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Book Review of The Kommandant's Girl

The Kommandant's Girl
The Kommandant's Girl
Author: Pam Jenoff
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
cloverluv avatar reviewed on + 129 more book reviews


First, let me say that I don't think this plot is very original. It sounds a lot like the movie "Black Book." It's a Dutch film where the main character is a Jewish girl working for the resistance to the Nazi's movement. She works for the high-ranking Nazi and seduces him.

That's the plot line of "Kommandant's Girl" in a nutshell. In any case, it had a good premise I thought, but somehow fell kind of flat. The character of Emma/Anna was just not well developed. I felt nothing for her. Even with the background of something as profound as The Holocaust taking place around her I failed to care what happened to her. I really can't describe this lack of emotion except that I didn't feel like Emma/Anna could be a real person. It was obvious that she was a complete work of fiction and I just could not bring myself to feel any attachment to her. Because of this, I failed to have any attachment to the story and I feel like that's saying a lot for a Holocaust book.

Let's face it, if you can read a book about any part of The Holocaust and NOT be moved to tears at some point, it's not written very well. I've read YA books about the Holocaust that were better written than this one.

I was just so torn over this book. I think I finished it because I kept WANTING to like it. In the end I decided that I didn't. Everything that happened in this book was predictable and the predictability made it boring.

A huge disappointment.