This is one of the best books I've read this year. Yes, there's a lot of books about the Holocaust. But there are millions of stories that will never get told. We can only grasp at a tiny little bit of what it meant for all of them. So, I'll nver think we've had "enough" Holocaust stories. If anything, we can only have too few, which is pathetic. And we need these stories. We need to share the horror and fear that the Nazis made, so we get the freaking message. And no, I don't think that we've even close to getting it. Just look around and see how the world is acting.

I love Spiegelman's decision to draw his characters as mice. Because what the Nazis did was completely dehumanizing for them, and it is a very interesting metaphor for the image of Jewish people in Nazi Europe (because they were soon out of Germany and invading half the continent). Also, it's an interesting move if we are to consider Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics. In it, he explains that the more abstract a face in a drawing is, the more we identify with it. Spiegelman's mice are indeed quite abstract, so the identification is strong.

(Yes, I'm bringing up comic theory. Yes, I'm totally that kind of nerd. #SorryNotSorry)

So, yes, I think Spiegelman's art works perfectly with the story he is telling. A story in which we all should be able to see ourselves. The Nazis weren't monsters that did terrible things because they were born that way; they were human beings. And it follows that all human beings, given the power and the numbers (because the numbers are very important in this whole issue. Remember peer pressure? It played a role there, as well). Here he tells the story of his own father, who managed to survive the Holocaust, despite being in the middle of it. I also loved how it dealt with his own relationship with the father, as well. It may be what makes this book stand out so much. It tells a terrible story, but also one with which we can all realte.

In short, I loved this book. I think it's a wonderful and interesting view of the Holocaust. It's told in an original way, and everybody should read it a hundred times. Or more. It's just wonderful.