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The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank

ellen feldman

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"An appealing and inventive novel…original and cathartic." ―Dana Kennedy, New York Times On February 16, 1944, Anne Frank recorded in her diary that Peter, whom she at first disliked and eventually came to love, had confided to her that if he got out alive, he would reinvent himself entirely. This novel is the story of what might have happened if the boy in hiding had survived to become a man. Peter arrives in America, the land of self-creation, and passes as a Christian. Successful in business and rich in love in the boom years of the 1950s, he thrives in the present, plans for the future, and has no past. But there is a cost to his charade. When The Diary of a Young Girl is published to worldwide acclaim, it triggers paralyzing memories of his experiences in the secret annex in Amsterdam. The diary is his story too, and once the floodgate of memory opens, his life spirals out of control. Based on extensive research of Peter van Pels and the strange and disturbing life Anne Frank's diary took on after her death, this is a novel about the memory of death, the death of memory, and the inescapability of the past. Reading group guide included.

284 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,2005

This edition

Format
284 pages, Paperback
Published
May 17, 2006 by W. W. Norton \u0026 Company
ISBN
9780393327809
ASIN
0393327809
Language
English

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About the author

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ellen feldman

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
nomegritezz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I loved this book. The author clearly did her research, used archival material, but made the story compelling and hard to put down. While it could be a stretch to imagine that Peter Van Pels survived the War, the author made it seem real and very imaginable. Terrific read!
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TsunnnAm1
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Mixed feelings. I enjoyed the concept immensely, and was intrigued enough to wonder how it would end, but the style wasn’t for me. I had trouble following at times, but ultimately, the research was solid even in a fictional setting.
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fizzletrie
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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When I first saw the movie "The Diary of Anne Frank" I was 12 (many years ago) and immediately developed a crush on the character of Peter Van Daan. I was too young to realize that the character was based on a real person and that that person had faced a horrible death in a concentration camp. When I saw this book on the shelf of my local library, I was immediately reminded of my "crush" and was drawn to read it. Yes, Peter Van Daan was a real person, only Anne, for reasons known only to her, had changed his name. His name was really Peter Van Pels. Author Ellen Feldman takes us on an incredible journey based on the supposition that Peter Van Pels did not die in the concentration camp and was alive and well with a family in New Jersey at the time of the publication of Anne's "Diary". But this book is more than that. It is a perfect study of survivor guilt and post traumatic stress. In light of the success of the publication of Anne's diary, the play and the movie, how does Peter keep his identity hidden and, more importantly, why? This is not a happy book, but it reveals much about what someone goes through, physically and mentally, when they are the victims of war and horrible events. Its a book everyone should read.
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Aincrad2013
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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When author Ellen Feldman visited the house in which Anne Frank hid during World War II, the tour guide mistakenly informed the group that young Peter Van Pels, whose family went into hiding with the Franks, was the sole survivor of the group. Feldman was enthralled by a statement in Anne’s diary, quoting Van Pels, that if he managed to survive he’d reinvent himself completely, and even when she later found out that Peter had not survived, she was already committed to Peter, determined now to give him the reinvented life he never got.

In The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank Feldman creates a life for Peter in America, where he passes as a Christian, has a family, and leads a successful, happy life until Anne’s diary is published, followed by a controversial play and film. Anne’s story is Peter’s story, and now all that Peter has attempted to bury claws it way to the surface, all he’s pretended to be crumbling around him.

At first I was troubled by Feldman’s ignoring the fact of Peter’s death – I’m an author of historical fiction who clings doggedly to what facts do exist – but by the time I was finished with this insightful and compelling book I was grateful to Feldman for giving Peter that reinvented life, just as Anne’s diary gave her life. I was also not aware of all the controversy surround the publication of Anne’s diary and the subsequent play and film.

I’ve been thinking of this book often since I finished it and expect it will continue to resonate with me for a long time.
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Dark_Evangel
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Re-read after nearly 15 years. This one makes a bigger impact once you've ready the diary more recently. You wouldn't like this if you read the diary and wanted it to be a continuation of the Anne-Peter love story. It's beautifully written, but ultimately a fictionalized account of what might've been his own story.
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volition
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Its first person narrative makes this book a compelling read. It takes the reader to a different perspective from that usually seen in fiction: the long term consequences for a victim. What if a person chooses to hide (or run from) his Jewishness and sufferings in WWII? How long can he stay in denial or "forget" the most traumatic events of his life? How does such trauma begin to seep through into his daily life? How does the past corrode and to what extent does it supercede the present? How much does acute suffering condemn a person to emotional isolation? Of course, this is just a novel, but it does leave the reader wondering. We've read Elie Wiesel and others who speak so boldly about horrors of the past, yet the reader may question if Peter's way of dealing with his past is not more common than we might think.
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ichainsaw
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Libro al que se le podría haber sacado más provecho, almenos desde mi punto de vista. Se me hizo pesado y peter bastante detestable. Entiendo su trauma y lo mal que lo pasó, pero la manera de renegar de su pasado, de las vueltas y vueltas que le da a lo mismo y de que las descripciones son tediosas me han hecho que no me encariñe con el personaje ni con el libro. La idea es buena, que digo muy buena... y me ha hecho emocionarme en algún que otro capítulo, pero aseguró que no me ha hecho sentir ni la mitad de lo que lo hizo el diario de Ana frank. (Sé que este libro es ficción y el diario de Ana realidad, pero no se limita a eso). En definitiva, no lo he disfrutado en general pero algunos momentos lo han salvado.
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Hoppitot
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Not what I was expecting. I thought there would be more about Anne Frank and a budding romance. It was hard for me to get into this one. But my friends loved it.
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