Nico lives in Salonika, Greece, home to 50,000 Jews. He was known as the boy who would not lie. When Nico's parents and brothers and sisters are hauled off to the ghetto, Nico is hiding in the house. The German officer, Udo Graf, who takes over Nico's parents' house discovers that Nico does not lie and puts him to good use at the train station telling the Jews, as they are shoved into boxcars that they are going to new jobs and new homes.
The story follows four people Nico; Nico's brother, Sebastian; a friend of both boys, Fannie whose life is intertwined with theirs and Udo Graf, the evil German officer. Each of them survives the war in different ways and their experiences shape their lives after the war and how they move on from it. There are a number of words to describe this story: survival, atonement, revenge, compassion, forgiveness, truth and love. ( )

I have a few quibbles about this book. I didn't like the way it was written with the narrator "Truth" who seemed to be talking down to the reader; maybe I would have reacted differently if I had known (or guessed) that it was really Fannie who was narrating. I also had a hard time with Nico's guilt over his "lie" when he didn't know he was lying at the time -- or was it really guilt over being deceived by Udo's lie to him which he unwittingly passed on. And then there was the horrific cruelty and brutality of the Nazis which has been well-documented but never gets any easier to read.

Beyond all that it was an engrossing story. I couldn't help thinking about the way lies are affecting our country right now and the damage they are doing. Nico, Sebastian, Fannie and Udo's stories ended with some measure of redemption and justice. I hope our country can achieve the same. ( )

old from the unique observations of God's Angel of Truth, this is a harrowing story of four individuals in the years leading up to and including WWII and the decades following. There are moments of great heartache, interspersed with times of burgeoning hope. Their stories are intimately individual and yet intertwined to give the reader a perspective of their inner thoughts and motivations. Mitch Albom has perfectly captured the worst of history when man's inhumanity is fully revealed, and yet there are moments of sacrifice and kindness that offset the horrors. I am in awe of and grateful for an author who fully captures this experience. This is a memorable book. ( )

If it’s important for you to get the real story of the Holocaust,you should read this book. No holds barred and the true story told like it really happened. There’s no glamour here. Just the bald facts, told in the voice of Truth. Who will argue with that? This is a story of guilt and redemption, of hate and forgiveness, of good against evil—no holds barred and no punches spared, told in an upfront manner. This is a story of four people and their view of the war they lived through—WWII. Two are Jewish brothers who each experienced a different war- one in Auschwitz and one on the run trying to find his family. One is a Jewish girl who lost her family, and one is a Nazi SS agent whose sole goal in life is to eliminate all Jews. The story covers 40 years from 1941 to 1980. What do these people do, how do they cope and what are the ultimate results of what they each experienced? The prose is exquisite as Mitch Albom explores his characters in depth. He tells the story through the eyes of Truth and Truth is the narrator. Truth says “A voice that can tell you how a lie told once is easy to expose, but a lie told a thousand times can look like the truth and destroy the world.” The Truth knows all, and keeps its council. Everyone must search to find the truth and, once found, proclaim it to the world. I loved this book with a passion, and it is one that explains the horror of the Nazis and their view of the world like nothing I’ve read before. A monumental book with a monumental story to tell. Highly recommend. ( )

young Jewish boy in Solonika Greece, is known for never telling a lie. He is conned by a Nazi officer to tell the people being deported that they are just being resettled. He sees he was duped when his family is put on the train. after that he never tells the truth.
book is about forgiveness and truth. ( )

The Little Liar by Mitch Albom, is very good. Another WWII book, but it delved into an area I hadn't heard about. It begins in Salonika, Greece where a large Jewish population lived. It follows two Jewish brothers, Nico and Sebastian, their friend Fannie, and Udo Graf a Nazi officer. Simple events entwine the 4 for decades. I liked narrator in the story. ( )

Where do I begin with this little book about a liar? From start to finish it was amazing. I couldn't read for hours at a time due to the subject matter of the Holocaust, but in small doses it was fantastic. I do not want to describe the plot at all except to say the angel of truth is the first person narrator which lends an air of fairytale, but it is far from being a magical imagining from Albom's mind. The setting is World War II. Real people like actress Katalin Karady and real events like the rescue of families waiting to be shot by Arrow Cross are faithfully reproduced in Little Liar. The magic comes from Albom bringing all characters and events, factual and fictional, to life. The characters' human emotions come across loud and crystal clear and yet, like glass, there is a delicacy, a subtle nuance that haunts. Take, for example, how easily the small misunderstandings during childhood can quickly blossom into full blown adulthood hate. Lifelong passionate jealousies carried behind a vengeful ice cold exterior. It reminded me of the cold and heavy chains of Jacob Marley.
As an aside, what an interesting locale for Little Liar. When people speak of World War II and the Nazi regime not many people think of how the island of Greece weathered the atrocities. ( )

My first book of 2024 is for my RLBG: The Little Liar by Mitch Albom. He tells the story of four young people in Salonika, Greece, caught up in the horror of the Holocaust. Their stories diverge and intersect, narrated by the Angel of Truth, expelled from Heaven for speaking the truth about humans. Albom focuses on the the lies we tell and the reasons we tell them. Nico, the main character who connects the others, begins as a truth teller but is twisted by evil. The book had the prose style of a parable, and at one point, Albom talks about how parables are the truth dressed up so that people listen. He has written a parable for our time. It was a tough read at some point with graphic descriptions of the depravity of the Holocaust and the horrific decisions human beings were forced to make in the face of that depravity.

Truth: I am unapologetically stingy about doling out five-star reviews. My digital footprint on LibraryThing will validate this fact. But giving fewer than five stars to this contemporary masterpiece would be an injustice. Albom has penned a heartbreaking, thought-provoking and incredibly fast-paced work of fiction that contains brutal layers of truth. In a “Today Show” interview to mark the release of the book, Albom aptly noted that “The Little Liar” comes at a seminal time when “people are picking their own truths.” He added that “truth is a precious virtue that we need to protect.” Albom’s twist-filled saga chronicling the horrors of the Holocaust will stay with me. As a reader of German – not Jewish – descent, I experienced profound sadness as the atrocities unfolded. Sadness, and then inspiration as Albom touched on a main theme in his latest work – forgiveness. Given the fact that my reviews all-too-often grumble about books that overdose readers with excessive details or expendable plot twists, it’s refreshing to include this critique: I believe Albom could have explored in greater depth the final few decades of the protagonists’ lives. Then again, it’s never a bad thing to leave readers craving more. One of my five favorite movies of all time is the late 1990s masterpiece “It’s a Beautiful Life.” Perhaps it’s no surprise that “The Little Liar” is among the 20 or so books within the past decade that have landed on my “favorites” list. ( )

I have been a long time fan of Mitch Albom and for me, this was his best book yet. It's a story of family and love, truth and lies, redemption and forgiveness. It's a World War II story but unlike any other stories that I've read about this time in history. The story is centered around three main characters in Greece before, during and after the war:

-Nico is eleven years old and has never told a lie. He always told the truth no matter what the consequences.

-Frannie is a schoolmate of Nico's and loves him from a young age.

-Sebastian is Nico's older brother and resents him because everyone favors him plus he is in love with Frannie.

When the Germans invade Greece, all of Nico's family is put on trains to what they are told are work camps. Nico had been out all day and when he returns to find his family gone, he is confronted by a German officer who tells him that he can save his family if he agrees to go to the train station and tell the Jewish people that they are being sent to a place with jobs and new homes. He agrees to this plan knowing that it will help to save his family. However, it's all a ruse and the German officer is using Nico's reputation as someone who doesn't tell lies to trick the Jewish passengers who are being sent to concentration camps. Nico doesn't learn the truth until after all of the Jewish people have been sent to Auschwitz. After that he vows to never tell the truth again. He then attempts to get to Auschwitz with a plan to save his family. The author goes into vivid details over daily life in the camp and the effects on Sebastian and his family. The book follows the lives of the three main characters during and after the war. I don't want to go into much detail about their lives after the war because I don't want to give any spoilers but I will say that even through the war is finished, all three characters are dramatically affected by their memories of life in Greece before the war and the cruelty that were inflicted on them and their families during the war.

The narrator of the story is TRUTH and it's a story about the power of love to ultimately redeem us, no matter how deeply we blame ourselves for our mistakes.

This book is a must read for anyone who reads WWII fiction for the way it looks at truth and the consequences of lies. ( )

wrote:
THE LITTLE LIAR by Mitch Albom is both a historic novel and a parable.
The novel part is about the Holocaust and its effect on the Greek Jews in particularly in Salonika. Based on its population, Greece had the largest percentage of Jewish victims in the Holocaust.
Wolf (a stand in for Hitler) blamed all of Germany’s problems on the Jews. “If you want to get away with lying, first, change the language.”
The primary characters, who tell the story, are brothers Sebastian and Nico, a young girl, Fannie, and Udo Graf, a Nazi commander who is sent to help carry out in the killing of all of Greece‘s Jews.
Sebastian, 13, two years older than Nico, had a crush on Fannie, who was in Nico’s grade at school. Nico, who could never tell a lie, was their father‘s favorite.
When Graf came to remove the Jews, Nico and Fannie managed to avoid being caught. Later on, he caught Nico and decided the blue-eyed, blond-haired young boy could be useful to him. Since Nico could not lie, he had him go to the train station to tell the people they were being relocated and would be together and all right. They were actually being transported to the Auschwitz death camp.
The story splits into what happens to each of them. The most serious effect is Sebastian’s opinion of his brother. It continues into their adult years.
The parable revolves around the Angel of Truth who appears as a character.
One of its first observations is comparing eating food and truth. People have many options as to what they choose to eat, often favoring cravings over health. Truth says it is what you do with me: “You choose a sliver of truth here, a sliver there. You disregard the parts that displease you, and soon your plate is full. But just as ignoring proper food will ultimately decay your body, so will handpicking the truth eventually rot your soul.
At another point, Truth tried to talk to people to share its message of positive power. The people run away. Parable pointed out that Truth was naked and people were afraid of him. He handed Truth a colorful robe and after putting it on, the people welcomed him.
THE LITTLE LIAR is a different kind of Holocaust story. It mentions the trains and the camps but focuses on what happens to these characters.
It’s very well-written, offering history, philosophy, and psychology in a very readable form. ( )

awesome book ( )

Did you know that Greece was invaded by Hitler in the 1940's? In 1942, Hitler ordered the Jewish population of Salonika (Thessaloniki), some 50,000 people to be expelled from the city and transferred to Auschwitz. 2000 people survived.

The Little Liar is a tale of 4 people: Nico Krispis, the boy who did not lie, his brother Sebastian, Fannie, their mutual love, and Udo Graf, the German soldier who believes in the Nazi regime.

Udo Graf needs to deport the Jewish citizenry of Salonika to Auschwitz. To do so, he uses Nico, separated from his family, to tell the people that it's OK to board the trains to Poland to be relocated. Nico does not realize that he is perpetuating a lie until the moment comes when he sees his family boarding the train and Udo tells him the truth. Once that happens, Nico never tells the truth again in his life.

Sebastian is sent to the death camp and sees his family murdered, vows revenge against Udo and against Nico who he blames.

Fannie escapes the cattle car and lives through harrowing experiences in Europe.

Udo escapes persecution for war crimes for the longest time.

Mitch Albom writes an engaging and dynamic story worth reading and remembering the horrors that have been perpetuated against humanity. ( )

This Haulocaust story focusses on the fates of three Greek children and one Nazi and the impact of lies on their lives. The plot is engaging, but is marred by too much reliance on unbelievable coincidences. ( )

A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion. Albom interweaves the stories of Nico, his brother Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, who miraculously survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives.