Book SynopsisNazi Germany in 1939. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family in a town on the outskirts of Munich. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
The story is narrated by death. It's a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter hidden in the basement, and quite a lot of thievery. DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES.
Ups
This book has received so many awards and critical acclaim, and has stayed in bestseller charts for so many weeks that I picked it up off my shelf with great anticipation. I enjoy books set in Nazi Germany, though this one was different from others in that it told the story of an ordinary German family rather than the sufferings in the concentration camps. It was even more powerful as the horrors of the war were to a large extent untold, but always implied and permeated the whole fabric of the book. The lead character was an engaging little girl, who also loved books so I could identify with her immeditately. The story was well told, in bite-size chunks, and there were lots of little glimpses of what was to come at the end of the book. It was a book about the second world war, but it was also about the power of words, despite the Nazis' totalitarian censorship and suppression of forbidden books.
There was lots of beautiful language throughout the book, but my favourite was probably the following sentence by Death, when he was talking about war in the trenches:
I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They're running at me.
Downs
Critics loved the idea that this book was narrated by Death - I did not think this was a novel idea at all, Terry Pratchett and others before him have already been there. Also Zusak's Death was not a believable character, almost caricature like, and attributed with way too much human emotion. The little girl was engaging enough, but I found her thoughts and the way she spoke far too adult for her years, even making allowance for the fact that she had to grow up fast from her experiences. I also felt the book tried too hard to be a literary masterpiece, Zusak had really gone overboard with his allegories and metaphors, and I think it would have been much better to pick a select few, less would have been more. In the end it took me a long time to go through this book. Although the story was interesting enough, and the language not offensive and at times quite lovely, for me it was not 'unputdownable'. However it did have a great ending.
Rating
Language & Style - 7 / 10
Memorability - 7 / 10
Re-readability - 5 / 10
Pageturner factor - 7 / 10
Overall - 7 / 10
