4.5 stars. I began this book with high expectations, I mean, it won the Pulitzer Prize! It has to be good then, right? Thankfully, it was. The abrupt chapters and switching povs was off-putting at first, but it grows on you and really works later on in adding tension and suspense. 
 The first half of the book started slow, I had to push myself to read through the beginning. The book picks up though, as you begin to read further and begin to understand what this book actually is: It's a book about war and I thought it was incredibly interesting to have a point of view from the French resistance and a point of view from a German boy brainwashed and forced to fight a war. Yes there is a "villain" in this book, but it was mostly just a story about living through a war. I think the book becomes incredibly enjoyable when you accept that the story is just about the lives of certain characters and how everything can be connected. 
 I felt like the book was specifically written to be poignant but I wasn't entirely convinced. This book wasn't perfect, but I read 400 pages in one day and stayed up until 2am to finish it and I felt utterly affected by it at the end and that says something. (It doesn't hurt that I was listening to some brilliant music and became swept up into a wistful state, which certainly just enhanced my experience while reading this book).