Night/YMMV

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Not that it's Black and Black Morality, but that you just know how it's going to end, and that nothing Eliezar can do can possibly stop it. And everything that can go wrong, will.
First Installment Wins: Dawn and Day weren't quite as well-received, though they're still critically respected.
High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Besides being about, you know, the holocaust, the fact that these are real experiences make it worse. Namely, in the first chapter, it's mentioned that the Nazis use Jewish babies for target practice.
Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Elie, in his writings and in speeches, makes it very clear that indifference is an atrocity that can only lead to other atrocities.
Tear Jerker
- "Where is God?"
Unfortunate Implications / All Gays Are Pedophiles: Although this could be at least patially atributed to difference in terms:

"Like the leader of the camp, he loved children. As soon as we arrived, he had brought them bread, soup, and margarine. (Actually, this was not disinterested affection: there was a considerable traffic in children among homosexuals here, I learned later)" - Chapter Four

- I don't think that's really an Unfortunate Implications/ All Gays Are Pedophiles case. He points out that there were gay pedophiles at the camp. He doesn't say all gays are pedophiles.
Vindicated by History: The book's popularity really took off when Oprah Winfrey recommended it in 2006.