This non-fiction book read mostly like a fictional story for ⅔ the way as the author heightened the drama around a Jewish teenager’s (Rudolf Vrba’s) experience in, and escape from, Auschwitz. The last ⅓ was more like a documentary/biography of Vrba’s post-escape life and mixed success at sounding the alarm of what was happening in Auschwitz. Something didn’t work quite right about the two different approaches to the storytelling, and I found the last third a slog to get through. Plus, Vrba came across as a womanizing asshole. I really wanted to be sympathetic to him given what he experienced. That was more difficult than I thought it would be. The horrors of concentration camp life were fascinating and revolting, but did not come as much of a surprise after Man’s Search for Meaning and the Gulag Archipelago – both of which I feel were better reads. Overall, a decent book with a middling aftertaste.