The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank

I'm running out of backdrop ideas.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Notes in the Marginz. Clearly I've been doing a fantastically shitty job at running this blog, and while I haven't updated, I have read books! This is the first of three that I read and haven't written reviews about, so while I apologize for my absence, you'll have three new posts. It's like I'm almost doubling my blog. According to Goodreads, I started this book on March 13 and finished it March 15. The only book between this and my last post that I was attempting to read was George Orwell's 1984, which I have basically given up on and will be the last book I read for this project. If you live under a rock, TDOAYG is Anne Frank's diary. She was a Jewish girl whose family was hiding from the German army during World War II. If you don't live under a rock, you're probably wondering how the heck I haven't read this, and if I actually live under a rock. Well, now I have, I live in my parents' house, and let's get into it.

At least my nails look good.

This is, all things considered, a young girl's diary. I somehow expected something "greater" than that, but at its core, it's not misnamed. Anne has to hide with her entire family, another family, and, later, a dentist who are all in danger of being taken to one of Hitler's concentration camps. They were a group of eight people! They are there for two years and are helped by a small number of people who take them food, drink, and other supplies, as well as news. The three children in the hideaway were all in school still, and were constantly teaching themselves new information from schoolbooks and challenging themselves. They were preparing for a life after their hiding place, and unfortunately, only Anne Frank's father, Otto, survived. The end of the diary includes a history of the war and gives you information on everyone in the Secret Annex.

I bought this copy used off of Amazon. It shows.

The entire time I was reading Anne Frank's diary I felt extremely sad. At times, yes, Anne is upset and bleak about her situation and getting out of their hidden space. But she's also hopeful. She develops an interesting relationship with everyone in the hideout with her. Tensions run high between everyone in the hiding place. If at any point I felt myself feeling bored, I was instantly reminded that, at this girl's young age, she showed an extreme amount of maturity and bravery. If I had been in the same situation, I would have been wildly depressed. Anne has a backbone and a will and it's extremely inspiring. Eleanor Roosevelt also wrote the foreword, and in it, she says something to the effect of how sad it is that we never got to see more from such an inspirational mind. She was a writer and I believe we could have seen wonderful things from her. It's somewhat ordinary subject matter - a diary, a girl, and her emotions - but when you pull yourself out of it, this girl went through something completely heartbreaking, and it's incredibly sobering. Rest in peace, Anne Frank.

NOTES IN THE MARGINZ FACTS

Book number: 5

Books left: 334

Amount of time taken to read: 2 days

Books by Anne Frank for NiTM: sadly, this is the only one

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