REVIEW: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

TITLE: The Book Thief

AUTHOR: Markus Zusak

PUBLISHED: December 2007

GENRE: Fiction, YA, historical fiction,

SETTING: Germany

WHERE I GOT IT: ebook borrow from the library

ABOUT: The book follows a young girl named Liesel Meminger as she struggles with life in Nazi Germany during WWII. It is told through the eyes of Death, who first ran into her standing over the grave of her brother. He is intrigued by her and witness's her stealing her first book. Death follows Liesel and watches her as she struggles to find her own place during a horrible time in the world's history.

EXPECTATIONS: I really had no expectations before I started reading it. I knew that it was a popular book that many seemed to really like so I thought it was time to finally read it for myself.

WHAT I LIKED: I liked the unexpected and unusual narrator of the novel, that being Death. Often throughout the book I kept wondering why Markus Zusak decided to tell it this way because to me without all the Death bits the story would have held it's own rather nicely. I think the story was told beautifully.

WHAT I HATED: I didn't like some of the descriptions Death used sometimes. I notice it more at the beginning though. Some of them left me scratching my head trying to figure out what he meant by them. I wish that I would have jotted a few down before I returned the book so I could have given a few examples. After I got deeper into the book, however, they either never jumped out at me or there weren't anymore.

HOW IT ENDED: Did I like the ending? Yes and No. The ending was pretty sad, not that it was too much of a shock since Death at one point tells us that it wasn't going to end well. It's funny though that even though when he spoiled the ending to his own story and then backtracked to the events leading up to the end I kept hoping that it would end differently, that maybe Death was actually wrong. The ending was sad but at the same time it wasn't. I don't want to give away the ending so I will just leave it at that.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I thought this book was excellent. I loved the narrative and I loved listening to Death tell us about Liesel and her life. I thought it was well written. Another book I could not put down.

MY RATING: 4 out of 5 stars.