Reviews

Told from the perspective of death, whom I thoroughly enjoyed, the story of the book theif unfolds. This story was funny, captivating, sad, thought-provoking, and intense. You will not be disappointed!

gmcuriousgeorge's review against another edition

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5.0

I cried. I actually cried. A little bit, but I did.

anamargarita28's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

smart_girls_love_trashy_books's review against another edition

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2.0

-POTENTIAL SPOILERS-

This will most likely be the most controversial review I have ever written, and will have ever written. Even more so than my review of Red Queen, or The Crown's Game, or any of those kinds of books. For a while now I've teased my thoughts about this book. A lot of people on this site are aware that I don't like it. But how about we really dive into this and see just why I didn't like it?

The hype didn't kill this book for me. In fact, I read it before I was even on GoodReads, or had even heard of this website. I was aware of all its awards, but I don't pay much attention to literary awards. I've actually been thinking about rereading this book, since I have three theories about why I didn't originally like it:

1. I was a lot younger when I read it. When I was younger, a lot of tropes I adore in books now I hated. Thus, a lot of books that I would've loved now I hated when I was younger. I feel like if I did reread it now, I might like this.

2. I was not in a very good state of mind when I originally read this. Life was not going well for me, and the last thing I needed was to read some kind of 600-page long super-long-winded book.

3. I had to read this for my book club, and my book club didn't pick very good books.

However, I then remember that I also read American Gods around this same time. Yet despite it being even longer, and going through a bad time, and also being for my book club, I still really liked it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is....this book is terrible.

I would start with a list of positives here, but....I don't really think there are any. Maybe it's just because of the stuff I read, but having Death narrate a story isn't very original to me. I've read a lot of manga where Shinigami are the focus and sometimes they too narrate the story. It's a cool idea, I will give it that, but the Death in this seemed very flat to me. He didn't really have much personality. And Death should have something to him. Plus I hated the way he talked, and the style this book was written was pretty much my main reason for hating it. But let's talk about that later.

Since I brought up characters, let's talk about the rest of them. There's the potential for characters here, but I feel like they were never given the chance to fully blossom. And this book is supposed to be about characters growing and becoming better people. But I never felt like they were given that opportunity. I bet nobody can name one or even two defining traits from any of the main characters. Even Liesel. The only personality trait is that she loves to read, and that's it. That's not an entire personality. For most of the book she doesn't even know how to read!

Despite this being historical fiction, I didn't once feel submersed in this country nor time period. A lot of people would say it's because of my own personal beliefs, that I don't care for this nation or whatever, but that's not true at all. I will read a book about my most hated thing if it's done well. And this was not done well. We don't really feel the danger or threat that the Nazis supposedly pose. I never once was worried about Liesel hiding Matt or whatever his name was in her basement and that they would get discovered. There was no suspense there, and that's not how you do a WW2-centered story in Germany.

Let's not enough mention that terrible scene near the end where a bomb kills everyone except Liesel. I shouldn't even have to explain how terrible it is. I didn't cry, for starters.

Now let's get to the biggest problem of this book and the main reason why I rated it so low: the writing style. Now I don't care about purple prose or descriptive writing or anything like that. I don't really care about weird-sounding phrases. That was not the problem with this book. No, this book's problem was that it was pretty much nothing but one super long stream of consciousness. It also randomly jumped and skipped around to different years and it was really hard to get the facts straight. Sometimes Liesel can read, sometimes she can't, sometimes people hate her, sometimes they don't, etc. Nobody is referred to by their actual name in this, so please forgive me if I can't remember their names.

However, I DO remember stuff like 'the book thief', 'the boy with lemon-colored hair', etc. So those are their names I guess.

While this isn't the worst thing I've ever read, obviously, it's very, very close. Reading this was a miserable experience, hence why it took me so long to finish it.

And what's worse is that...I actually feel horrible that i hate this book. I know, it's ironic since I normally don't care what others think of my reviews; I have an unpopular opinion and I'm proud of it. However, the reason why I feel so bad is because...I SHOULD love this. It's about loving books and writing, about the power words can hold. I love things like that, obviously.

But I don't like it. It's long-winded, badly written, and BORING. Yet everytime I read a review saying 'this made me cry my heart is gone' or 'everyone should read this beautiful book' or 'this is for everyone who loves words' I want to cry. I literally want to sob reading all these reviews, because deep in my heart I know I should be one of those people praising this book.

Is it those reviewers' faults? Of course it's not.

It's this book's fault for making me hate everything having to do with words, books, and the English language. I don't think I'll ever reread this. I don't think I'll ever waste another second of my life ever thinking about it again.

In the wise words of Hiyori Sarugaki, who is also a representation of death: (I can't find a GIF so just make do with the quote)

"I really, really, hate humans. I hate Shinigami too,"

katlynb's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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