telling the story of Dr Edith Eger but it is anything but that. The story begins with, what we now call Dr Edith, as a child growing up in a fairly normal family. We see the start of the Jewish hatred, through to the cleaning out by sending to concentration camps and what I have always considered the end when the few that survived continued to live. How wrong I was this end is just the beginning and in this book one sees that the hatred did not just stay in Germany but continued in pockets throughout the world, including Israel.
To see Dr Edith grow from a child who loved to dance to the world acclaimed psychologist that she has become is a heart rending story in itself but she has used her knowledge to help others to understand that we all have a choice in life, even in the concentration camps. The many examples of how she has helped others brings a unique understanding to the word 'Choice'. This is a book that I will reread many times to reinforce the strong message that it send to the reader.

On her Facebook page I was delighted to see her celebrating her 91st birthday this year on the 28th Sept and see how full she is of vitality and giving her famous high kick. A lady that gives hope to those that need it, that uses her time to get her patients, or readers., to understand what they need to do by getting them to use their own reasoning. An amazing book written by an amazing lady that I wish I could meet and give her a big hug and then just listen to her talk. Hearing her podcasts are great but to meet her in person would be like touching the stars.

I highly recommend this book to everyone to read and all will gather different message from it. It is not a doom and gloom book about the Holocaust but a lifelong journey filled with determination and making her choices. Thank you NetGalley for letting me read such a fantastic book but a huge big thankyou to Dr Edith for writing this book for the world to read her messages.

I found this book fascinating - both from reading about Edith's time during the way and how it shaped her life beyond. I liked the parallels of how she could help people with the tools she had used for herself and also how helping people made her look at her own past and present and move forward.

This is the story of a remarkable woman called Edith Eger who is a survivor of Auschwitz and one I won't forget for a long time.

It resonated with me on so many levels and had so many mixed emotions whilst reading it. I am a second generation of a survivor as my father was in the camps too and I have also adopted the same attitude as Dr Eger after experiencing a childhood trauma, refusing to be defined by it and also saw that I had a choice in my attitude towards it. I am fortunate to work as a psychotherapist too and I love how she weaved her clients stories through her memoir too.

Her story is heartbreaking at times but also uplifting as she shows us that our painful experiences aren't a liability but a gift as they give us perspective and meaning, an opportunity to find our unique purpose and our strength.

An amazing biography of a life that experienced some of the worst suffering imaginable. Hopefully humanity will never have to witness again the suffering of people before, during, and after the Holocaust. An amazing account of life and a powerful message is given regarding how we carry with us the burdens caused by others, but that we can indeed move on. What an amazing lady Edith Eger is. I will carry this forever with me. Everyone should read this book!

A truly humbling, at times heartbreaking but uplifting book

This amazing woman, who is a survivor of Auschwitz and the most heinous crimes against humanity, has written about her childhood, her internment, and her life in Hungary and the US after the war, her struggles as an immigrant with little English, her own marital problems and her growth into a highly respected clinical psychologist who, drawing from her own experiences helped others to free themselves from the prisons created within themselves by life's traumas, including work for the military, helping PTSD patients before the condition was widely recognised.

This book contains a compelling message that we can overcome our demons, move on from hurt and anger and heartbreak and heal ourselves by looking at things in a different way .

Emotional, thought provoking and truly inspirational

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing for the opportunity to read this truly special book. My honest thoughts and opinion are expressed in this review.

A brutal but heartwarming tale of humanity, I couldn’t put this down. A real insight into the suffering of the Jews during WW2 and how in spite of it they made lives for themselves.