I totally shipped Anne and Peter in the movie

I finished The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank this evening, an alternate history story about Peter van Pels (or van Daan in the Frank diary) surviving the Holocaust and moving to the United States. It starts off somewhat slow, and doesn't really pick up until he finds out about the publication of Anne Frank's diary (the action starts in 1952).

The book does a good job exploring both survivors' guilt and the reactions of Jews living in the States, who weren't necessarily directly affected by the Holocaust, but had to confront what it meant for their religion. How can they live a normal life in the New Jersey suburbs?

I found Peter intriguing, and could pretty much understand why he did what he did throughout the book...but I found myself not liking him. His actions frustrated me, and I just kind of wanted to grab him and shake him. Yet it at all made sense. So kudos to the author for that.

I also learned that "Dussel" in German means "idiot."

It did make me want to go back and reread the diary, so that may be the next book on my agenda. And maybe some of the critical works about it.