Read Online Annelies A Novel Audible Audio Edition David R Gillham Saskia Maarleveld Penguin Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 14 hours and 50 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Penguin Audio Audible.com Release Date January 15, 2019 Language English, English ASIN B07MF9CHGR

Annelies A Novel Audible Audio Edition David R Gillham Saskia Maarleveld Penguin Audio Books Reviews

• Two years ago- 2017 - the German railroad, Deutsche Bahn, proposed naming its new highspeed trains after important figures in German history. Some of the names proposed were "Konrad Adenauer", "Karl Marx", "Ludwig Erhard", and..."Anne Frank". Evidently not everyone at Deutsche Bahn was asleep at the proverbial wheel and the sheer wrongheadedness over naming a train after Anne Frank was pointed out. Officials took the name out of contention for a train a few months later and some other names like "Willy Brandt" and "Marlene Dietrich" were tactfully substituted for the "Anne Frank Unlimited" (to Auschwitz?). All this goes to show, though, the power that the two words "Anne" and "Frank" still play in our world today. She has lately been the subject of at least one work of non-fiction, and several novels. The latest one, David Gillham's "Annelies A Novel" has just been published.
  
  Like it's recent predecessors, Gillham's book presupposes that one of the other residents of the Amsterdam attic hiding place - besides Otto Frank - survived their ordeal. Ellen Feldman's novel, "The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank", has Peter surviving Mauthausen and going to the United States and making a life there for himself, while in 2013, author Jillian Cantor wrote about Anne's sister, Margot's new life in the US, in her novel, "Margot A Novel". David Gillham's novel follows the same plot line - survival of the camps and adjusting to a new life.
  
  "Annelies" - Anne Frank's full first name - is a pretty good book. Gillham uses parts of Anne's diary as the beginnings of his short chapters, which together show a bit of her life in the attic, but more specifically her immediate post-war life in Amsterdam. Anne tries to make sense of both her own survival and the deaths of her mother and sister. She also tries to decide what she wants to do next in her life. Her diaries, supposedly, had not survived the raid on the Attic, but later they are returned to her. In some ways, her post-war life is that of a normal teenager and in others it's the life of a concentration camp survivor with her Auschwitz numbered tattoo as an ever-present reminder of her past.
  
  Like a few other reviewers of "Annelies", I had an uneasy feeling about the novel. David Gillham tries to reimagine Anne's life - as others have done with Margot and Peter - with a happier ending. But should we be doing that? Or is it just more respectful for Anne and her compatriots be left to reside in their own reality?
• Annelies is a compelling, intense read. I simply couldn't tear myself from it. I was torn for most of the reading, however, in my feelings toward the character of Anne. I felt compassion and empathy for all she endured, but she also annoyed me. Anne spends a great deal of the novel, raging about, as if she was the only one who suffered, and being quite nasty. She does act like the entitled, spoiled, cosseted child her stepmother accuses her of being. The author includes intriguing twists in the story. I applaud him for taking on this incredible task of writing a what if story about Holocaust icon such as Anne Frank. I do wish the author had included a brief bibliography at the end, to share he titles he read and researched. Thanks to Penguin First Read for the advance copy.
• I was glued to this book. There was, in reading this novel, a feeling of healing I do have to agree with another reviewer that I wish it had told more about the adult life of Anne. In particular I wonder what books she wrote? But perhaps it was wise to leave this to our imagination .
  In these times one often reads things into books that may not have been intended but in the portrayal of postwar Netherlands and the deportation of German nationals including Jews back to Germany I was reminded of the terrible injustice of deportations of immigrants by ICE to countries they fled to save their lives.
  The author takes risks in removing the iconization around Anne Frank yet respecting and remembering her and her family.
  In this time of rising hate we must remember those lost This book helps. Never again!
• Anne Frank has always been of interest, and Mr. Gillham creates a heartbreaking re-telling of what she and her family endured and what her life could have been had she survived.
  
  We follow Anne before, during, and after the war that describes her family's confinement and the horrors they endured at the concentration camps.
  
  Mr. Gillham brings Anne back to life and fictitiously lets us see how she is trying to put her life back together as she reunites with her father who in actuality is the only surviving family member.
  
  The detailed writing and re-telling will hold your interest from the minute you begin reading.
  
  This book is a tribute to all of those who suffered, survived, perished, and helped in any way possible during history's darkest hours.
  
  Mr. Gillham did an outstanding job of researching as well as using a creative method of portraying Anne Frank's life as it may have been even though she did not survive the Holocaust.
  
  Through Mr. Gillham’s marvelous writing style we are transported back in time as we experience what Anne experienced during her captivity and as she tries to re-enter her previous life that is always filled with the presence and reminders of her captors and how she had to comply.
  
  ANNELIES is a beautiful, heartfelt book you will want to absorb with attention to every detail.
  
  Anne seems as though she was and would have been a feisty young lady that the world has missed and could have learned from. 5/5
  
  This book was given to me as ARC by the author in exchange for an honest review.