Structure

The book is divided into 32 chapters, and also includes an Epilogue, Postscript, and 'What Happened to..." section to give readers insight to what life was like for the characters after the war. The chapters are short, and contain one or two major events, and have no special naming convention. The storyline interweaves between characters and passages from novels hidden in the concentration camp to add context to certain situations. However, given that the novel is a biographical fiction, it is worth noting that the narrator is providing a third-person account of the life events of Dita Kraus.

The story follows one major storyline, and that is of a young girl from Prague who is sent to Auschwitz with her family, fighting to survive against the Nazi regime, while simultaneously caring for a collection of eight novels smuggled into the camp by Jewish prisoners. However, along the journey...