From Goodreads
Otto Witte was once many things. But now, sitting in his caravan, drinking what’s left of his coffee (dust), listening to the Allies rain their bombs on his city, he is simply scared. And so he’s decided to write the story of his life.
It is an extraordinary story, a story about how, with the help of his friends (and a camel), an acrobat of Hamburg became the King of Albania, and fell in love along the way.
My thoughts
This was a recent read of ours at my local Library Reading Group. Personally I gave this 2 stars or 4/10 sadly the rest of the reading group didn't rate it the same and gave it less with some giving up on it as it wasn't for them.
I found this an easy light hearted read and could almost see it being turned into a slapstick style comedy on the silver screen and when I mentioned this at the reading group, one of the members said it was quite a good interpretation of it.
Otto and his motley band had all good intentions, but appeared to lurch from one comic scenario to another most of the time.
Told as a dual narrative with Otto being the main protagonist in both. We learn about Otto in an earlier life when he took it upon himself to insinuate himself as the King of Albania and towards the end of his life as he was trying to escape bombs dropping in WWII.
I had to read the whole book as I don't like giving up, as I feel that if the Author has taken the time to write it then the least we can do as the reader is to read the whole book. I also wanted to now how the book finished, which was a little abruptly for me!!
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