⭐️⭐️/ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Giving a bad review to a book based on a true story feels close to heartless—especially when the plot is set during the Second World War and includes the Holocaust—but the Tattooist of Auschwitz is a bright exception to the rule. 

It is not the story that is bad — it is the writing.

The book recounts a story of Lale Sokolov, a Slovak jew transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, who gets a “privileged” job as a tattooist thanks to his knowledge of several languages. While permanently marking his fellow prisoners, Lale falls in love with a girl he tattoos as number 34902. Without knowing anything about her, he vows to survive the horrific atrocities of the war and marry her when it ends.

This overrated international bestseller has all the right ingredients to be an immense success: There are horrific true events. There is drama, love in a hopeless place and a fight for survival. Yet one very essential element is missing — prose.

The author Heather Morris reportedly worked on the story for over four years, but the result does not show such dedication or hard work. After finishing the book, I was not surprised to learn that Morris is actually a screenplay writer and this book was her debut, for it feels more as a collection of scene descriptions than an actual story.

It is difficult to have empathy for the main characters because they never really develop any personality. Lale, although a brave hero who uses his position to help other prisoners, does not come across as a compassionate and caring helper thanks to a lack of storytelling. Gita, the love of his life, does not seem to have any feelings in general, let alone toward Lale. 

There are no emotions and no atmosphere even when readers find themselves surrounded by piles of dead bodies. The dialogues are vague, empty and straight to the point, and seem almost as a shortened summary of sentences to get the plot going, instead of an oral testament to one of the most horrific events in human history.

And finally, there are jumps between days and places within paragraphs or even sentences. Such chaos adds to the already established confusion making the reader work too hard to stay oriented in the plot development and taking away from the experience, goose bumps and feelings the book could have evoked.

Unlike biography, calling the book a historical fiction gives the author the liberty to add little twists to the plot and exaggerate when (and if) needed. But Morris took this liberty and turned the volume of the emotional spectrum to mute. Sad to say, it is a waste of an amazing story on an incapable writer. 

Thank universe there is an afterword by a person who can attest to all mentioned information first hand and add a personal perspective, which is probably the most emotional part of the whole reading experience.

Saying all that, I sincerely apologize to Lale Sokolov and his Gita for the words I felt to be my duty to write. I find their story to be an important testament to the horrors of the Holocaust and to the immense suffering in conditions unimaginable to those of us who only read about it. I just wish someone else received the honor to recount the horrors of their lives.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is undeniably a story that needs to be heard, not necessarily a book that needs to be read.