All the Broken Places is a sequel to the much loved John Boyne novel 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.'
It tells the story of Gretel, the former protagonist's sister, in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the downfall of the Nazi regime.
It is written in both present day London (2022) , giving a nod to recent world wide events and also across the years spanning the immediate ending of the war, allowing the reader to experience life through Gretel in Sydney, France and London. The storyline has some twists and turns and I loved the ending and the journey that Gretel goes on to get there.
The novel brings deep questions up - such as culpability, forgiveness and redemption and the lengths we go to in life so that we are able to live with ourselves after traumatic experiences. Wider questions of responsibility and ignorance too are not shied away from.

The author's notes at the end of the novel are super interesting as well and give insight into how Gretel was conceived as a character. I know there has been a lot of controversy about TBITSP in terms of historical accuracy, but as a teacher of literature I have always chosen to see the book as symbolic rather than actual fact.
All the Broken Places is a brilliant read, with a fascinating character, and - one whom the author rightly says the reader will need to decide whether or not she deserves to have her story told.

Many thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an Advanced Release copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book of contrasts. It is soul-destroying and uplifting at the same time. It played with my head, my heart and my emotions and I feel exhausted after reading it but devastated it’s finished. John Boyle is a master storyteller and this book is another testament to this.

As someone who has not yet read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or seen the film I wondered if this would affect my appreciation of this sequel, All The Broken Places; the answer is an emphatic no. In this novel, the reader is treated to Gretel Fernsby's story in the years after the war and the devastating loss of her nine-year-old brother. It moves in time from 1946 up until the present day. Beautifully written with fantastic characterisation.

This review was written voluntarily and my rating was in no way influenced by the fact that I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Random House UK, Transworld Publishers via NetGalley.

91 year old Gretel cannot escape her past, but she can hide it from others. A heart-rending story of the effect that Nazis had on their families as well as their victims.

I’m shattered after reading this book. There are a lot of heavy topics including the holocaust and domestic abuse.. From the first chapter I was totally absorbed. It was hard to know whether to like Gretel or not, and at the end I kinda did like her and feel sorry for how she ended up - but at the same time, felt she was where she wanted to be.
I enjoyed the span of the stories right from when Gretal was 12 to 92. It’s a long time since I read “the boy in the striped pyjamas” but you do recall the tragedy as you read further into this book. Loved the twist that comes late in the book about the neighbour, and was very taken with the new daughter in law Eleanor.
I was a little nervous going into the book, given the publicity around holocaust survivors reaction to the previous book. On the one hand you want to respect their memories and on the other you want to learn/feel something about the events - and reading fiction does help understand, even though it is not always accurate.
I devoured this book and it was one of my top reads for the month.

Following Gretel who has lived in the same apartment in London for over 60 years. This is an evocative read that goes deep in to Gretels memories and life. Beautifully written, despite the painful subject matters, this is a read that will keep you turning the pages.

This was a really enjoyable read and I loved the writing style. The pacing was really well done and I liked the main character a lot.

It was refreshing to revisit the story of Gretel and explore her character more and see the development in her character throughout the years. The alternating POVS between past and present were excellent.

The story was powerful and really thought provoking.

All The Broken Places is the follow up story to the Boy In the Striped Pyjamas – a book which had me sobbing on a packed commuter train many years ago.

This time we hear the story of 91 year old Gretel, Bruno’s elder sister who is now living in London and trying to put her dark past behind her, but she finds that she cannot shrug off the guilt of her father’s War Crimes.

Now a widow with a grown up son and living in Mayfair, Gretel finds herself defending a young boy who has moved into the apartment below.

This is another thought provoking read yet again from John Boyne. It is a powerful tale following on from Bruno and Shmuel.

I read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas many years ago with my children and found it very moving so I was keen to read this sequel. It was beautifully written, absorbing and thought provoking and I absolutely loved it. Highly recommended.

What a fabulous book. Loved hearing all the different stories of Gretels life and how she felt for the sins of her father. And the end!!!

It's been years since I read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas so I thought I might feel a little unawares going into this but that wasn't the case at all. This is beautifully written though harrowing and tragic at times, utterly compelling and like nothing I've read before. I found some of the cliches and stereotypes a little jarring but I can look beyond them. It's a fantastic use of the dual timeline and a must read if you're looking for historical fiction around this subject.

I have the feeling I may be one of the few people in the world who has not read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas or seen the film adaptation. I wondered if this would effect my appreciation of this, its sequel; the answer is a definite no. In fact All The Broken Places may be one of the most memorable and thought-provoking novels I read this year. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve found it so difficult to write a review that will do it justice. (I’m still not sure I have.)

Moving between past and present, we gradually learn about Gretel’s childhood and the impact her proximity to the horrific events of the Holocaust has had on her. Having had an early taste of what her identity becoming known might result in, the majority of Gretel’s life has been spent hiding her past, adopting new identities when disclosure is threatened, moving to new places and being in a constant state of watchfulness.

In addition, she has lived with a constant sense of guilt – at the dreadful things that took place ‘on the other side of the fence’ and her part in the death of a loved one. ‘Guilt was what kept you awake in the middle of the night or, if you managed to sleep, poisoned your dreams. Guilt intruded upon any happy moments, whispering in your ear that you had no right to pleasure. Guilt followed you down streets, interrupting the most mundane moments with remembrances of days and hours when you could have done something to prevent tragedy but chose to do nothing.’ Managing those feelings of guilt has meant repressing unwelcome memories. There are photographs Gretel can’t bear to look at, a location she refers to only as ‘that other place’, a name she can’t bear to say.

There are a number of occasions on which Gretel is challenged about her defence that she was ‘just a child’ and had no knowledge of what was taking place. And, that even if it was true, she did nothing after the war to help bring the perpetrators to justice. In fact that she took deliberate steps to avoid this. When, soon after the end of the war, she is presented with indisputable evidence of what occurred and how close she was to that cruelty, the effect on her is so unbearable it results in a catastrophic act and the destruction of a relationship.

In the book there are not just broken places but broken people too. Gretel, of course, but also her mother, and Gretel’s new neighbour Madelyn.

There are moments of light amongst the darkness. For example, Gretel’s tender relationship with her vulnerable neighbour, Heidi, and the way she bonds with young Henry. And Edgar, Gretel’s late husband, whom we meet at the very beginning of their relationship, is a wonderful model of devotion, understanding and acceptance.

All the Broken Places is an unsparing exploration of how the sins of the past can weigh on individuals and the burden of complicity. ‘By doing nothing, you did everything. By taking no responsibility, you bear all responsibility.’ The book poses some difficult questions. If someone you love commits terrible acts is it right to still love them? Can anything you do ever make up for the sins of others? Is taking one life to save another justified?

I’m not sure the actions Gretel takes at the end of the book represent sufficient reparation given the scale of the evil that occurred in ‘that other place’ but I got the sense Gretel thought they did and she viewed the consequences of her actions as a kind of justice, as the punishment she deserved.

In his afterword, the author states his belief that, for all the mistakes in her life and her complicity in evil, Gretel’s story is still worth telling but it’s up to the reader to decide if it’s worth reading. My conclusion is an unequivocal yes.

Having just re-read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas before reading its sequel I knew this was not to be a light read. It is breath-takingly beautiful and devastating all at once.

In All the Broken Places, we get to hear Gretel's story in the years after the war and the devastating loss of her nine year old brother. We move in time from 1946 up until the present day. Gretel is formidable now but she has suffered terribly with feelings of guilt, of grief and shame. Haunted by her family's secrets and her own, she has had to live a life of lies. And the cost of this weighs heavy.

When a new family move into the apartment below her, she is at first dreading it. They have a nine year old son, Henry. But Henry and her soon form a bond, and when it becomes clear that Henry is being hurt, Gretel knows she has to finally save a life - in her own way - atoning for her long-held shame.

Beautifully written, deeply thought-provoking and incredibly moving, this is a triumphant sequel.

I haven't read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas however that didn't stop me being able to pick up and enjoy this book. The author provides sufficient detail for the reader to be able to understand what has happened previously and although this is obviously just the basics it is enough. I certainly didn't feel disadvantaged by not having read the first.
This book covers several time periods for the main character who is dealing with the issues of her past and the story flows very well I didn't actually raise just how much I had read on my first go until I put it down. This is a very well written novel and the author has described the life of the characters and the locations extremely well.
Thanks to the publisher, author and NetGalley for my advance copy for review purposes. I am only giving this 4 stars however as it's not the type of story which I normally go for and therefore I wasn't completely gripped by it however the writing is excellent.

If you read the first book, “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, then this is a must read. Beautifully written. Pulls at your heartstrings

91-year old Gretel seems a quiet widow, living in a prestigious mansion block but Gretel has secrets. When a young family moves into the flat below she befriends their nine-year old son but realises that both are in danger. Gretel is forced to confront the past that she hides, one which would lead to her vilification, as she has a choice to save young Hugo. Will she make a different choice to the one she made about her own brother?
Much is made of this book being a sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas but it can be read independently and there might be a lot to be said for reading it at a distance of time as I did. The story is a real slow-burner, Gretel's life after the war is always coloured by her family's links but bother the historical and the modern are beautifully described. I found the ending a little forced and unreal but really it did not detract from a heartfelt story about victims.

Following on from The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, this follows Gretel who is now in her 90's and is feeling very guilty about her past and her involvement in Auschwitz. The story moves from present to past. Totally compelling, a difficult read, it's tragic, harrowing, a story which has to be told, has to be read.

All the Broken Places is the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and tells the story of Gretel, Bruno's sister. After the war Gretel's father is executed and she and her mother move to France where they live under assumed names. Unfortunately their real identity is discovered and they are subjected to a humiliating ordeal. After her mother's death Gretel moves to Australia where she is happy for a time but yet again her past comes back to haunt her. She then moves to England where she finds a job, eventually marries and has a son. She lives for decades in a mansion block overlooking Hyde Park and aged 91 she is widowed but enjoying life. The apartment below Gretel's is sold and a new couple with a 9 year old son move in. Gretel is disturbed by the treatment meted out to the wife and son by the bullying DeWitt and decides that she must do something about it. However she could put herself at risk of exposing her own secret.

John Boyne is a great story teller. I've enjoyed reading this book and all of his previous books and look forward to his next one.

I was sent a copy of All The Broken Places by John Boyne to read and review by NetGalley. This novel, written by one of my all-time favourite authors, is a follow on from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It is all at once wonderful, terrible, poignant, harrowing and totally compelling. We follow the life of Gretel, now in her 90s, with chapters moving between her history and the present day. I found I was engrossed in the story, which was totally believable to me, with my emotions fluctuating every which way throughout. For me this is an incredibly important book, both in what it says and how it says it – a modern masterpiece.

All The Broken Places was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it didn’t disappoint! I'm happy to say that it fell firmly in the sequel-I-didn’t-know-I-needed category.

Spanning decades and countries in-between the present day, the book explores Gretel’s life after the war, her grief, guilt, and heavy conscience as she tries to find balance after the horrors her father inflicted at Auschwitz (and that she wasn’t completely ignorant to as much as she pretends to be). We follow her and her mother as they flee to France and try to blend in with the locals, changing their identities in a bid to leave their German pasts behind. We also see Gretel escape to the other side of the world for a fresh start but alas, her nightmares continue to follow her. In the present day, Gretel, now in her 90s lives in her affluent London apartment where she has remained since travelling to England after Sydney. When a young boy and his parents move in downstairs, she struggles to stay calm - young boys still remind her of the time before. But when she realises the boy needs her help, she puts her anxieties aside, accidentally getting herself mixed up in a domestic upheaval that will upend her life completely.

Gretel was one of the best flawed characters I’ve ever read about. Her story and actions opened up so many conflicting feelings as we had to imagine how we would have dealt with certain situations and sought redemption for our actions. As a minor character in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, it was interesting to see things from her perspective, both during the war and the chains of events that followed.

It was beautifully written and researched, with characters both new and familiar. The ending was both unexpected and exhilarating - it felt like the perfect closure for both Gretel and the readers.

I highly recommend this one, especially for those that, like me, first discovered WW2 fiction through The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I think I even enjoyed this one more which I didn't think was even possible.