I finished this afternoon. Earlier, I thought I might try to say something intelligent about things I thought/felt as I was reading, but then I actually got to the last few chapters and I'm very "..."

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One thing I will say is that I enjoyed the fact that this book looks a historical period we generally tend to think we KNOW about, whether from history class or from reading other books, and makes you connect emotionally to it on a different level. I don't know that I've ever read a book set during WW2 from the perspective of a German citizen, specifically a child, and I think the war ends up being just as much a character as anyone else. I kind of felt this way after reading The Help, when I felt like intellectually I understood what the characters were going through before reading, but the book actually took me into the reality of what living that experience was like. I dunno if I'm making sense, but I just enjoyed that the author could do that for me.