A very good historical fiction novel. I just felt sad throughout since you know how this ends. 

"When We Flew Away" is a take on Anne Frank's life before she and her family went into hiding and she started documenting everything that was happening in her diary. The book starts off with Anne celebrating her birthday, but also dealing with the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands.

I did love what Hoffman did here, but it's missing her typical "Hoffmaness"--is that a word-- there's no magical realism to be found here. There also seems to be less lyrical writing in this book, except in a few cases. Those are things that I find myself always seeing in her works. That's not a criticism, just wanted to let readers know who have read her before to not go in with different expectations. 

You can tell Hoffman did her research on this one, so this is as close I think as a historical fiction book you can get about Anne Frank. 

I think with everything happening in the world right now, books like this are very necessary. The audience for this is young adults, but I enjoyed it, even though I am not one.