A beautiful, heart-breaking story, but one that's full of hope. Having read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas I approached this book armed with tissues. It was informative, dramatic, heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time. An important story with a complicated protagonist and fascinating character development.

Oh my goodness what a book! Gretel is a complex main character and one who it is initially difficult to like. We realise that she is the sister of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ and her narrative makes her fairly unlikeable, however as the plot builds you grow to feel compassion for a woman who was that close to monstrosities and who has spent her life feeling culpable. It is beautifully written, with each era and location drawing you in. The switches between timelines are easy to read and keep pulling you back in for more. One of my favourite books of the year. Thank you so much for this arc.

I have only read one book by the author; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I was surprised that there was to be a sequel, written for adults, and was curious to read it. At some points in this sequel I found myself wincing. It feels as if it was quickly written during Lockdown. It is not a fully rounded book; characterisation is very thin, apart from Gretel. We do not, for instance, learn much about what drew Edgar to her and his motivation for staying in their long marriage, despite the fact that he clearly knew much about her past and later shared it with their son. Caden is written as an overweight dolt (when will authors stop using being overweight as a shorthand to highlight flaws and weaknesses in characters?) He is a serial groom who seems to despise his mother, yet desperately wants her to attend each of his marriages. Eleanor his fiancée is a heart surgeon and will drop appointments to see Gretel, who inexplicably trusts and confides so much in her after sharing just one lunch.

The contemporary storyline about the family downstairs effectively portrays some of the fear and uncertainty of the situation. However the conversations between Gretel and Alex were melodramatic and completely unbelievable. Would he really have admitted so much to her?
Also, a 93 year old would not have the strength to undertake what she does on her birthday. Especially not given the physical description of the other. It would surely be impossible.

The author is clearly trying to explore the themes of guilt and secrecy, about complicity and how far a twelve year can be culpable for the crimes of her family, but overall I do not think it was particularly competently achieved.

While I am not convinced by other early reviews which state the author is sympathetic to the Nazi regime and a racist, I do recognise that this is going to be a contentious book. The content certainly makes it an uncomfortable read. In the end my overriding feeling is that it could have been more sensitively and skilfully written, if it needed to be written at all. Some books do not need a sequel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

I read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas back in April 2015 and it’s a book I have never forgotten. It is one of the most emotional books I have ever read. If you have never read it, you really should consider adding it to your list.
I was intrigued to read All The Broken Places to say the least.
This sequel tells Gretel’s story.
Gretel is 91 years old and has lived in her London apartment for over sixty years. She keeps herself to herself. However, she hasn’t always led such a quiet life. She has a dark past and painful secrets.
She is the daughter of a commandant of a Nazi concentration camp.
She would prefer no-one ever found that out. Especially now she has more than just herself to consider.
She has never got past the guilt she feels regarding her father’s crimes. She was just a child at the time. Should she share responsibility for his actions?
At 91 she is confident now that she will take the secrets of her past to her grave.
That is until a young family move in to the flat below hers and turn her quiet world upside down.
I really enjoyed how Gretel walks us through her story. Switching between the present day and earlier years of her life. Unravelling the tale chapter by chapter. Keeping me glued to my Kindle. I can’t say I found her to be a likeable character or a particularly unlikable one. She is somewhat standoffish but as we get to know her it’s easier to understand why. She is undoubtably fascinating.
This is such a heart-wrenching and thought-provoking story. A powerful tale of living a life weighed down by grief and guilt. So beautifully written I can’t imagine anyone not finding it completely compelling.
I could never have imagined the way things would turn out! The ending gave me goosebumps.
Just brilliant!
Another one of John Boyne’s books I am sure will stay with me for many years to come.
I highly recommend!
**Many thanks to the author and publisher for my review copy via NetGalley**

In All The Broken Places, John Boyne has written an absolutely epic sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. He tells the story of Gretel, Bruno’s sister, after the war and the Holocaust. The narrative alternates between 91 year old Gretel in London today and three significant points in her past: immediately after the war in 1946 Paris, 1953 Sydney, and 1953 London. It centres around the themes of guilt, complicity and grief, challenging the reader to put themselves in Gretel's shoes. Spending her life trying to hide her past, Gretel finally confronts her demons when faced with the suffering of others. I was absolutely gripped by the unraveling of Gretel’s life and the complexity of her emotions and the decisions she had to make throughout her life. A truly profound and moving story, which you won’t be able to put down. It will stay with me for some time.
This is set to be the book that flies off the shelves this September.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and John Boyne for an E-arc in exchange for a review.

Highly recommended to anyone appreciating good fiction. Not wishing to reveal much of the plot it is a continuation, of sorts, of The Boy in Striped Pyjamas, and equally as good. It switches from post-war Europe, to 1950s Australia and London, and London now, following the life of Gretl. Extremely well-written, with some surprises on the way, it examines guilt, complicity, coercion, survival at all costs.

With many thanks to NetGalley and Transworld Digital for an ARC

I love history and I love reading books regarding events that have happened in the past. It’s heartbreaking but it needs to be told, it needs to live on. What happened was just unthinkable. So like all books with this theme, it was a heartbreaking read but so well written and I really enjoyed it.

All the broken places is a sequel to the boy in striped Pyjamas. A book/film that really touched you, one I cried at a lot.

The book had me hooked from the first page, Hard to read in places, the life of Gretel and her life after the death of her brother. Her journey of living with the guilt and acceptance of the past.

Overall a really enjoyable (despite the storyline) read.

Really great follow up to the boy in the striped pyjamas. Such an interesting perspective to see the story from older eyes and perpetrators of the awful events

Boyne’s book “The Boy with the striped pyjamas” was one of the most powerful books I have read. The sequel does not disappoint although it may be aimed at an older reader. It is not always an easy read but it deals with Gretel’s story, the little girl who loses her brother, the boy in striped pyjamas. She is now in her nineties. Part of the book is set in present day London where Gretel has lived for most of her adult life in relative luxury. The present day story deals with the lives of the people who live with her in her mansion block and how their lives interweave. Every other chapter goes back in time revealing more about the character of Gretel and the life she led as a child and then just with her mother and then on her own before eventually marrying. Her life has been hard and she is for ever running away from her past but the past has a habit of catching up with her. She encounters people from her past and and has relationships with people who increase the guilt and fear she carries as the daughter of the Commandant of Auschwitz. She grieves for a brother whose name she only mentions once. The book is also about responsibility - responsibility for yourself and your family and responsibility to society. The book takes us from Paris to Sydney, Australia and then to London. Thank you Netgalley for this engrossing read and well done John Boyne who I have heard discuss “The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas”.

Wow!! This was an amazing read. Bouncing back and forward between the 2nd world war, the 50s and 60s to present day was skillfully done. The main character just seemed like a little old (almost aristocratic ) lady but as the story unfolds we realise she is far from it. The twists and subplots were particularly good. Never would have guessed the ending in a million years.

I already know I will struggle to write this review. I am so conflicted with my views. The blurb of this book sounded amazing and I loved The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas. To read about his family and in particular his older sister and the life she led as an adult sounded amazing and I was so excited to read it. However I have come to the conclusion that although there is nothing wrong with the book or the story, I just do not get on with this authors style of writing. I think he has changed his style of writing since his earlier work. That said, the story was good, written with care and compassion just not a quick read. It took me almost a week to read and I usually devour a book in a day, particularly on holiday.

ahhh this book gave me all the feels!!!
I really enjoyed my reading experience, even if it was a bit of a emotional read at times.

Like so many other people, I absolutely adored the book 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' - so I jumped at the chance to read this 'sequel' by John Boyne.

It took a little bit of time for me to get into it - maybe about 20% - but once I was 'in-it' I was hooked. It has so much heart, so much emotion - John Boyne's writing is just so perfect.
The book is just as heartbreaking as '...Striped Pyjamas' and still manages to keep hope.

The ending is a tad far fetched, but for me it was more about what that particular act (no spoilers) represented that affected me rather than the act itself.
There was so much hurt and so much pain with the characters that I just wanted to give them a big hug.

I finished this book a week ago now, but it has still stayed with me. I have never read a book and immediately wanted to re-read it - with this I did. I will definitely be re-reading, and I would love to listen to the audiobook too.

Without a doubt the most emotive, and the most enjoyable book I have read this year, and for a long time!!! ahhh bliss!!!

A new John Boyne title is always a reading highlight for me. I’ve read 7 of his up to now, 4 of which have ended up in my end of year Top 10s. I was both thrilled and made nervous by his decision to write a sequel to his most famous and my 2nd favourite of his, (“The Heart’s Invisible Furies" is probably still my most loved book of the 21st Century so far), “The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas” (2006) which I read in 2018 when it was runner up in my Books Of The Year to “The Count Of Monte Cristo.”
It is such an impressively self-contained piece that it seems an unlikely and perhaps unnecessary book to have a sequel. In his Author’s Note John Boyne says he’s been mulling the idea over for years and the isolation of lockdown felt like the right time. The question for me was, did I want to revisit these characters in another setting?
This is the first-person narrative of Gretel, the sister to Bruno, main character in “Striped Pyjamas” and it follows a dual narrative, one which moves through time from the end of World War II and one taking place in modern day London. Here, Gretel is a sprightly 91 year old living in a smart apartment in Winterville Court, overlooking Hyde Park, the other narrative explores how Gretel has reached this point in her life.
Unsurprisingly, the central theme in the novel is guilt. Gretel has got to 91 living daily with her family’s involvement in the hostilities in the place Bruno thought was called “Out-With”. The immediate post-war years saw a need for re-invention in different locations until she settles in London.
My dilemma here, and I think this will be the case for many readers, is Gretel. She is realistically rather than sympathetically drawn but I couldn’t help rooting for her and I struggled whether this was the right response, and this was likely to be the author’s intention. Obviously she has got to an old age thousands were deprived of and there are some extraordinary moments in her past which will stop you in your tracks and will fundamentally change the way you feel about this character in “Striped Pyjamas” and Boyne does extremely well to also convey her effectively as an elderly woman still struggling after many decades to come to terms with her past.
Supporting characters do not seem as well drawn as in other of this author’s novels (especially in the contemporary section) but we are seeing them from Gretel’s perspective and words and she is very wrapped up in herself, so perhaps this is appropriate. As “The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas” builds to a big twist there are a couple of those along the way for those readers looking for a big reveal.
I did enjoy this and wanted to know what was going on but my ongoing niggle as to whether a sequel was necessary was unresolved and so I take that as meaning that this book is not as Essential as “The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas”. All of the now 8 Boyne works I have read have had something in them to enrich my life but this for me does not quite make it into my Top 5 of his novels. It is thought-provoking and at times really gripping but remains slightly in the shadow of his 2006 masterpiece.
All The Broken Places is published by Doubleday on September 15th 2022. Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the advance review copy.

I haven’t read The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas for so long but I don’t think I ever considered there being the need for a sequel. The first one was heart shattering enough, but I was really intrigued to see where he took the story this time.

Because I hadn’t read the first one for a long time, I couldn’t remember the intricacies of it, so at first I wasn’t sure how it linked but it’s nothing a quick Google couldn’t fix. To be honest, it could be read as a standalone story I think, but if you’ve haven’t read book number one recently, it’s worth familiarising yourself with the plot and characters again as you’ll get so much more out of this sequel.

I didn’t find it a sad as the first one - I mean, there’s no war or concentration camps in this for a start. But there’s a different kind of sad, a different kind of melancholy about it. That of children who just so happened to be on the “wrong” side of history, carrying the guilt of actions carried out by their elders. I don’t condone actions carried out in war, but sadly there are always innocents lost, in historical wars and more recent ones, but I’ll be honest, I’ve not given much thought to the children of the “wrong side”. It’s hard to believe young children would have had any participation in any evil acts (or I sure hope they wouldn’t), but because of their association with them, they get painted with the same brush.

I enjoyed John’s choice to tell Gretel’s story at various points in her life. We mostly see her in present day London at 91 years old. But we also see her in 1946, as well as the 50s and the 70s. This could have been confusing but he’s handled it so well that it flows so easily from chapter to chapter.

I understand there’s been a little criticism over John’s description of the Holocaust in his books. I will put my hand up and say I wasn’t aware of this piously. I am not an expert on the war and all things associated with it, but I don’t necessarily read fiction for a 100% true account, that’s what non-fiction is for. Instead I read it for entertainment and for emotion and enjoyment. However, I do understand and respect that others may feel differently, especially if their family has been directly impacted by these particular events. This sequel focusses more on a woman’s emotions about the Holocaust, rather than the event itself.

If I had to choose whether I preferred The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas or this book, I would probably choose this one. The first book was very good for what it was and I enjoyed it, even if it was hard to read at times. But whereas that was plot heavy, this is more of a character-led story and that appeals to me very much. By the end of it, Greeley is as much a real person as I am.

Overall, I find John Boyne one of the best storytellers around and a phenomenal character writer.

What makes a good book?
Everyone has their own ideas but for me it is a story that stays with you for many years.
The boy in the striped pyjamas is one such book and I think that All the Broken Pieces may be another.

Moving between present day London and Post war Paris, Gretel tells her story of loss, survival and guilt. Her live which had seemed wortless is turned around when a new family moves into the flat beneath her. She could not save her brother, can she save her young neighbour?

I was really in a quandary over rating this book. I thought that Boy In The Striped Pyjamas was an excellent book. I know that there has been a lot of negative press about it after the initial hype, but I think that it conveys an important message in a simple way for children. Obviously, some parts stretch credibility but it is fiction and it opens the way for discussion.
I was curious to see which way this book would go. There are a lot of negative comments about it. John Boyne is accused of racism, a nazi sympathiser, an excuser. I don't agree with any of these views. I believe that he is taking a horrific event and trying to make some sense of how it happened. How normal people could be swept up into such a frenzy of hate that they would allow such things to happen and, not only support it but believe it be right. At no point do I think he is asking the reader to sympathise with Gretel, he is examining how her and her mother could justify it to themselves and live with it.
If you read anything about the history of the post war period, it is beyond belief that so many SS officers either escaped, served nominal sentences or were never taken to court in the first place. Only a tiny fraction of these people faced justice and even fewer were sentenced to death. Most are believed to have disappeared under assumed names all over the world.
This is a work of fiction about one 12 year old girl and how she manages to survive and live with her past.
My issue with the book is not the author's supposed views but how the events unfold. Clearly, thousands of Germans managed to obtain false identities but I was frustrated at how this was glossed over. This was a mother and young daughter on their own. How did they get away, where did the documents come from, what did they do for money?
It is a short book so I appreciate that it's hard to go into details but I was left feeling disappointed. 3.5 stars.

John Boyne has written a wonderful sequel to ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’. This book isn’t necessarily about the history of the periods, but about the human emotions involved. His main character, Gretel isn’t immediately likeable, but is written in a way that you seek to understand her feelings. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book..

Wow, just wow 🕊️

🕊️When I commit to reading a book about the Holocaust I have to be in a strong place emotionally and I don't take it on lightly, I've learned that once you read something about the Holocaust you can never unread it, it stays with you and never goes away.

🕊️The Boy in the Striped pyjamas was the first holocaust book I read. It was 2014 and it had been sat on my tbr shelf for 6 yrs before I finally plucked up the courage to read it. Documentaries I'd watched in the past still haunted me and I wasn't sure I was strong enough to read it......
..John Boyne's delicate and compelling style of writing drew me in, and that ending will stay with you forever. It's a book that deserves every inch of its hype ..

..and that being said I was very eager to read All the Broken Places which is the sequel...

🕊️....with the same simplistic yet captivating style this story held me from the first page...almost 80 years after the first book Greta Fernsby is now living in London, the book takes us back in a time hopping fashion through her life after the War and how she had to pretend to be someone else...and the suffering she incurs whenever her real identity is disclosed.

🕊️ I was on Greta's side straight away, I couldn't help it. It's a book that reminds us children cannot be blamed for their parents actions and should not have to shoulder any guilt on their parents behalf... Nurture is the word of the day. Nurture your children 💖

🕊️I think John Boyne is astounding. He writes about such a gruesome topic yet his writing is so warm and beautiful that his books feel like a hug.

🕊️You could read this Book as a stand alone but I cannot stress enough to you how you MUST read The Boy in the Striped pyjamas if you haven't yet.

"Gretel Fernsby lives a life that is a far cry from her traumatic childhood. When a couple moves into the flat below her in her London mansion block, it should be nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. However, the appearance of their nine-year-old son Henry brings back memories she would rather forget.”

The sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, this is a story of guilt and secrets and is harrowing at times, with details of violence throughout, both in history and present time.

We follow Gretel as she tries to distance herself, both physically and mentally, from her past, and that of her father, a Nazi Commandant. We learn how a lifetime of guilt, and the lies needed to hide her past from others, are constant companions, even as she reaches her nineties, and has to choose between her own safety and that of her young neighbour Henry.

I was conflicted about this book throughout. One minute I was dreading that I might have to write a three-star review as I found the start slow, but then out of nowhere the author drops in a massive twist. No warning. This happens a couple of times and each time I was shocked and it enticed me to read on. In fact I probably read the second half of the book three times as quickly as the first half.

Gretel was a little stretched as a character in places I thought, especially older Gretel. It was difficult to sympathise with her guilt and her complicity (even unknowingly) in the horrors of her father’s actions, and it felt uncomfortable to feel this was being asked of us as readers (that may or may not have been the intention).

I also felt Alex, Henry’s father was written sometimes as almost a ‘pantomime-villain’ character and yet he was a despicable, vicious man. This made the build-up to the ending slightly farcical for me, which wasn’t what the subject matter deserved.

So, although it may read as one, this isn’t a three-star review. I can’t necessarily tell you what I liked about All the Broken Places - it’s not a story to be ‘liked’, but it kept me reading to the end and made me think and question.

As a note, I wish I had re-read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas first, as it was quite a while ago since I first read it - it would have helped refresh some of the back story. The ending to The Boy… is mentioned so be warned if you haven’t read it yet and think you will.

I gave this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ four stars.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House, Transworld Publishers for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure I have the words to describe this novel. It will remain with me, as has ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’.

It is a moving, emotional rollercoaster that encompasses a perfect read, that also sparks every emotion.

Gretel is such a strong character, I was so conflicted with how to feel about her. As with most of the other characters.

The revelations throughout the book made me somber but some also made me smile.

I love this book so much.

Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me this arc in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.