“If every man is guilty of all the good he did not do, as Voltaire suggested, then I have spent a lifetime convincing myself that I am innocent of all bad.”

Starting her story at the age of 12 and finishing at 91 years old Gretel’s lifetime is a long and lurid one as she describes escaping Berlin to start a new life in Paris with her mother, leaving Paris to try afresh in Sydney and finally abandoning Sydney to settle in London.

All the Broken Places is a compelling, compulsive page turner. The chapters are short and punchy. The story telling is sublime. Gretel is intriguing. The guilt, fear and foreboding that plague her throughout her life are overwhelming. Alex Darcy-Witt, the devil downstairs, and the shadow of that other place weave in and out of the first person narrative creating ever-increasing tension that erupts into a climactic crescendo.

There are jaw-dropping twists, shocking events and the reappearance of characters from The Boy in Striped Pyjamas including Schmuel’s heartbreaking backstory and Lieutenant Kurt Kotler’s post Auschwitz exodus. There are stories within stories within stories introducing beautifully drawn and highly relatable new characters, good and bad, who play major and minor roles in Gretel’s passage through time.
It is also a story of love and loss, passion and pain, complicity and coping. Gretel’s description of her relationship with David in 1950’s London is beyond moving.
“The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children” for Gretel and brother Bruno. ( )

Dit boek is zuivere fictie. Een filmisch verhaal dat bijzonder weinig vertelt, zelfs niet indirect, over de reële horror van de Holocaust. De psychologie in deze tranentrekker komt in dit boek dan ook heel zwak over en is eerder lachwekkend. Sorry, ik geef de lezers dan de raad om een echt literaire historische roman of een historisch werk te lezen. Hierbij denk ik aan bijvoorbeeld G.L.Durlacher (Strepen aan de hemel) of Klaus Mann (Mefisto) en anderen..... Score : 1 , enkel om de vlotte schrijfstijl , evenwel géén literair niveau.... ( )

An excellent book that I would have finished in one day except I had to take a short break to recover from what I was reading. It's funny, I have The Boy in the Striped Pajamas but haven't read it yet. I guess it would help if I had read it first, but since I did know some things about it, I had no problem following this book. It's about Gretel Fernsby, ninety-one, who has lived in the same well-to-do mansion for decades. She never talks about her past. When a new family moves in downstairs, Gretel can't help but to begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry. She will have to make a choice if she wants to save him. Highly recommended! ( )

A beautiful, gut-wrenching novel about guilt and how it can tear at the very fabric of your soul and influence every aspect of your life. Gretel is the sister of Bruno, the boy we lost at the end of The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. This is the story of her life picked up 80 years later, when in her nineties, she witnesses horrific domestic violence carried out by new neighbours in the flat below. This triggers her memories of a life stricken by self-hatred and loathing, of wanting to be punished for her father's crimes and her callus actions, and how slowly in time, she redeems herself until her final gruesome act to save the young boy Henry who reminds her of the brother she lost.
At times this book was so powerful, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach reading it. My heart wept for Gretel, yet at the same time, I loathed the callous complacency of her youth that saw the "final solution" slip so easily into the normality of her life. Boyne has excelled himself in transporting us to different eras post Second World war - the shaving of the women's heads in France, the escaping to a new life in Sydney and the confronting films about the Holocaust shown to audiences for the first time after the war - all help to cloak Gretel's story in the world view, while we focus on her tale.
Absolutely brilliant. ( )

Hoofdpersoon in dit boek is de 91 jarige Gretel. Gretel woont al tientallen jaren in een luxe appartement in Mayfair in Londen. Al die tijd heeft ze de achternaam Fernsby gehad, maar dat is maar een van de vele achternamen die ze ooit gebruikt heeft.
Haar verleden is een groot geheim voor iedereen om haar heen. Maar twee mensen heeft ze ooit het hele verhaal verteld. Aan David, de man met wie ze had willen trouwen en aan Edgar, met wie ze wel trouwde. Het boek bevat verschillende tijdlijnen. Londen 2022, Parijs 1946, Londen 1970, Sydney 1953, Polen 1943, Londen 1953.
In de tijdslijn van 2022, krijgt Gretel te maken met nieuwe onderburen. En ze is een beetje bezorgd wat dat zal veranderen aan haar dagelijkse leven. Dat blijkt nogal wat te zijn. Madelyn, Alex en hun zoontje Henry Darcy-Witt voeren ogenschijnlijk een luxe leventje, maar niets is minder waar. Alex is een overheersende en manipulerende echtgenoot en vader en hij schroomt niet om zijn vrouw en zoon te mishandelen en Gretel hoort in haar appartement de ruzies en de gevechten. Als ze een soort vriendschap sluit met Henry, worden haar gedachten teruggevoerd naar de dood van haar broertje Bruno. Via de verhalen in de tijdlijnen komen we te weten wat er eigenlijk gebeurt is. ( )