The Little Liar
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4.5 • 212 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with his most important novel to date, an unforgettable story of truth and lies set during the Holocaust.
Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis has never told a lie. When the Nazis invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is persuade his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading “north,” where new jobs and safety await. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy reassures passengers on the station platform every day.
But when the final train is loaded, Nico sees his family being herded into a boxcar. Only then does he discover that he has helped send them—and everyone he knows and loves—to their doom at Auschwitz.
Nico escapes—but he never tells the truth again.
In The Little Liar, Mitch Albom examines the human repercussions of deception by interweaving the stories of Nico, who yearns for forgiveness; his older brother, Sebastian, who vows revenge against him; Fannie, the girl who must choose between them; and Udo Graf, the Nazi officer who forever changed their lives with his lies.
Through the war years, the concentration camps, and the decades that follow, Albom reveals the consequences of each person’s honesty and dishonesty, bringing them back to where it all started in a staggering climax worthy of the best of Albom’s internationally embraced stories.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Mitch Albom loads industrial-sized themes like guilt and truth into The Little Liar and ends up with an inspiring tale. Nazis have invaded Salonika, Greece, where they start sending Jewish people to death camps. Unscrupulous German soldier Udo deceives young Nico, an unfailingly honest boy, into telling other Jewish people the trains are taking them to new homes. This starts a cycle of lies, death, resentment, and shame that goes from WWII all the way to the 1980s and includes Nico’s brother, Sebastian, as well as Fannie, the girl beloved by both brothers. The storytelling alone is gripping—Albom captures intimate details as well as all the drama of the novel’s epic sweep. But he takes dazzling artistic liberties, too, like having the personification of truth tell the story, addressing the reader directly along the way. In Albom’s narration, you can feel what’s driving him—not just the darkness of the setting but the brightness of the spirituality and hope transcending it all. It’s historical fiction with a hint of the otherworldly and a lot of heart.
Customer Reviews
Excellent
Wonderful reader. He made the book more interesting than it was. Good read, just not to of my list.
Excellent story telling
This author is a master storyteller. I listened to this in 2 days. A must read so we never forget the truth.
Exceptional
One of the best books of our time. Excellent in every way.