How are you?
For my first book review of December, I thought I would talk about one of my favourite books of November. My best friend bought me The Book Thief for my birthday back in the summer and I finally got round to reading it. This may become one of my favourite books of 2016. Like all my other book reviews, it will follow the normal structure, except I've decided to combine the Character Chat and Opinions section as I've noticed in the past few posts the Character Chat sections have been very small.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak- Contains Spoilers
Non-Spoiler Thoughts
When I first picked up this book, I wasn't sure to expect and it really wasn't for me. But once I got into it, I was hooked. I gave this book 5/5 stars (which I've noticed I do a lot) but this book really deserved 5 stars. It was really nice reading something outside my comfort zone and trying something new. It's made me really into historical fantasies again.
Cover Chat
I love how faded and old fashioned the cover looks. It's one of my favourite covers and I love how simplistic it is.
Plot
It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.This summary is taken from Goodreads and the average rating on Goodreads is 4.35/5 stars.
Opinions and Character Chat
Just a quick warning, this section will have no structure at all! These are all taken from my notebook that I keep when I'm reading. This has really helped me keep all my thoughts in one place and it makes my reviews so much easier to write.
One of my favourite things about this book was the narration style. We had the character of Death narrating the story and I found this really interesting. I've never read a book which is told through a character who isn't directly involved in the plot, but still is important to the story. I really want to read more books like this now..
The characters are really realistic, which I really liked. Considering that it's a historical fantasy, these characters felt real for the time period they were living in. I also loved the wide variety of characters and how they were all very different.
It was interesting reading a World War Two novel with a family that was sympathetic to the Jews and also reading from a character that was a Jew. I loved reading from Max's perspective as it was nice seeing what a Jew could have thought at the time.
This is a direct quote from my notes "such a powerful and beautiful story". I've written this a few times and I still agree with it. This was so well written and I can't believe that I didn't pick it up sooner. The emotions in this story were all very raw and I found myself feeling what the character was feeling.
The ending of this book had me in pieces. I can't believe that he decided to kill off loads of the characters. Although there was subtle hints that this might happen, I never expected it to happen in the last chapter of the book. The very ending of this book also had me in pieces. I was so happy that Max and Liesel were reunited.
So that concludes my review on The Book Thief. Do you like this new shorter style or do you prefer my more ramble-y style? Let me know what your thoughts are and also what you thought of the Book Thief.
Love,
Carenza x
