THE BOY BETWEEN WORLDS, the cruelty is the point

THE BOY BETWEEN WORLDS
ANNEJET van der ZIJL (tr. Kristen Gehrman)
Amazon Crossing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: This is the emotionally stirring story of unlikely lovers who brave the bigotry of their era, only to be victims of the even larger forces of history at work in World War II.

The plight of Anna (a lively and charismatic woman) and her much younger second husband Waldemar (an immigrant from the Dutch colony of Suriname), and the fate of their only child, Waldy, after his parents are murdered in the Nazi concentration camp for the crime of harboring Jews in their boarding house is unforgettable.

Waldemar is unique as a biracial young man in post WWII Netherlands—and his search for his own path in life is sure to engage even the hardest hearts.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: A story that requires some investment of effort to acquire the specific time and place's attitudes to mostly understand the action. I's all here...you're not doing research. But for about 30ish percent of the read you're not being told the story of a boy, his parents, and how the forces of the outside world break in and break up a family.

World War II...care to guess who the villains are? You guessed it: the neighbors! Nazis are the means to the end of punishing people you hate because you feel like it. This is a read that twangs every string in your heart, that personalizes every childish sob, that removes the veil of routine from every cruel "rule" or "order" or "law" that was designed to hurt ordinary people living their lives because you either like that or do not care enough to oppose it.

It's a cheap read. Gift its drama and its deeply emotional true story to someone who needs it more than I'm sure you don't.