A Hatred for Tulips

A story of a young boy coming of age in WWII Holland. This book has a bit more complexity than many books in the genre. Instead of presenting evil Germans, sacrificed Jews, and a saintly citizenry risking their lives to harbor Jews, this short books shows the complicated and ambivalent feelings that many of the Dutch had and shows how their own family life and own need for survival contributed to many of their actions. The tie in to Anne Franks's story, revealed in the first few pages, offers a unique historical perspective.

A deceptively simple little novel about Amsterdam in the 1940s with a narrator who may - or may not- have informed on the Franks.

This novel really got under my skin.

I had a difficult time putting this book down once I had started it. The writing is great and really drew me into the story. It's a short book, but it definitely packs a punch.

I wanted to be excited about this historical fiction title where the main character tells his brother he is the one who betrayed Anne Frank while she was in hiding during WWII, but somehow the book ended less than what I was expecting. The main character, Joop tells his story of survival in Amsterdam during the war to his brother who was too young to remember much of what happened at the time.

Brief, painful, beautiful and incredible.