The Little Liar: A Novel

An Instant New York Times Bestseller

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with his most important novel to date, an unforgettable story of truth and lies set during the Holocaust.

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis has never told a lie. When the Nazis invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is persuade his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading “north,” where new jobs and safety await. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy reassures passengers on the station platform every day.

But when the final train is loaded, Nico sees his family being herded into a boxcar. Only then does he discover that he has helped send them—and everyone he knows and loves—to their doom at Auschwitz.

Nico escapes—but he never tells the truth again.

In The Little Liar, Mitch Albom examines the human repercussions of deception by interweaving the stories of Nico, who yearns for forgiveness; his older brother, Sebastian, who vows revenge against him; Fannie, the girl who must choose between them; and Udo Graf, the Nazi officer who forever changed their lives with his lies.

Through the war years, the concentration camps, and the decades that follow, Albom reveals the consequences of each person’s honesty and dishonesty, bringing them back to where it all started in a staggering climax worthy of the best of Albom’s internationally embraced stories.

 

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Published Nov 14, 2023

352 pages

Average rating: 8.47

316 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI

Readers say Mitch Albom’s *The Little Liar* powerfully portrays the human spirit amid Nazi-occupied Greece, following four characters with rich develo...

K Olson
Jan 14, 2025
10/10 stars
I have read a lot of holocaust/WW2 books and I am always amazed that there are still fresh takes on this topic. The Little Liar is arguably my favorite book of 2024. Narrated by Truth, this novel tells the story of one town in Greece that went from a population of 50,000 Jews down to 2,000. Highly recommend.
SuzyQ
Jun 10, 2024
A realistic WW II novel about Greece told by Truth.
Margie Pettersen
Oct 27, 2025
4/10 stars
I just couldn’t get interested in yet another Holocaust book. This came to me highly recommended, but it just didn’t sit well with me. There were two brothers, Sebastian and Nico, but Nico hides when the Nazis come and is not found right away. A Nazi officer sees him and convinces him to tell his fellow Jews that they will be relocated and given jobs. He is an innocent, rather gullible child who never lies so he believes the man and retells the story to reassure those that are departing. His brother had seen him in a window as he was being led away and assumes he is helping the Nazis. I thought that was a ridiculous assumption. He jumped to the wrong explanation and continued harboring hatred for his brother. It just didn’t make sense. You would think he’d be happy his brother escaped. Since the whole rest of the story is based on this, I had a hard time hailing any empathy towards Sebastian who turns into a bitter angry man determined to root out Nazis and bring them to justice.
Gram Judy
Jun 03, 2025
8/10 stars
Well-written story of the Holocaust experiences of 4 fictional characters. Very touching.
Dramaqueen65
May 15, 2025
Some of us just loved this book, and some of us were a little more reserved, but nobody seemed to dislike it. It gave us a lot to discuss.

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