THE BOOK THIEF: A Summary.

Liesel: Hi, I'm Liesel. I have no personality, but I'm a cute little girl.

Death: Her name is not Liesel. Her name is THE BOOK THIEF and I shall name her that for the rest of the book.

Liesel: Even though I stole, like, 3 books in total or something.

Death: Shut up, Book Thief.

Rudy: Hello everyone. Have you ever seen a lemon? That's what my hair looks like.

Death: Here is a little information you should know: this books is filled with many interesting facts. Very relevant and everything. We shall kick off with the definition from the dictionary of the word lemon.

Reader: The fuck?

Death: A lemon is a vegetable that is very yellow and acid. That's what the Book Thief's friend's hair looks like.

Reader: That's not a very good description. That's how I picture Rudy now.

Death: Shut up and read so you can cry, reader.

*Intimidated reader keeps on reading*

Liesel: Papa!

Papa: Liesel.

Death: Reader, are you crying yet?

Reader: Can you just stop that?

Death: What?

Reader: That. Popping up out of nowhere?

Death: Get used to it. And keep on reading before I killz you! And woohoho, HERE'S A LITTLE FACT YOU SHOULD KNOW: This book is not gonna end well.

Reader: Are you serious? You could have used spoiler tags, man!

*Annoyed reader keeps on reading*

Liesel: Papa, can you play the accordion?

Papa: Yes, Liesel.

*Plays the accordion. Everyone else is bored*

Rudy: Hey, Saukerl.

Death: Listen, reader. Saukerl means bitch, basically, but I suppose it's less brutal if they say it in German. HERE IS ANOTHER LITTLE FACT YOU SHOULD KNOW: A lot of random words will be in German for the sole purpose of making this book look smart and bilingual. But it really is useless as every, and I do mean EVERY word in German is immediately followed by the English translation.

Reader: Errrr. What's the point then?

Death: Who said it has to be useful? I bet you're one of those ridiculous people who thinks a book has to have a plot? Or that characters have to be multidimensional? And you probably think that two metaphors per sentence is too much? Well, YOU ARE WRONG. This book will show you exactly how wrong you are.

Reader: Uh. Why did I pick up this book again?

Death: Because everyone luurved it. And you will, too.

*Skeptical reader keeps on reading*

Liesel: Papa!

Papa: Liesel.

Liesel: Mama!

Mama: Shut the fuck up, you slut bitch cunt fucking whore.

Liesel: Okayyy. Rudy?

Rudy: What, Saukerl?

Liesel: I don't know. I'm just bored.

Reader: So am I.

Rudy: Wanna go steal something?

Death: YO, READER. HAD YOU FORGOTTEN ME? HERE'S SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW. What the book thief and the lemon are about to do is going to end BADLY. You have the tissues ready?

Reader: What?

*Random shit happens*

Death: MUHAHAHAHA DIDN'T I SAY THAT WOULD HAPPEN?

Reader: I know. That's why I'm not crying. I kinda knew it, because you TOLD me EVERYTHING before it actually happened!

Death: Shut up and keep on reading.

Reader: But I'm already 524 pages in and nothing's happened yet! Sigh.

*Goes back to reading.*

Rudy: Saukerl, wanna play football?

Liesel: Okay.

*They play football and everyone else is bored.*

Death: HERE IS

Reader: Oh, man, not you again!

Death: I AM THE NARRATOR OF THE STORY AND THEREFORE I SHOULD BE TALKING AT ALL TIMES EVEN THOUGH I AM ACTUALLY INTERRUPTING THE NATURAL FLOW OF THE STORY.

Reader: Stop yelling at me.

Death: This is an information you should know: This was Nazi Germany and A BOOK WAS SOON TO BE STOLEN.

Liesel: Oh, a book. That's nice.

Death: SEE? IT IS NAZI GERMANY AND YET IT IS FULL OF BOOK THIEVERY.

Reader: Can you just stop glorifying book thievery? It's not that impressive. You make me expect something huge and it's not. So okay, she stole a book. BIG DEAL! It's not that amazing. Stop acting like it is.

Death: *glares*

Liesel: Papa?

Papa: Yes, Liesel?

Liesel: Can you read this book for me?

Papa: Yes.

*They read and everyone else is bored.*

Mama: Hey, you fucking punk ass motherfucking slut, dinner's ready!

Liesel: Coming, Mommy.

Reader: THE FUCK?

Death: Here are two informations that you should know. First, the definition from the dictionary of the word Dinner. Dinner is the main meal of the day, eaten in the evening or at midday.

Reader: This is a joke, right? What's the second information?

Death: A JEW IS COMING YOYOYO.

Reader: Thanks. I love to be surprised, so it's pretty cool to see how you spoil EVERYTHING. And practically nothing happens in the first place, so everything that COULD make me care for the book is now ruined.

Max: Hello, everyone. I am sweet and cliché and nice and Jewish. Love me?

Liesel: Yes!

Papa and Mama: Let's hide him!

Rudy: Hey Saukerl, wanna play football?

Liesel: No. Fuck off.

*Goes to play with Max. Everyone else is bored*

Max: Here Liesel. Look at these 16pageslong drawings I made for you.

Reader: Am I supposed to read that? Hey, Editor!

Editor: Yeah?

Reader: Why didn't you make the words of these stupid drawings bigger? I can't see shit.

Editor: Not my problem.

Reader: Fine. I just won't read it, then.

Editor: 'S fine. You think I actually read them? Ha, ha. *moonwalks away*

Death: HERE IS A LITTLE FACT YOU SHOULD KNOW.

Reader: You better tell me that the story is over, I can't take it any.

Death: Fine. I will tell you how it ends.

Death: Everyone is gonna DIE. Now there, take this bucket. Fill it with tears. Go on, cry.

Reader: But there are still 532832 pages left! What for?

Death: Dunno.

*Random shit happens.*
*Everyone else is bored*

Author: Dammit. I don't know how to end that fucking book.

Papa, Mama, Liesel, Rudy, Max *all at the same time*: Please, Markus, please, just end it. We're just boring ourselves, kill us, whatever, DO SOMETHING.

Author: Mmm.. I have a brilliant idea!

*Some random bomb just blows up the whole city.*

*Seriously.*

Death: HEY HEY, EVERYONE IS DEAD.


Liesel: Except me! But I still don't have any personality whatsoever though. So it's not like I matter or anything. Go on, ignore me. *mumbles* I'm used to it anyway. *Fades away and everyone looks for a fuck to give, but no one can find any.*

Reader: That's it? That's the grand final? Everyone just fucking dies? Hahahaha.

Death: YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO LAUGH. *jiggles empty bucket furiously*

Liesel: *goes to her dead mama* Ohh, Mama. I loved you so. You were so beautiful!

Mama: *wakes up from the dead* YOU GODDAMN PUNK ASS MOTHERFUCKING SLUT, DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME.

Reader: Hahaha! Brilliant! (That doesn't happen, though.)

Death: *seethes* How DARE you!

Reader: Whatever. The book's over. I'm exhausted. Ciao.

Death: *all mysterious* I will see you soon

*Book ends. Everyone is just so fucking relieved.*


“When death captures me,” the boy vowed, “he will feel my fist on his face.”
Personally, I quite like that. Such stupid gallantry.
Yes.
I like that a lot.

A few days ago, when I was starting The Book Thief, my mother stopped by and saw the book on my coffee table. Having just read it herself (and knowing me better than anyone else in the world, I might add), she was determined to save me from myself. She did her very best to convince me not to read it. She described in detail the three day long headache all the crying had caused her and the heartache she now has to live with, but I’m nothing if not stubborn. I guess I never learned to listen to my mother.
I’m pretty sure her parting sentence was: “Don’t come crying to me.” And I didn’t. I huddled in a corner and cried inconsolably instead.

Death himself narrates the story about a little girl named Liesel growing up with her foster parents in Nazi Germany. At the beginning, I felt somewhat intimidated by the idea of Death as a narrator. I assumed that his voice would be dark and thunderous, but for the most part, he was a ray of light illuminating earth’s saddest time. Incredibly insightful observations and occasional dry humor are only some of the things no one but Death could have brought into this story. Besides, we hear people calling God’s name every day for many reasons, but when Death calls to Him in despair and even those calls fall on deaf ears, no one can fail to understand the gravity of the situation.

I do not carry a sickle or a scythe.
I only wear a hooded black robe when it’s cold.
And I don’t have those skulllike
facial features you seem to enjoy
pinning on me from a distance. You
want to know what I truly look like?
I’ll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.


The Book Thief is not one of those books you read compulsively, desperate to find out what’s on the next page. No. It is, in fact, better to read it slowly, in small doses, in a way that allows you to savor every word and absorb the power and the magic it contains. All the while, you know what’s going to happen. Death has no patience for mysteries. However, anticipation of the inevitable makes it even worse. My whole body was tingling with fear because I knew what was coming and I knew that it was only a matter of time.
Zusak found a way to give a fresh approach to a muchtold story. He offered a glimpse at the other side of the coin. Really, should we feel sorry for the people hiding in a basement in Munich suburbs? Sure, bombs are falling on their heads, but most of them are members of the Nazi Party, willingly or reluctantly. Some of them truly think that Jews are no better than rats. Some, on the other hand, are hiding a Jew in their own basement. Some are just innocent children. But the important question is, are we any better at all if we don’t feel compassion and sorrow? Death does a great job of asking all these questions in a calm, unobtrusive way.

I’m not pretentious enough to believe that my clumsy words can ever do this book justice. I won’t even try. Time will speak for it, as I’m pretty sure it will survive for decades and generations to come. The Book Thief and Markus Zusak should find their place in every school textbook all over the world.


Seven thousand stars could never be enough for this book.

EDIT: A few words from the man himself:
{sitelink}
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{sitelink} This is a book to treasure, a new classic. I absolutely loved it.

Set in Germany in the years 19391943, The Book Thief tells the story of Liesel, narrated by Death who has in his possession the book she wrote about these years. So, in a way, they are both book thieves. Liesel steals randomly at first, and later methodically, but she's never greedy. Death pockets Liesel's notebook after she leaves it, forgotten in her grief, amongst the destruction that was once her street, her home, and carries it with him.

Liesel is effectively an orphan. She never knew her father, her mother disappears after delivering her to her new foster parents, and her younger brother died on the train to Molching where the foster parents live. Death first encounters nineyearold Liesel when her brother dies, and hangs around long enough to watch her steal her first book, The Gravedigger's Handbook, left lying in the snow by her brother's grave.

Her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Herbermann, are poor Germans given a small allowance to take her in. Hans, a tall, quiet man with silver eyes, is a painter (of houses etc.) and plays the accordian. He teaches Liesel how to read and write. Rosa is gruff and swears a lot but has a big heart, and does laundry for rich people in the town. Liesel becomes best friends with her neighbour Rudy, a boy with "hair the colour of lemons" who idolises the black Olympic champion sprinter Jesse Owens.

One night a Jew turns up in their home. He's the son of a friend of Hans from the first world war, the man who taught him the accordian, whose widowed wife Hans promised to help if she ever needed it. Hans is a German who does not hate Jews, though he knows the risk he and his family are taking, letting Max live in the basement. Max and Liesel become close friends, and he writes an absolutely beautiful story for her, called The Standover Man, which damn near broke my heart. It's the story of Max, growing up and coming to Liesel's home, and it's painted over whitepainted pages of Mein Kampf, which you can see through the paint.

Whenever I read a book, I cannot help but read it in two ways: the story itself, and how it's written. They're not quite inseparable, but they definitely support each other. With The Book Thief, Markus Zusak has shown he's a writer of genius, an artist of words, a poet, a literary marvel. His writing is lyrical, haunting, poetic, profound. Death is rendered vividly, a lonely, haunted being who is drawn to children, who has had a lot of time to contemplate human nature and wonder at it. Liesel is very real, a child living a child's life of soccer in the street, stolen pleasures, sudden passions and a full heart while around her bombs drop, maimed veterans hang themselves, bereaved parents move like ghosts, Gestapo take children away and the dirty skeletons of Jews are paraded through the town.

Many things save this book from being allout depressing. It's never morbid, for a start. A lively humour dances through the pages, and the richness of the descriptions as well as the richness of the characters' hearts cannot fail to lift you up. Also, it's great to read such a balanced story, where ordinary Germans even those who are blond and blueeyed are as much at risk of losing their lives, of being persecuted, as the Jews themselves.

I can't go any further without talking about the writing itself. From the very first title page, you know you're in for something very special indeed. The only way to really show you what I mean is to select a few quotes (and I wish I was better at keeping track of lines I love).

"As he looked uncomfortably at the human shape before him, the young man's voice was scraped out and handed across the dark like it was all that remained of him." (p187)

"Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twentyfour hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew." (p.239)

"The book was released gloriously from his hand. It opened and flapped, the pages rattling as it covered ground in the air. More abruptly than expected, it stopped and appeared to be sucked towards the water. It clapped when it hit the surface and began to float downstream." (p.325)

"So many humans. So many colours. They keep triggering inside me. They harass my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, all mounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coalcoloured clouds, beating, like black hearts. And then. There is death. Making his way through all of it. On the surface: unflappable, unwavering. Below: unnerved, untied, and undone." (p.331)

"After ten minutes or so, what was most prominent in the cellar was a kind of nonmovement. Their bodies were welded together and only their feet changed position or pressure. Stillness was shackled to their faces. They watched each other and waited." (p.402)

"People and Jews and clouds all stopped. They watched. As he stood, Max looked first at the girl and then stared directly into the sky who was wide and blue and magnificent. There were heavy beams planks of sun falling randomly, wonderfully, onto the road. Clouds arched their backs to look behind as they started again to move on. "It's such a beautiful day," he said, and his voice was in many pieces. A great day to die. A great day to die, like this." (pp.5434)
Writing like this is not something just anyone can do: it's true art. Only a writer of Zusak's talent could make this story work, and coud get away with such a proliferation of adjectives and adverbs, to write in such a way as to revitalise the language and use words to paint emotion and a vivid visual landscape in a way you'd never before encountered. This is a book about the power of words and language, and it is fitting that it is written in just such this way.

The way this book was written also makes me think of a musical, or an elaborate, flamboyant stageplay. It's in the title pages for each part, in Death's asides and manner of emphasing little details or even speech, in the way Death narrates, giving us the ending at the beginning, giving little melodrammatic pronouncements that make you shiver. It's probably the first book I've read that makes me feel how I feel watching The Phantom of the Opera, if that helps explain it.

And it made me cry. UPDATE: AUG 26, 2016: This review has been here 8 years, has 18 pages of 854 comments and 764 likes. There's no outrage for you to add in the comments section that hasn't already been addressed.
If you want to talk about the book, or why you liked it, or anything else, feel free.

UPDATE: FEB 17, 2014: I wrote this review 4 years ago on a foreign keyboad, so I'm well aware that I spelled Chekhov's name wrong. I'm not going to fix it, so please don't drive my review further up in the rankings by commenting on the misspelling. You're very dear, but I know his name is Anton and not Antonin. On that same note, you don't need to add comments telling me that I didn't like the book because I "don't know how to read" and "don't understand metaphors." I actually have an M.A. in in English Lit, so I do know how to read much better than you do, in fact. Now quit bothering me before I go get my PhD and then really turn into a credentialtouting ass.

UPDATE: JULY 10, 2013: To all jr. high students who find themselves grossly offended by my review: please remember that every time you leave a comment here, you push my review up even higher in the rankings. Please save us both time and energy by not commenting. Thnx.

This was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever read after {sitelink}The Kite Runner. Just as with The Kite Runner, I'm (somewhat) shocked that this book is a bestseller and has been given awards, chewed up and swallowed by the literary masses and regarded as greatness. Riiiight.

The whole thing can be summed up as the story of a girl who sometimes steals books coming of age during the Holocaust. Throw in the snarky narration by Death (nifty trick except that it doesn't work), a few halfassed drawings of birdies and swastikas, senseless and often laughable prose that sounds like it was pulled from the "poetry" journal of a selfimportant 15 yearold, and a cast of characters that throughout are like watching cardboard cutouts walking around VERY SLOWLY, and that's the novel.

Here are some humble observations.

First, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not Antonin Chekhov. You are, therefore, incapable of properly describing the weather for use as a literary device, and you end up sounding like an asshole. Don't believe me?

"I like a chocolatecolored sky. Dark, dark chocolate." Really? Do you, now?

"The sky was dripping. Like a tap that a child has tried it’s hardest to turn off but hasn’t quite managed.” Really?? Wow. Next you'll tell me that the rain was like a shower. I'm moved.

"Oh, how the clouds stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky. Great obese clouds." Yes. Stupid, obese clouds! They need an education and a healthy diet!

Next, chances are that you, Mr. Zusak, are not William Styron or any one of the other small handful of authors that can get away with Holocaust fiction. They've done their research, had some inkling of writing ability, and were able to tell fascinating stories. You invented a fake town in Germany (probably so you didn't have to do any research) and told a longwinded and poorlywritten story, and in 500 pages you couldn't even make it to 1945, so you sloppily dropped off and wrapped it up in 1943. What's the point of writing historical fiction if you can't even stay within the basic confines of that hisotrical event? For me, this does nothing than trivialize the mass murder of over 6 million people. Maybe that's why a 30 yearold Australian shouldn't write about the Holocaust. But that's just me. Moving on.

But what really makes this book expensive toilet paper is the bad writing which is to be found not just in bizarre descriptions of the weather, but really on every page. Some personal favorites?

"The breakfast colored sun."

"Somewhere inside her were the souls of words."

"The oldened young man." WTF?!!?

"He crawled to a disfigured figure."

"Her words were motionless."

"It smelled like friendship." (Remind me to sniff my friends next time I see them.)

"A multitude of words and sentences were at her fingertips." (HUH?)

"Pinecones littered the ground like cookies."

Sigh.

All of this is quite funny coming from a book where the main character supposedly learns the importance of words. Further, I love that the protagonist comes to the conclusion that Hitler "would be nothing without words." Really? REALLY? Would Hitler be nothing without WORDS? What about selfloathing, misplaced blame and hatred, an ideology, xenophobia, charisma, an army, and a prideinjured nation willing to listen? Don't those count for something??

The shitstorm comes to an end when a bomb lands on our fictional town, wiping out everyone save for the sometimes bookthief main character. Of course. Because weak writers who don't know how to end their story just kill everyone off for a clean break and some nice emotional manipulation. Written for maximum tearjerking effect, our main character spews out some great lines when she sees the death and destruction around her:

To her dead mother, "God damn it, you were so beautiful."

To her dead best friend as she shakes him, "Wake up! I love you! Wake up!" (Didn't I see the same thing in that movie My Girl?)

Then she profoundly notes that her dead father "was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones."

And this kind of angsty adolescent prose just never ended! It went on and on to form the one longass, senseless, disjointed story.

But that's ok. Take it all the junk, give it a quirky narrator, an obscure and mysterious title, throw in a Jew on the run from Nazis who likes to draw silly pictures of birds and swastikas, and market it all as Holocaust lit. Ahh, the packaging of bullshit makes for such a sweet best seller.

Swallow it down, America. Put it on the shelf next to The Kite Runner. You love this. You live for this.

SUCKED. I put off reading this book for the library book club. Here are my three reasons for doing so:

1) It's a Young Adult Book. I am an Adult. It can't be that good if it's written for young people.
2) It's about the Holocaust, and I think we've all heard enough about that. The author will probably even focus on colors among the grays, as in "Schindler's List."
3) I have WAY too many other books to read.

After avoiding the book for as long as possible, I sat down, hoping to enjoy it enough to gain some clever comments for the book group.

Turns out, most of my concerns were right. But one other thing was also true: THIS BOOK ROCKS.

The first thing any review will say about this book is that it is narrated by death. So, I might as well get it out of the way. Death, the Hooded One, the Angel of the Night, narrates. He is very busy during the war years, as you might expect. Some people claim this is a mere gimmick, and that the story is strong enough as it is.

I agree that this is a strong story it moves like a sailboat on a brisk day but I think the choice to tell it through Death was a good one. Death foreshadows constantly, so we know a bit about which of the characters will die. Instead of ruining the shock value, this heightened my anticipation and dread. And isn't that how people feel during war? They know some of them are bound to die. They know they will lose loved ones. It's one long, hellish wait to see how it will turn out.

It's also an unusual take on the Holocaust because it focuses on Liesel, an orphaned German girl living in Hitler's birthplace. Liesel (The Book Thief) and the other characters in this book are rich, interesting, and wily. I say wily because at points in the book you hate them, but they change, and you grow to love them. For instance, Liesel's adopted mother is a foulmouthed, abusive, sharp woman. (SPOILER) When Liesel's adopted father is shipped off to war, however, Liesel creeps through the house to see Rosa sleeping with her husband's accordian strapped around her waist. Rosa's changes prove one of the greatest reasons to read good literature to get insight into the type of people we don't usually give a second chance.


This one is a long book. But was it worth all that paper?

{sitelink}Click the link for my video review of the big bois in my life.The Written Review:

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.Liesel, an orphaned girl, is sent to live with a foster family right before the Nazi's take over Germany.

She has a peculiar attachment to books, her first being a gravedigger's manual that she picks up during her brother's funeral.

Death takes an interest in her and her books on that day and follows her, sometimes constantly and sometimes at a distance.

There's just something sofascinatingabout her that Death cannot stay away.

Meanwhile Liesel slowly grows up in the heart of Nazi Germany.

Her adoptive Papa and Mama make her bleak life bearable. But Rudy, her best friend, makes everything right in this world. A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship. But their idyllic lives cannot stay that way forever. Food shortages are rampart, money becomes ever tighter and Papa's son believes every word from Hitler.

And throughout all of this, Death watches. and waits. Even death has a heart.Whew. I have avoided this one for so longand I'm so glad that I finally took the plunge.

Normally, I dislike most books/movies/games set in Nazi Germany.

I absolutely hate anything that turns that much pain and sorrow into a gimmick to sell of the product. I feel that a majority of that entertainment field both cheapens the experience and is hugely disrespectful to the victims.

I feel like this subject should be treated delicately and there are very few bits of media that I feel do it justice.

The Book Thief was just absolutely perfect in that sense. This book was just the right mixture of joys and sorrows, of highs and lows, and of good and evil.

I loved Liesel and the way she grew up against the everpresent tide of Nazis.

The way she and her family struggled against the world, by hiding a Jew or showing sympathy, really made this book shine.

Death made an interesting perspective, though I wish the book would have been narrated from inside his head.

Overall, loved this one. Though (and this may be just me), but am I the only one disappointed by the title?

I really was expecting a bit bookthieveryinstead Liesel was (mostly) given the very few books that she "steals".

Audiobook Comments
Extremely wellread an absolute delight to listen to!

{sitelink}YouTube | {sitelink}Blog | {sitelink}Instagram | {sitelink}Twitter | {sitelink}Facebook | Snapchat @mirandareads I hate it when this happens, I truly do.

It makes me feel wrong inside when everyone else loves a book that I find to be underwhelming I mean, what's wrong with me?? Did I not get it?? Obviously it must be a lack of intelligence or something because everyone seems to rate this 5 stars. I was looking through my friend reviews hoping that someone would share my opinion at least a tiny bit and seeing 5 stars, 5 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars

I can appreciate that {sitelink}Markus Zusak is a very talented writer, some of the phrases he uses are beautiful and highly quotable reminiscent of poetry than prose. And the story idea? A tale narrated by Death and set in Nazi Germany original and ominous.

But it was the storytelling that never really worked for me. This is one of those incredibly slow, subtle books that are told in a series of anecdotes and are meant to cleverly build up a bigger picture but the stories just didn't interest me.

I could imagine I was reading a collection of short stories (and not a fulllength novel) about playground fights, developing friendships, WWI stories and death. The book felt almost episodic in nature.

These stories are supposed to come together and form a novel that is all kinds of awesome, but it was so bland. I also think that nearly 600 pages of "subtlety" can make you want to throw yourself off the nearest tall building anyone read {sitelink}To the Lighthouse and spend 99% of it just wishing they'd get to the effin' lighthouse?!

I'm giving this book 3 stars for the pretty words and the concept. But other than that this book unfortunately won't stay with me. I find it an easily forgettable novel. I'm sorry :(

{sitelink}Blog | {sitelink}Facebook | {sitelink}Twitter | {sitelink}Instagram | {sitelink}Youtube | {sitelink}Store I give this 5 stars, BUT there is a disclaimer: If you want a fast read, this book is not for you. If you only like happy endings this book is not for you. If you don't like experimental fiction, this book is not for you.

If you love to read and if you love to care about the characters you read about and if you love to eat words like they're ice cream and if you love to have your heart broken and mended on the same page, this book is for you.

This story is narrated by Death during World War II, and it is the story of a young German girl who comes of age during one of the most horrific times in recent history. Death has a personality. If something bad is about to happen, Death warns you ahead of time. My favorite part is when "he" stomps on a framed picture of Hitler on his way to retrieve a thousand souls from a bomb raid. Death is trying to understand the human race as much as the humans are. When "his" job becomes unbearable, he watches the color of the sky as he gathers the souls and carries them away. The descriptions of the sky are like nothing I've ever read.

A few quotes: In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water. p.164

The town that afternoon was covered in a yellow mist, which stroked the rooftops as if they were pets and filled up the streets like a bath. p.247

He was a black suit than a man. His face was a mustache. p.413

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. he steps on my heart. He makes me cry. p.531

There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life:
1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else.
2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache.
3. He would one day rule the world.
Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. p.445




(FREE PDF) ⛎ The Book Thief ⛓ Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found dblogspot.comhere

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction) List of Books by Lani Lynn Vale and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object Recherches sur le dialecte arcadien partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook Heaven Can't Wait left behind there by accident Lip Service Pleasure Chest and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book as Liesel Royal Date with the help of her accordian-playing foster father Between You Me learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings A Wild and Lonely Place Sharon McCone Mysteries the mayor's wife's library Extremely Youngblood wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement The Best Spiritual Writing 2010 Liesel's world is both opened up Racheengel: Krimigeschichten aus Skandinavien and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity Noi italiani neri award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

(Note: this title was not published as YA fiction) Video review can be found here: {sitelink}

It's going to take awhile for this book to fully sink in, but overall this was a masterpiece.