I'm a huge fan of alternate history books, but I'll admit this one made me feel conflicted.
As an experiment in storytelling, in imagining what could have been, it was interesting. But when dealing with the very personal story of one particular girl and her family, there's a fine line to tread between fiction and reality.

The story deals in detail with the issues faced by camp survivors, including anger and of survivor's guilt, as well as optimism, hope and the question of forgiveness. We are shown a potential future for Anne which history so cruelly denied her, but in the end I wonder whether it would have been more sensitive to have written this story about a fictional character, and whether assigning it to Anne was to latch on to her fame and pull in readers because of it.

This would still have been a powerful story had it not been explicitly "about" Anne Frank. I think, on balance, I would have preferred it had this been the case.

An interesting take on the well known life of Anne Frank. David Gillham has been brave in giving us this alternative view on her life, should she have survived the death camps. Although it is purely fiction I was horrified at the behaviour of Anne, who appeared as a spoilt teenager, petulant, prone to arguments with everyone and anyone, angry at the world for the injustice done to her family. I almost felt as though her memory was being tarnished, however we cannot imagine the emotions and guilt of being a survivor. Worth reading for the details of Amsterdam before, after and during the war.

Thanks to Netgalley the author and publishers for a copy of this book.

I was unsure of how I felt about this book before reading it, The Diary of Anne Frank was such an important part of mine (and most peoples) childhood reading that I was worried that trying to give her a different ending wouldn't work. However I found story compelling and at times it moved me to tears. The relationships Anne has with herself, her father and others around her, her guilt at having survived and the anger towards those closest to her for both surviving & not protecting her and her sister are cleverly played out in the book. I found the ending the weakest part of the story - it was almost as if the author didn't know how to finish the story but this didn't detract from the overall enjoyment I had from reading this book.
Well worth reading.

I am afraid that i really struggled with this book - liked the idea initially but after downloading i had "buyer's remorse" and just couldn't get over a few material facts. It doesn't mirror the voice of Anne in her diary, nor does it build out from the fact that her life had been saved. I think it does a diservice to her memory.

I couldn't read on, no doubt there is a place for historical fiction but this book just doesn't work for me.

I began reading this novel at virtually the same time my twelve year old daughter began reading Anne Frank’s Diary for the first time. How well I recall reading it myself, at around the same age, and the utter, disbelieving shock, when the writing was abruptly cut off…

This novel begins with Anne, Margot and her parents, before they went into hiding. We follow her story, while in the Annexe, after the arrest and then, when she returns. In reality, of course, only Otto Frank survived. Thankfully, Anne’s diary was saved and that is testament to the longings, emotions and feelings of a young girl whose words are a testament to not only her life, but to all those lives lost.

As such, although it was done respectfully, I tended to think of this not as Anne Frank, necessarily, but of others who were thrown back into life after the war. How were they supposed to go from the horrors of concentration camps, to returning to some kind of twisted reality? Loved ones gone, a community in tatters, and themselves so changed? It is here that this novel works best, as Anne tries to cope with life after the war, and her father attempts to keep his daughter close, while she has moved beyond his influence.

To me, this novel had a young adult feel and would be an interesting companion to the diary; highlighting the various emotions that survivors had to cope with – through anger, fear, confusion and guilt. I would rate this 3.5 if I could, but have rounded it up to 4.0. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

Although this is undoubtedly intended as an act of homage to Anne Frank, I worry that it actually does a disservice to her: in imaging her survival after Bergen-Belsen, it takes away the tragic arc of her life.

I might have been able to get behind this book if the voice had been closer to the original diary but I didn't find it a convincing act of ventriloquism. Too many comments are trite rather than just youthfully innocent ('Anne is absorbing the details with excitement because she positively adores fashion,', 'to think Maurits is facing daily life toiling in a German factory or some abominable work camp, it's horrifying!') and there are some abysmal cliches such as Anne in a Red Cross camp after liberation just wanting a mirror then despairing at her ruined looks.

The whole thing feels like YA to me: the sentiments and the language in which they are couched are unconvincingly simplistic and obvious, and lack, somehow, the simple sincerity and authenticity of the diary.

I'm not automatically against the idea of imagining an 'afterlife' for Anne, though it is a problematic concept (will younger/new readers believe she really did survive?) - I just don't think this book does it with sufficient sensitivity to the character and voice of the original diary. A bold experiment, but not one I can wholeheartedly applaud.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley

Annelies intrigued and repelled me equally. The Diary of a young girl was a major part of reading life as a child and I loved it. The thing is that at first glance I was confused when I started reading. A string of numbers appeared in the copy which made it difficult and almost impossible to read. I was on the verge of setting it down at many points. The cover wasn't very appealing either.

If I look at it from the story point of view, well the author has done due diligence in doing his research. The story feels real but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel as if I was betraying her memory for a reason. Especially since she isn't around to defend herself.

First of all some advice to anyone reading the ARC of this novel on Kindle. It is indeed very difficult to read with all the formatting marks included. Download the PDF to a computer and you will find a perfectly readable version (this advice will be omitted from any published review).

Like many others I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was a child myself. It had a profound effect on me. There I was, a twelve year old girl, Catholic, reading this more than twenty years after the death of the fourteen year old Jewish writer. And yet, I identified completely with Anne. The quality of her writing was such that I was there in the annexe with her, feeling her frustration and anger and also her hopes for the future. I read it again many years later and still found it extremely moving and relevant and it will remain a great work of literature for all time. I watched tv and stage dramatisations of the diary and always found them lacking. I was therefore very wary of this book, but felt compelled to read it.

The question I have to ask myself is why write such a book? Is it something that should be done or should we demand that Anne Frank's memory remain unsullied by fictional accounts? I don't know why someone would write such a book. The first part of it, which is concerned with Anne's life immediately before they had to go into hiding followed by the part of her life which she examines so well herself in the diary is not problematic. I recognised the Anne in the novel as the Anne from the diaries. Episodes are fictionalised yet stay faithful to what we already know. For me this part of the book is unproblematic. We have many examples of fictionalised accounts of someone's life which add to our knowledge of of them and I see no reason why a writer wouldn't want to expand on the diary. However the rest of the book is more difficult. The author imagines that Anne did not die at Belsen as she did but survived and returned to Amsterdam where she is reunited with her father, Pim. In the novel their relationship is strained when Pim marries a divorcee (a made up character to replace the woman Otto Frank actually married) and almost breaks completely when Anne's hopes for her future collide violently with her father's views. I don't think this adds to anything written by Anne Frank herself. The author imagines the type of person Anne would have become and to be honest, she doesn't come across as well as I would have thought she would. Her selfishness (for which she berates herself in the diary) comes to the fore but in fact no one can know if this is a trait that would have dominated her adult life. To be fair it is softened as she gets older but still rankles a bit.

The author has done his best to be historically accurate and lists the research done in an afterword. And it is extensive. The novel is also well written though nowhere is it as compelling as the original diary. Nonetheless I am still left with an uncomfortable feeling after reading it and wonder if by fictionalising Anne Frank, the author has done her a disservice. If it draws more people to read the real diaries then perhaps not but if it induces (as I read in one amateur review) people to exclaim at the fact that Anne actually lived and didn't die as mentioned in prefaces to her diaries (!) then i despair. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the ARC.

I found this story an interesting premise although I was unsure if the author could create something that would not dishonour Anne's memory.

As it turns out, I was unable to read the text due to poor formatting. The numbers throughout the novel made it impossible to follow and there seemed to be notes which did not seem to be part of the story.

I may consider reading this book in the future but unfortunately, I could not manage to read this version.

Really interesting premise that I was really intrigued by.

Unfortunately the formatting of the galley was so poor as to make it impossible to follow. Initially I wondered if the random inserts were part of the story but then realised that they were editorial insertions which had been left in error. The random numbering across the novel also broke the flow.

Unfortunately, my time is limited and despite my interest, I had to give up on this one as the poor quality of the formatting made it not enjoyable.