The first time I read this book was after seeing the movie in High School. I read it for my German class. It was one of my first books on totalitarianism, so it was all quite new. I remember it made an impact on me back then.
I picked it up again this month, because I'm trying to refresh my knowledge of German and it seemed like an accessible read to start with. I was a bit disappointed. The book is not as complex as I remember. It's hard to distinguish between the students sometimes, which was annoying and made me feel lost at times. It's also not explained convincingly at all why the students respond so enthusiastically to fascist principles and why it spreads so easily. Perhaps it comes across better in the movie, along with the escalations in the end.
This is a two-star book for me, but perhaps my thirty year old self is not the key-demographic, but my 16-year old self who did enjoy it was. I do feel prepared to pick up a more complex German book now, so the book fulfilled its purpose for me in the moment.