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A review by madiganinwonderland
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
4.0
Somewhere between 3.75 and 4 stars
This was really hard to rate. This book was...well, it's undoubtedly beautiful. The imagery that we see through Death's eyes really is quite stunning. However, the story of Liesel was tragic but boring a lot of the time. That's one of the main reasons it took me so long to get through this. It wasn't holding my attentions and at some points I didn't really pay attention to what was going on.
The story itself is stunning as well though. I've never read anything remotely like this, and I've read quite a few WW2 fiction novels. To look at what happened from the perspective of death is breathtaking at some points.
Liesel's story though seemed to drag on. There wasn't a lot going on and I think that was partially the point but I just feel like this could have been at least 100 pages shorter if Zuzak had just cut some of the in depth detail about the day to day life. It adds to the atmosphere but made the story really hard to get through at points.
The ending, though, brought this up almost half a star for me. It was beautiful was perfect and very hard to picture. I can't believe some of the metaphoric images like Papa's silver eyes rusting. Being able to picture Liesel there where her whole street used to be but now is just gone, and she's finding the bodies. That was so beautiful and painful to picture. I love that she lived such a long life, though.
I recommend this book, and probably eventually I'll try to reread this. However, go into it for the story and images, don't expect there to be a whole lot of stuff going on between the major plot points.
This was really hard to rate. This book was...well, it's undoubtedly beautiful. The imagery that we see through Death's eyes really is quite stunning. However, the story of Liesel was tragic but boring a lot of the time. That's one of the main reasons it took me so long to get through this. It wasn't holding my attentions and at some points I didn't really pay attention to what was going on.
The story itself is stunning as well though. I've never read anything remotely like this, and I've read quite a few WW2 fiction novels. To look at what happened from the perspective of death is breathtaking at some points.
Liesel's story though seemed to drag on. There wasn't a lot going on and I think that was partially the point but I just feel like this could have been at least 100 pages shorter if Zuzak had just cut some of the in depth detail about the day to day life. It adds to the atmosphere but made the story really hard to get through at points.
The ending, though, brought this up almost half a star for me. It was beautiful was perfect and very hard to picture.
I recommend this book, and probably eventually I'll try to reread this. However, go into it for the story and images, don't expect there to be a whole lot of stuff going on between the major plot points.