A fascinating and very personal book, viewing the war and foreign occupations in the Netherlands through the only half-comprehending eyes of a boy. From what I understand this was a semi-autobiographical work and it definitely shows.

A sense of alienation builds throughout the book, from the first page where he's being shuttled off in the night to shelter with a rural family, his culture shock in the small town.

The alienation culminates in the wake of the sexual abuse Jeroen experiences at the hand of Walt, a Canadian soldier. The abuse overshadows, mixes up, and then ultimately comes to represent his natural adolescent sexual awakening. The scenes of coerced sex are not particularly explicit but are emotionally vivid, describing his dissociation in the moment, and the aftermath as he tries to process what he's experienced. His thoughts and feelings are conflicted and messy and changing in a way that feels very honest. He both fears and longs for more, and thinks himself in love with Walt.

Jeroen's return to home in Amsterdam with his parents is anticlimactic and again, his feelings are all a mess. He longs to see Walt again.

This book just feels so incredibly honest. It's a memoir of boyhood, of abuse, of awakening. It is neither an indictment of nor an apologia for CSA. If you are looking for a neat and tidy story arc with a moral lesson and all loose ends tied up with a bow, you won't get it here. The book ends without any satisfying denouement - it was simply a chapter in a life, and life carried on from there, differently than before. ( )

12-year-old Jeroen has a sexual relationship with a Canadian soldier during World War II.
First published as Voor een verloren soldaat. ( )