Parallel_Journeys

Parallel Journeys Often reading the blurb on the back cover of a novel is a good indication of whether or not you will enjoy the book. This is very much the case when I picked up “Parallel Journeys” by Eleanor Ayer. The front cover features Adolf Hitler with thousands of his young supporters hailing him during World War Two. Books about the war usually depress me so usually I wouldn’t read them, but this book appealed to me because of the faces of two teenagers on the front cover. The lead me to read the back cover which simply said- “She was a young German Jew. He was an ardent member of the Hitler Youth. This is their story of their parallel journey through World War II.” What a great idea for a book! To compare two people who had completely different experiences of the war and to let them tell their stories side by side. When I first started reading this book I noticed how different it was to some of the other novels I have read. Firstly, it is very chilling to realize that while this is in the form of a novel, it is also non-fiction. It isn’t based on a true story, people, war, book, german, world, today, children, jewish, hitler, different, alfons, young, teenagers, live, years, very, taught, reading, read, millions, living, ago, whether, two, think, tell, story, really, one, must, million, helen, happened, germany, fifty, cover, camps, being, been, australia, without, tired, times, through, society, parents, now, just, jews, heck, hate