Apt Pupil
Book Report: Apt Pupil
The setting was a town called Santo Donato located in southern California. The duration of the book was about a year, from 1974 to 1975. It was clearly 30 years after WWII.
The plot was based around drama and thriller. It involved a graduating senior named Todd Bowden that had discovered a Nazi General, Kurt Dussander, in his own town two months ago on a bus. Fascinated by Nazi history he blackmailed him into revealing the gory details of the killing committed during the war.
Some lessons this book might attempt to put across is that the world isn’t always a happy place. That people are capable of committing great atrocities. In the book there is a foundation of lies and blackmail. Todd had a desire to do better but those stories changed him and his personality.
The main character is Todd Bowden. I liked this person because he is very smart and crafty. He is strong and determined but easily manipulated. His anger progresses throughout the book and everyone realizes this. In his quest for knowledge, Todd ignores his schoolwork and lets his mid-term grades slip. This risked the exposure of his after-school activities but was able to get away without anyone thinking he knew who Arthur Denker really was.
Kurt Dussander was a Nazi General that served in many concentration camps like Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz. He would tell stories of the gas chambers and the millions of people killed that would give him horrible nightmares and flashbacks. The state of his mental health was diminishing. He attempted to put his cat in the oven and then in the end killed himself.
Edward French was the school guidance councilor. He was a nice, friendly and helpful guy. Dussander pretended to be Todd’s grandfather and they all had a meeting to talk about Todd’s bad grades. His nickname was Rubber Ed and in the end Todd shot and killed him.
Becky Trask was a girl Todd had taken interest in and she had...
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