For fans of: The Wave - Morton Rhue, The Diary of Anne Frank
Publication: 2005
ISBN: 0552773891
Pages: 554
Goodreads
Blurb: HERE IS A SMALL FACT:
YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.
1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.
Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with her foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
SOME MORE IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH.
It's a small story, about:
a girl
an accordionist
some fanatical Germans
a Jewish fist fighter
and quite a lot of thievery.
ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW:
DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES.
Opinion
Cover: I'm very well aware that there are many different editions of this book available, but this is the one I've got. I like that it's very simple and the drawing matches the story. It's just not very pretty alltogether, but I guess it wasn't supposed to.
Content: I'm not the biggest fan of stories set in Nazi Germany during WWII. I'm actually not the biggest fan of books with war as the main part at all. All that fighting, death and suffering really isn't my cup of tea. But Markus Zusak really surprised me.
Reading about it in Death's perspective was fascinating. It feels all so real and logical. Yes, you actually begin to understand death. It sounds weird, but read it for yourself! You'll come to the same conclusion.
Liesl is so adorable. And even in the hardest times, she still has hope left in her heart and so much love. She sees the world with her naive eyes, which was very interesting. I really liked her as a character and totally understood why she stole those books. If I was in her situation, I would have done it too.
The other characters are very well-written too. They might seem a bit flat and stereotypical at first, but they brake out of it, eventually. They really grew very dear to me, especially Liesl's foster parents.
Writing Style: I'm not sure if Markus Zusak really speaks German or if he had someone help him. In about 95% of the cases, he used the german words or sentences correctly. However, there were some words that weren't correctly inflected, instead they were used like english words.
What annoyed me was that after every german sentence, the english translation came right away. Let's put it that way: You either speak German and have to read everything twice. Or you don't speak German and the words are only there for the aesthetic. Either way annoying and also not very logical. Because why would the caracters sometimes speak German and then only English? This is what it looks like to me.
It would have been okay if the author had only done that every now and then.
Still, the words he uses are so beautiful. His writing style is very poetic and he catches the beauty of words in here.
After having heard so much good about The Book Thief, I had to see it myself. As much as I enjoyed it, I didn't love it as much as others did. Maybe something's wrong with me, but it didn't touch me in the same way, it seems.
My conclusion: Anyways, prepare to cry.
My rating: 4/5 Buttons
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