Click here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend.

n  n

One cannot fathom what other marvelous books the world might have known had this talented, perceptive girl been permitted the life she was due.

"We don't want our belongings to be seized by the Germans, but we certainly don't want to fall into their clutches ourselves. So we shall disappear of our own accord and not wait until they come and fetch us."
"But, Daddy, when would it be?" He spoke so seriously that I grew very anxious.
"Don't worry about it, we shall arrange everything. Make the most of your carefree young life while you can."
That was all. Oh, may the fulfillment of these somber words remain far distant yet!

Fifteen months later . . .

The atmosphere is so oppressive, and sleepy and as heavy as lead. You don't hear a single bird singing outside, and a deadly close silence hangs everywhere, catching hold of me as if it will drag me down deep into an underworld.

The problem with Diary of a Young Girl is that it's the diary of a young girl, and young girls are, like young boys, kindof a pain in the ass. It's like 300 pages straight of "No one understands me!"



I guess the reason this made it on to so many high school curricula is that young people might relate to it, and clearly some of them do, because they wrote pissed-off comments below this review - but this doesn't depict the horrors of the Holocaust. Night does that. This depicts the boredom of being locked in an attic for two years. And Frank is very bright, but not bright enough to make great reading out of a kid's diary.

In the pantheon of literature about being locked in an attic, Flowers in the Attic is still the gold standard.

Like most of us, I learned who Anne Frank was back in grade school. However, until now, I never read her diary. I sometimes got so lost in the pages, that I forgot I was reading a memoir from history. Reading this diary is like opening up a floodgate of emotions. It's hard reading this, knowing it's not a work of fiction, but something many people had to go through. I find it important for anyone to read this, to educate ourselves about what has happened in the past.

I never expected to hate this beloved book, but hate it I did. I believe I have read a different, more childish and cleaner edition. This "definitive edition" was making me sick.
#1 I was having a great deal of trouble believing this book was written by a young teenage girl. It very much reads as if it was written by an adult male. Perhaps she was brilliant and very well educated which explains her exceptional erudition and perception. Does it explain the coy sexuality, or if this book is in fact by Anne, is it perhaps explained by her father's sexual confidences given to his precocious thirteen year old daughter?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some thoughts of mine I shared with friends who had also read the definitive edition:

I'd bet her father was uncomfortable releasing it uncensored as the main weirdness is him. I am extremely uncomfortable with some of the stuff he tells her. And they put the new guy, 54 years old, in her room?! Where she uses her chamber pot a few feet away from him?! Why didn't they put him in with Peter (16 year old boy with his own room in attic)? Or the father for that matter as he wasn't having sex with his wife anyways (and why should Anne know that and about her father's past and his "girl" from before that he will never get over and his passions which he tells Anne she is too young to feel yet) and Margot was already sharing the room with them (her parents). This book reminds me of Flowers in the Attic. And I have a very hard time believing it was written by a 13 year old. I never thought for a moment I would doubt this book which is as loved and revered as the Bible. But I doubt it and find it very weird and inappropriate.

I suppose, maybe, maybe....They were living in a terrible situation, but still, the family dynamics give me the willies. Mom is aligned with Margot, Dad with Anne. A father who would make sexual confidences to his 13 year old daughter is a very suspect father imo. And I can't reconcile parents who have no problem with their 13 year old using her chamber pot next to a sleeping (we hope) 54 year old man, that is just too weird. Would you be comfortable if your father wrote you a poem containing the words, "I've got no more panties, my clothes are too tight, my shirt is a loincloth, I'm really a sight!" And her conversations with her father, "When we first went into hiding, Father often told me about things I'd rather have heard from Mother, and I learned the rest from books or things I picked up in conversations." "Once when father and I were talking about sex, he said I was too young to understand that kind of desire." I believe Anne that her mother didn't like her much and I would bet the reason why is jealousy. Father pays a lot of attention to Anne, she sleeps in his bed when she is frightened, in her white nightgown "(the one that causes Margot to exclaim every evening, "Oh, that indecent nighty!")"

Something is wrong with the family dynamics, at the least. And I find it hard to believe this book was written by a 13 year old. Granted, I am not nearly as clever as the author of this book, but I remember my diary at 13. It went something like, Dear Diary, nothing happened today. And when I did write anything, probably not til I was 14 or 15, it was incredibly immature, nothing like the perception and coy and repressed sexuality of this book.

Oh, I agree with you that the whole uncensored book is better than the sanitized version. I've been a bit wide eyed and shocked at what I've been reading rather than bored with the much more normal 13 year old Anne of the first version of this that I read..... I know this book has been verified as true but I am not convinced, and if true, well...I won't be recommending that (my daughter) reads (this version). I think there are many better books she can read. I almost feel like this makes a mockery of the horror of the Holocaust and what the Jews suffered.

Otto Frank is certainly the person I would have suspected of being the author. But maybe it (the diary) is true and he is just the author of the author.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, that said, I've now finished the book and haven't changed my mind about the book's creepiness nor my doubts about who wrote this book. I mean when she is working on her conquest, mentally not physically according to the diary, of 17 year old Peter, snuggling with him and trying to figure out how to describe female genitals to him, telling him the parts and their appearance, and Peter is shocked, he had no idea that female genitals were located between a female's legs. What?! This just strikes me as so wrong and untrue as both a conversation between a 14 year old girl and a 17 year old boy and as something said girl would write in her diary. I do not believe this conversation took place. But there it is, written as the truth in this diary purportedly by Anne Frank.

Now on to the subject and of Anne's relationship to her mother. I felt bad for her that she didn't go to cheder and learn the concept of what a mitzvah is and the specific mitzvoth including honoring one's mother and father. She goes on and on throughout the book about how much she hates her mother and how she doesn't need a mother anymore and how much better she is than her mother. Here is a quote from late in the book, April 1944, "Young as I am, I face life with more courage and have a better and truer sense of justice than Mother......If God lets me live, I'll achieve more than Mother ever did...." How incredibly sad is that?! Everyone needs their mother, how much rejection and betrayal would a person have to feel to hate like this? Something terribly wrong here.

I've said about all I can about this book, except this: the basic facts are not in question: the war, the situation for Jews, the existence of these people, the hiding, the arrest and the deaths of the women, the girls and Peter. It was heartbreaking, they were so close to the end of the war. I may not have liked Anne or her father, but I mourn them nonetheless. And I've only read a book; I don't know the truth of any of them and can't judge them. I can only judge what the book says, and even that I should probably take a chill pill and relax. When I looked at sites that claim the diary is a fake, they were very anti-Jewish. I would rather be aligned with all the good-hearted people who think the diary is true than with people who claim it is a fraud and hate Jews.

I've thought about this book almost continually since I finished this review. I've decided to keep the original version as I would like my daughter to read that one. The Definitive Edition I am going to get rid of. I retain my feeling of falseness and wrongness with that edition. I have thought a lot about what it must have been like to be in hiding like that; the enormous stresses and the constant fear. I know of a couple of people from the Jewish community, parents and grand parents of people I know, who did survive the war by being hidden in attics and secret places in buildings. They did not come out unaffected. Emotionally I am on my knees in respect to those people who suffered; both those that died and those that survived. I am not judging that experience.

Actually I wasn't going to review this book at all, since I read it way back in the seventies, and if I remember correctly, did not finish it.

But yesterday, just for the heck of it, I went through some one-star reviews. Two things I noticed immediately - most people disliked the book because it was boring, and Anne had a sanctimonious attitude. They were of the opinion that the book became a classic only because of historical reasons. Looking at it dispassionately, I have to agree.

I was even more interested in the negative comments on those reviews. Most people were angry at the reviewer because they had the temerity to criticise Anne, A HOLOCAUST VICTIM, for God's sake! Whatever be the quality of her writing, the consensus was that the author was a saint and therefore above any kind of criticism. This viewpoint seems to me rather silly - anything published for general consumption is open to both positive and negative reviews.

The second most common comment was that this was the diary of a teenaged girl, and never meant to be read for its literary merits - and I do agree with this. Those who criticise based on the quality of the writing is missing the mark, I feel. As with any diary, its primary merit is as a first-hand account of an important period in history.

I read it when I was roughly Anne's age. I could visualise for myself the claustrophobic nature of their apartment, and I wondered at a regime which forced a certain section of its citizens to hide themselves in fear of death. This was my first serious exposure to Holocaust literature: and it built in me a passion for history and a lifelong antagonism to fascism of any kind.

This was an important book in my life.

How can you not give this classic diary the coveted: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Note: this book is listed as one of the most popular books to be banned, over the past decade, from both schools and private libraries. Support freedom of expression by reading and buying banned books! ❤️

Es un libro interesante para conocer la lamentable situación de las familias judías en tiempo de nazis, aunque, en mi opinión, tiene muchas limitaciones narrativas y de calidad. Cierto es que está escrito por una niña y la calidad literaria era algo secundario en un mundo tan triste como aquel.
No obstante, es una experiencia de lectura interesante.

It is an interesting book to learn about the unfortunate situation of jewish families in Nazi times, although, in my opinion, it has many narrative and quality limitations. It's true that it was written by a girl, and literary quality was secondary in such a sad world.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting reading experience.

n  n    Book Reviewn  n
4 out of 5 stars to The Diary of a Young Girl, written during the 1940s by Anne Frank. Many are first exposed to this modern-day classic during their middle or high school years, as a way to read a different type of literature from that of an ordinary novel. In this diary, young Anne express her thoughts (both positive and negative) over a two-year period during which her family and friends are in hiding during World War II and the Holocaust. For most of us, this is one of the few ways we can actually read or hear the words from someone who was actually there and went through this, especially if you don't know anyone who was alive during this time period in the 1930s and 1940s in Germany and the surrounding areas. I read this in my 9th grade English course, and I remember disliking it a lot. Not because of the way it was written or published, but due to the topic. I dislike anything about that time in history. But I later re-read it and had a different level of appreciation for the value a book of this type can bring. Unlike The Book Thief, it's raw and natural in its words. But where I love The Book Thief because of its story, I found this one a bit harder to digest. It's not this extraordinary novel by any means, at least to me, but given how it came about, what happened to her and the way she expresses everything, it is definitely a great book. Everyone should read some passages from it at some point in their life.

n  n    About Men  n
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by.

Como um monstro chamado Hitler teve a ousadia de destruir os sonhos , a vida de uma adolescente com uma inteligência rara , à frente do seu tempo! Como esse livro marcou minha vida, como chorei e como passei a odiar ainda mais Hitler e seus seguidores! Esse livro fez me interessar pela temática do Holocausto e pelo sofrimento do povo Judeu.
Anne Frank eu te amo! Meu sonho é um dia ter a oportunidade de ir para a Holanda visitar o anexo que você e sua família se esconderam!


update.. Mais duas páginas do diário foram divulgadas recentemente pela fundação Anne Frank, as páginas mostram as indagações e considerações normais de uma adolescente da época em relação ao sexo, prostituição etc , vamos aguardar até que todo o conteúdo seja divulgado.

Update : no dia 09/06/2018 ,Morre aos 95 anos enfermeira que cuidou de Anne Frank. Gena Turgel foi prisioneira dos nazistas no campo de concentração nazista de Bergen-Belsen onde cuidou de Anne Frank quando ela estava com tifo.

A Força do Desejo

Além de ser mais uma das múltiplas histórias dramáticas que aconteceram durante o Holocausto, "O Diário de Anne Frank" é também um poderoso testemunho da Força do Desejo!
Anne Frank sonhara ser escritora e o que é facto é que o seu Diário foi publicado e lido por milhões.
Faleceu num campo de concentração, mas o seu Desejo foi de tal forma intenso, que lhe sobreviveu!

A sad, very important work

That´s a sociological and psychological study to
How Frank describes both the outside world and the complex, inner relationships between the involved humans, is one of the essential elements of the book. One other are the

Thoughts and feelings of a teenager
In a world that totally lost control over sanity and humanity. The descriptions of the Holocaust are what the work is most known for, but especially for young female readers, it´s also an interesting work about becoming a woman in conservative times. That´s the forgotten element, that

Even the normal traditions of that time seem bizarre by nowaday standards
Because it was also the beginning of the time of breaking the sexism, cultural norms, and discriminations women faced for millennia. So what Anne´s family believes, thinks, and says is an as important element as the genocide going on outside. If it would have been written by a boy, it would be more interesting for the male audience. But no matter the age, gender, or social group, descriptions of

Totalitarian atroticities
Will always be haunting when the disaster is over. Most of the famous works of that genre come from Germany or Russia because of the bloody history, but there may have been thousands of hidden, secretly written manuscripts by prosecuted people that have been burned together with the authors over the centuries. Exactly this moment this is happening all around the world in the dozens of dictatorships that torture, intern, and kill unknown numbers of dissidents each day. That´s one of the things people living in Western democracies tend to forget. That the terror isn´t over yet.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

I confess to feeling slightly voyeuristic while reading this. It was constantly in the back of my mind that this was no ordinary novel, or even a true-to-life account. This was someone’s diary. Every page written in confidence, each word revealing the thoughts closest to the heart of this young girl. As a journal-keeper myself, I sometimes find myself wondering, “What if someone else were to read this?” which causes me to wonder how much to filter my words. But then, isn’t the purpose of a diary or journal just the opposite? To record one’s honest and unfiltered thoughts? While reading Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl I do not get the sense that there is any such ‘filtering’ going on. From the ages of 12-15 Anne lived an extraordinary life, and quickly grew far beyond her years in her understanding and handling of a horrendous situation.

There are surprises in this book. No matter how broad or limited your understanding of the world events that threw Anne and her family into a life in hiding, I had – before reading this – held the general assumption that, “Well, it was wartime. They were in hiding for their lives. They must have been miserable all the time. Who could possibly find anything good or redeeming in the confines of such a life?” In hindsight, of course, I have had to reconsider. I found bits of beauty, kindness, and even humour popping up in the most unexpected places. And why shouldn’t I? Aren’t our lives much the same? Oh – we’re not dodging bombs and trying to sleep to the sound of gunfire (at least not in Canada). But we, each of us, are often faced with some sort of tragedy or travesty. Sometimes we may have an entire ‘bad year’, or longer. And yet, doesn’t the buoyancy of the human spirit always shine through? It is really tough work to be miserable 24 hours a day. No matter how difficult or challenged our day-to-day life, we all have those little pockets of joy that arise, and sometimes it is those tiny occurrences that make the rest of it bearable.

On a personal level, I found myself comparing Anne’s childhood to that of my parents. After all, she was only a year younger than my Mom and Dad. I think back to stories they’ve told from their teen years, and it boggles the mind to think that at the exact moment my Dad and his brothers were tipping a cow, Anne was in hiding on the other side of the world. At a time when my mother was discovering make-up, Anne was realizing that life would never again be so youthful, so joyous and carefree as before the war. A generation was losing its innocence, but in very different ways.

I would recommend Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl to absolutely everyone, for I believe that it holds some truth or enlightenment for everyone. I do not own this copy – it was borrowed from my daughter’s school library. She will be reading it next. She is 10. And you can bet that before long I will purchase my own copy, for I will be reading it again someday soon.