A review by ed_moore
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I don’t cry at books; unless you include Death of a Salesman but that one I’m not counting as I was obviously in the wrong head space and shouldn’t have cried at that. Therefore I don’t cry at books, until I read this thing. Zusak is a genius. ‘The Book Thief’ is narrated by death, the narration is dead-pan and seems off at times as death interludes with various facts and changed the books formatting, it was unusual and I was sceptical, but it was perfect. You don’t often get war stories from the German side, at least not as a British reader, not as the allies won the war, but this really drilled in that in the end we are all humans and all victims of wars atrocities, and there is also still victims on each side of a world ravished by war. That was down to the brilliant character development shining a light on a new victim, the German Everyman. My one critique was that our narrator death was not afraid to spoil the ending in the middle of the book, and a few more subsequent times, yet somehow though as I read such spoiled I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t just left till the end, it somehow didn’t take anything from the finale. I still cried.