Sad it is, grim – in laces definitely but it is leavened by Felix’s youthful exuberance and desires for a normal life, a family, wondering if Gabriek wants a son or Yuli a family. Morris Gleitzman has captured the voice of a 13 year old living through the most horrific of times and by rights this book should be grim, sad and depressing.

I have met and spoken to Survivors from the Holocaust and I think that this my be part of the reason that After moved me so much.Īfter finishing the book I did not think that I would be able to write a review, but here it is. It is a work of fiction but one that addresses real events, things that happened that are still within living memory.

This book has affected me emotionally more than any book I have read in recently, sure there have been books that made me well up a bit here and there but After is different. Set in the dying months of the Second World War it continues Felix’s story as a refugee and a partisan but always a survivor… They ruined my thirteenth birthday I was determinedĪfter is the fourth book about Felix, but chronologically it is the third in his story falling between Then and Now.

Once then after now morris gleitzman