The Tattooist of Auschwitz: the heartbreaking and unforgettable international bestseller

I read this book in a single sitting. It is gripping, heartbreaking, uplifting and beautiful, despite the harrowing subject matter. There are many Holocaust memoires, and this stands out amongst them, for the quality of the writing. it brings life, and voices, to all the grainy black & white images we conjour in our minds when we think of the horrors of the largest mass murder in history, and does so vividly.Yes, there are many Holocaust memoires, but there can never be too many, so no one ever forgets.

This should have been a terrific novel, but I felt like I was reading something written for the young adult market, it was too soft and fluffy and I don’t feel it really reflected the horror of life in a concentration camps. I couldn’t finish this and found it very disappointing.

This book did not live up to expectations. It told the same horror story of the holocaust but it was almost as though the writer had picked bits out of the big and famous holocaust titles. I expected there to be more about the tattooist and poignancy he felt in the numbers he etched into the thousands of people he encountered in the camps.It wasn’t well written and the love story seemed a bit contrived somehow. If you are expecting another ‘Book Thief’ ,‘The Reader or ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ you will be disappointed. This book does not wrench your emotions in the same way and somehow the writing does not do the subject justice.

I wouldn’t bother as I found this to be totally unbelievable when reading it and that was pretty much confirmed by the Auschwitz Museum twitter account.

I can honestly say this is one of the best books I have ever read. I have read quite a few books that have been set during the holocaust, both fiction and nonfiction. This is not meant to take away the importance and significance of other stories, however I thought that this story was particularly well told and has stayed with me.Without giving anything away, I think the story (which is based on true story) highlights the horrors endured by so many during the holocaust. It is easy to just see numbers, rather than people when we try to imagine the sheer scale of the Nazi's 'Final Solution', however, I felt that we get to know Lale (the main character), as well as his friends he meets in the camp, and even, to some extent, some of the German SS officers.Most stories of this nature are not happy stories, and rightly so. Neither is this, however, the ending still left me with some sense of happiness and I felt a little uplifted when I read the Epilogue at the end.I would recommend this book to anyone. It is insightful and provides us with some idea of what people did to survive, some of the horrors of the holocaust and the power of love.