The Painted Bird

A hard, yet beautiful read

There’s a lot of controversy surrounding this book (the graphic content, was it autobiographical, did the author actually write it), but aside from this I actually found this to be a quite stimulating, albeit hard read despite its short length. Sadistic and masochistic at times (you find yourself wondering just how much abuse one ten-year-old boy can take), it does compel the reader to continue on despite the horrors and atrocities plaguing World War II Poland and root for the protagonist despite his harrowing plight.