Setting and Timeline of Gretel's Story
Boyne explains that the sequel picks up in 2022 London with Bruno's sister Gretel at age 91, alternating across key periods in 1946 Paris, 1950s Sydney, and post-war London.
Reviewed
Read Time
8 min read
Age & reading levelAdult
Reader rating
4.6 · 35,569 Amazon ratings
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Our review
All the Broken Places
All the Broken Places: A Novel by John Boyne Review: A Haunting Sequel About Guilt and Atonement
by John Boyne
All the Broken Places is a historical fiction novel by New York Times bestselling author John Boyne — a sequel to his book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas — that follows Gretel Fernsby, now 91 years old and living quietly in a London mansion block, as the arrival of a new family forces her to confront decades of buried guilt over her father's role as commandant of a Nazi extermination camp, her own complicity, and her part in her brother Bruno's death.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers of serious Holocaust fiction who are drawn to perpetrator-adjacent moral perspectives, particularly those already familiar with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and interested in exploring questions of complicity, generational guilt, and late-in-life reckoning across a dual-timeline narrative.
Worth it if
You're willing to sit with a weightier, more expansive canvas than its predecessor and want a richly interior character study in which the architecture of guilt — Gretel's silence, her father's crimes, and her failure to act — is pressed against a present-day moral crisis.
Skip if
You're expecting the taut, fable-like compression of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas — or if ongoing critical debate about that novel's historical framing of the Holocaust gives you pause about engaging with its sequel.
What readers & critics say
The Guardian called the novel "gripping, well honed and very much aimed at adults," praising Gretel's voice as "smart, engaging and uncompromising" and the construction as "consummately constructed, humming with tension until past and present collide," as retrieved from theguardian.com. Kirkus Reviews offered a more measured verdict, describing it as "a complex, thoughtful character study that avoids easy answers" while noting that the alternating narratives contribute to "some avoidable repetitiousness in the writing and an occasional sense of aimlessness in the plot," as retrieved from kirkusreviews.com.
“It is gripping, well honed and very much aimed at adults — Gretel's smart, engaging and uncompromising voice draws the reader in deftly.”
— The Guardian“A complex, thoughtful character study that avoids easy answers — an old woman seen at key moments in a lifelong struggle with guilt-laden secrets.”
— Kirkus Reviews4.6from 35,569 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
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All the Broken Places is a morally weighty work of adult historical fiction by John Boyne, following 91-year-old Gretel Fernsby as she reckons — across a dual timeline spanning postwar Paris, Rouen, and present-day London — with her lifelong complicity in her father's role as commandant of Auschwitz and the death of her brother Bruno. The Guardian's verdict of "consummately constructed, humming with tension" captures the novel's considerable craft, though readers should be prepared for a broader, denser canvas than the taut fable of its predecessor, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It is best suited to readers drawn to perpetrator-adjacent Holocaust literature, moral reckoning across a lifetime, and richly layered character psychology.
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers drawn to Holocaust literature that centres perpetrator-adjacent perspectives and moral reckoning across a lifetime, All the Broken Places offers genuine rewards: The Guardian praised it as 'gripping, well honed and very much aimed at adults,' and John Irving called its 'magnitude and emotional impact' something that cannot be prepared for. Gretel Fernsby is a richly drawn, morally complex narrator, and Boyne's structural decision to delay the full picture of her guilt generates real suspense. The key caveat is pacing — critics noted some 'avoidable repetitiousness in the writing and an occasional sense of aimlessness in the plot,' and readers expecting the taut economy of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas will find this a considerably denser, slower-cohering novel. Prospective readers may also wish to research the ongoing critical debate around the historical framing of the Holocaust in Boyne's work before engaging.
- Similar books
- Readers drawn to All the Broken Places tend to gravitate toward fiction that grapples with historical atrocity, moral complicity, and lives shaped by guilt. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is a natural companion — also set against the Holocaust, though from a survivor's perspective rather than a perpetrator-adjacent one. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink is particularly close in spirit, centering a German narrator's reckoning with complicity and silence across decades. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro shares the architecture of a lifetime of suppressed guilt examined in old age, while Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers a comparably serious engagement with atrocity and its long aftermath. For something lighter in register but equally preoccupied with second chances and the weight of the past, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig offers a thought-provoking companion read.
- Who should read this?
- All the Broken Places is written explicitly for an adult audience and will resonate most strongly with readers drawn to Holocaust literature that centres perpetrator-adjacent perspectives — those interested in guilt, complicity, and the long reach of historical atrocity into everyday life. It is particularly well suited to readers who engage with questions of generational guilt, survivor identity, and late-in-life moral courage, and to those already familiar with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas who want to follow Gretel's story into adulthood. Readers expecting a quick, propulsive read in the vein of its predecessor should be aware that this is a considerably denser novel with a much broader canvas.
- About John Boyne
- John Boyne is an Irish novelist and writer.
- What are the main themes?
- The novel's driving themes are complicity, guilt, and the cycles of grief that world-shaking historical events set in motion across generations. Gretel's sense of guilt is described in the review as 'a complex amalgam of feelings about her father's role in the death camp, her initial ignorance and eventual realization of what Auschwitz represented, her silence after the war, and the part she thinks she played in Bruno's death.' Boyne draws a deliberate structural parallel between Gretel's wartime passivity and the moral choice she faces in present-day London — making the novel's argument explicit that complicity is not only a historical sin. The subplot involving Gretel's mother Elsa, who drifts toward pro-Nazi sentiment in the postwar years, adds further moral complexity to the novel's dense thematic fabric.
- Is this a good book club pick?
- All the Broken Places is rich in discussion material and well suited to a serious book club. The central moral question — what does a bystander owe the world, then and now? — is designed to generate debate, and the parallel Boyne draws between Gretel's wartime passivity and her present-day crossroads gives that question concrete narrative stakes. The ongoing critical conversation about the historical framing of Boyne's Holocaust fiction, noted in the LuvemBooks review, offers an additional layer of context for groups interested in engaging with literary reception alongside the novel itself. Critics' observations about occasional plot aimlessness may also be worth discussing in the context of how the dual timeline serves — or sometimes strains — the novel's ambitions.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
About John Boyne
What are the main themes?
Is this a good book club pick?
Summarize this book
All the Broken Places picks up the story of Gretel — Bruno's older sister from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas — now 91-year-old Gretel Fernsby, living quietly in a Mayfair flat in present-day London after decades of deliberate silence about her childhood beside Auschwitz and her father's role as its commandant. The novel alternates between Gretel's present-day life and the postwar years she spent in Paris and Rouen under a false French identity, tracing her infatuation with Emile, a violent confrontation with neighbors who lost family to the Germans, and the slow unraveling of buried guilt. The present-day plot ignites when a new family — a film producer, his wife, and their young son Henry — moves into the flat below, and Gretel must decide whether to intervene in a dangerous situation or repeat the silence that defined her youth. Publisher Penguin Random House frames the novel as Gretel's chance to 'interrogate her guilt, grief, and remorse' and, perhaps, to save a child at the cost of the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting.
Follow up
Do I need to read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas first?
How does the dual timeline work?
What are the main themes?
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Our Review
We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.
John Boyne's All the Broken Places is a weighty, adult-aimed work of historical fiction whose power rests on one of literature's most uncomfortable questions: what does a bystander owe the world, then and now?
What the Novel Is and What It Does
All the Broken Places is a sequel to Boyne's book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and it picks up the story through the eyes of Gretel — Bruno's older sister, now 91-year-old Gretel Fernsby — living in a comfortable Mayfair flat in present-day London. She has spent decades in deliberate silence: never speaking of her childhood beside Auschwitz, never acknowledging that her father was the commandant of one of the Reich's most notorious extermination camps.
The novel's architecture is carefully designed, structured into three parts, two interludes, and an epilogue, with each section labeled by time period and location. The narrative alternates between Gretel's present-day life and the postwar years she spent as a teenager and young woman: the flight to Paris under a false French identity with her mother Elsa, her infatuation with Emile from the local haberdashery, the violent confrontation with neighbors who had lost family to the Germans, and her eventual retreat to Rouen.
The structure is built to generate suspense by allowing the reader to piece together Gretel's full history gradually, rather than laying it out in sequence.
The Central Conflict: Then and Now
The novel's present-day engine is set in motion when a new family moves into the apartment below Gretel's: a film producer, his wife, and their young son Henry. Despite herself, Gretel forms a bond with Henry — and soon witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry's parents that forces her toward a decision that mirrors the one she failed at in her youth.
As the Penguin Random House synopsis frames it, she now faces "a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief, and remorse" and the possibility of saving a young boy — at the cost of the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. The film producer, it emerges, carries his own dark secrets, and the two circle each other with mounting wariness.
Boyne draws a deliberate parallel between Gretel's wartime passivity and the choice now before her, making the novel's moral architecture explicit: complicity is not only a historical sin.
Craft, Characterization, and Reception
The Guardian praised the novel as "gripping, well honed and very much aimed at adults," noting that Gretel's voice — "smart, engaging and uncompromising" — draws the reader in with the energy of a cosy crime heroine before the darkness fully takes hold. The Guardian further described the novel as "consummately constructed, humming with tension until past and present collide."
John Irving, quoted in the publisher's materials, called it a work whose "magnitude and emotional impact" cannot be prepared for. The novel's themes — guilt, complicity, and what the publisher describes as the apparently inescapable cycles of grief arising from world-shaking events — are handled through Gretel's layered interiority.
Her sense of guilt, as critics noted, is "a complex amalgam of feelings about her father's role in the death camp, her initial ignorance and eventual realization of what Auschwitz represented, her silence after the war, and the part she thinks she played in Bruno's death."
Where the Novel Strains
Reviewers offered a more measured assessment, observing that while Boyne handles the alternating narratives well and uses them to create suspense, "they contribute to some avoidable repetitiousness in the writing and an occasional sense of aimlessness in the plot, unlike the taut, effective economy of Striped Pajamas." The comparison to its predecessor is, in a sense, the novel's structural burden: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was a slim, propulsive fable written for a younger audience, and All the Broken Places carries considerably more narrative weight across a much broader canvas.
Readers who come to this book expecting the compression of the original may find the expanded scope, with its decade-spanning Paris and Rouen sections, slower to cohere. The Guardian also noted that Gretel's mother Elsa, embittered by postwar persecution, drifts toward pro-Nazi sentiment — a thread that adds moral complexity but also contributes to the novel's density.
Who This Book Is For
All the Broken Places is explicitly an adult novel — a deliberate departure from the fable-like register of its predecessor. It will resonate most strongly with readers drawn to Holocaust literature that centers perpetrator-adjacent perspectives, moral reckoning across a lifetime, and the long reach of historical atrocity into the present.
Those already familiar with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas will bring context that enriches Gretel's story, though the novel's Wikipedia entry notes that the earlier book has itself been a subject of debate regarding its historical accuracy — a conversation that extends, in some critical quarters, to this sequel. For readers who engage with questions of generational guilt, survivor identity, and late-in-life moral courage, this is a novel designed to press on exactly those nerves.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
en.wikipedia.org
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Further reading
- 5
John Boyne, LuvemBooks
- 6
kirkusreviews.com
- 7
johnboyne.com
- 8
bookmarks.reviews
- 9
bossybookworm.com
- 10
- 11
penguinrandomhouse.com
Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
4 content notes · who it suits
Content to know about
Nazi war crimes and Holocaust atrocity
depictions of domestic violence
complicity in genocide
pro-Nazi sentiment portrayed in a character
Best for: Adults — the novel is explicitly written for an adult audience, engaging with perpetrator-adjacent Holocaust guilt, domestic violence, and moral complicity across a lifetime
Skip if you're looking for a fast-paced, tightly compressed read in the fable-register of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
John Boyne on All the Broken Places
Author John Boyne discusses the premise of 'All the Broken Places' and addresses criticisms of 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' on Ireland AM.
Uploaded by Virgin Media Television, 2022 · Watch on YouTube ·
Decades of Notes Behind the Sequel
Boyne kept notes for 16 to 17 years about Gretel as an elderly woman, originally intending to write it in his eighties as a final book before lockdown prompted him to write it sooner.
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