This one, and I didn't know it was possible, was sadder than the first. I think I cried throughout pretty much the entire book. And it wasn't just the past story about Vladek's time in Auschwitz, either... The present story was also full of sadness. Vladek would talk about all the people in his family he lost, all the people his wife lost in her family and it was difficult to read. The conflicted relationship between Vladek and Artie also made me sad... Artie loved his father, but he constantly and easily became annoyed with him and all I wanted him to do was to take care of him. I think what I loved the most about Maus I and Maus II is the fact that Spiegelman doesn't correct his father's language... it's written in the broken English that Vladek would have spoken, and that definitely adds to the story. This is such a different kind of Holocaust/Nazi Germany/WWII story that it really (should) affect the reader in powerful ways.