This may well be one of the best books I have ever read. And I don't say that lightly.
The Book Thief is the tale of a young girl given by her mother into foster care, and her growing up and trying to deal with the world of Nazi Germany. It is a profoundly moving, emotional, evocative book, one of the few books that has ever made me cry. I can't really do it justice with any sort of review, so I will simply say that if you haven't yet read it, go do so posthaste.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I agree wholeheartedly--this book is incredible!
I second the motion! I'm about 125 pages into it. It gets harder and harder to put it down.
I love this book, and might I mention, if you like it you will want to check out I am the Messanger, by the same author. It's actually more intense (at least I felt it was) and has a great message!
I just finished The Book Thief this afternoon. I hate to say it, but I have mixed feelings about the book. There are things that I really loved about the book and there were other elements that I thought just fell flat. Perhaps my expectations were too high.
First of all, I thought the idea of Death narrating the story was intriguing. I liked the idea of presenting him as an exhausted and jaded man. For him, WWII is just another long day at work that never ends. This of course creates an interesting source of character development as he becomes attached to young Leisel. This was a refreshing way of telling the story of WWII.
The characters were very well crafted. You can't help but get attached to Leisel, Rudy, Hans, his wife and Max.
I suppose my main complaint was the length of the book. For much of the novel, I felt that the story wasn't driving toward anything. It was just one short story after another. Variations of the WWII story have been told many times. The story is well known. Sometimes authors simply assume that the end of the war is the end of the story. They don’t feel a need to move things along. I believe that this was one of those cases.
I did tear up a few times. But how could you not?... The story is so absolutely and terribly depressing. Move over Shakespeare. At least in Hamlet, Horatio made it out in one piece. If you plan to dive this deep into the cathartic barrel, there should be a payoff equal to the depth. The ending was impressive, but just not enough.
It was a good book. In spite of my complaints I'd still give it a solid 4 out of 5.
Post a Comment