Guus Bosman

In my parent's house the to-be-returned library books were always on a specific shelf. Right above that were my parents' books, and "De Tweeling" always stood out. The book was published in 1990 so it clearly wasn't there throughout my whole childhood but in my memory the book was always there. It didn't appeal to me then to read it, but two years ago I bought a secondhand copy online.

This is a wonderful novel, and I greatly enjoyed it. It combines a traditional World War II story in the Netherlands with that of a woman growing up in Nazi Germany, and the book beautifully intertwines the life stories of the twins. The reader gets drawn into the story, and is intellectually curious to see how the author will wrap up the story, and emotionally curious to see how the women's lives will turn out.

Some parts of the book read like a boy's book about World War II, vaguely resembling Jan Terlouw's stories about the War in the Netherlands and the hunger winter, others parts are more about family relations and coming of age in difficult circumstances.

The book is also available in an English translation. Recommended.