I was an avid NSYNC and Backstreet Boys fan back in the day. I traveled hundreds of miles to go to shows and collected pretty much anything with their faces on it. So, obviously I was interested in this book as soon as I saw it. (By the way, I bought this book with my Apple lawsuit funds, so thanks for that, Apple!)

I think this is possibly one of the weirder books I've read. While it does have some insightful moments into what boy band fandom can be like, most of this book is just pure insanity.

It's an entertaining enough read if you can suspend your entire hold on reality and if you can get past the fact that there is pretty much no likable character in the book at all. The story is a bit silly and when you find out the who of the whodunnit, it's actually rather anti-climactic.

Overall, entertaining but ridiculous.

I think this book does show a side of the holocaust even more horrific than what is already common knowledge. It shows how human nature can change drastically depending on the situation a person is placed in. And how small things, such as sneezing during a selection could seal your fate.

I think the books only failure is that it doesn't always flow very well. It often references different times and periods that don't seem to help the narrative. I would've liked things to have been presented in a more chronological fashion so I wasn't constantly having to place where the incidents fell in the timeline of the war and of what was happening at particular camps at the different times.

In the end I think the scariest realization I gained from the book is that it is not only possible for something like this to happen again, it almost seems likely.

I LOVED this book!

I couldn't bring myself to put it down. I absolutely refuse to even slightly hint at what happens because not knowing kept me on the edge of my seat and I wouldn't want to ruin that experience for anyone else. I will say that I was guessing until the final pages and had several working theories that I was boring my boyfriend with throughout the book. When I came to the end I actually wished I could read it again for the first time because I enjoyed it that much. 

I would like to note that I don't typically read YA thrillers, so if you read these all the time your mileage may vary. I believe even if you read YA thrillers on the regular that this one will still satisfy even if it doesn't blow you away the same way it did me.

In some ways this final chapter in the story was the most depressing because in the previous ones Anna always had hope that if she survived long enough she would get to go home and see her family again one day. This is the part of the book where she realizes that things will never go back to the way they were. This volume had less narrative and the story of Lidice was not told from personal experience and it lacked something because it was a secondhand story even if it was told by someone personally changed by the things that occurred.

This book was such a brutally honest account of life in a concentration camp. It shook me to read what human beings were subjected to during such a dark time in history.  There was so much suffering and death, but in many ways the story of the survival of this woman is an amazing show of endurance of the human spirit. All the artwork is done in black and white which is appropriate for a story like this. Overall, a gripping read.