the book thief. markus zusak. (151)

i have to admit that when i saw the book thief in the ya section at kmart, last year, i was judgy and didn't think much of it.  i like books, but what kind of person steals them?  and why would i want to read about it?!?!   (yeah, i totally misjudged that title.)  however, when i saw it on my friend fabian's instagram, i decided to not dismiss it.  and then when i saw the trailer for the movie version and saw the girl stealing the book from the nazi burn pile, i decided i had to check it out!

to start, i have to say i appreciate death as the narrator.  having death as the storyteller allowed the reader even greater insight.  also it allowed for the bleak comments about dying to be clever versus shocking because they came straight from death's mouth. it also got me thinking why is death never revered as a god?  he is never the head god but a b-list one.  death is something that is inevitable so shouldn't we have an open dialogue with death?  especially since everyone believes in death, so why not party to me?  i want to be able to ask him for more time? maybe exchange our own time for some more of our loved ones?  as odd as it may seem i would find greater comfort praying to death versus god, death is certain, i am unsure if god even exists.

but back to the book thief, it was a wonderful story.  i absolutely adored liesel, rudy, hans, the mayor's wife, and max.  i loved how hans taught liesel to read by painting unknown words on the wall.  i loved how hans kept his promised and kept max as safe as he could.  and i admired hans for having a heart, for instinctually helping the old jewish man during the march, not seeing him as a jew but someone in need.  

i loved how rudy rebelled against the hitler youth and always tried to stick up for the little guy.  though i have to say rudy's blackface as jesse owens was inexcusable, having grown up with white idols as a person of colored i never tried to whiten my face to emulate what i saw on tv.  rudy's desire to paint himself black demonstrated that he did not see jesse owens as a hero but a black hero.  blackface is inherently racist regardless of how hard the author attempted to make it endearing.  

i loved how liesel went to read books with the mayor's wife.  i admired the mayor's wife for understanding that liesel's anger was due to the tension of the world and left her a book for her to  steal.  

i also loved max, his boxing hitler (with a realistic ending) and the stories he wrote for liesel.  i will say that his story of him as a bird was better then the tree one.  

the characters were great and memorable.  i of course, cried at the end. how sad i was to lose all the characters that i loved.  i was in tears as liesel discovered all of the ones she loved were dead.  and how happy i was when we all discovered that max survived and that liesel went onto life a long life.

it was a great story and how brave liesel was.  her desire to read and thirst for knowledge was inspiring.  i admired how she wanted to test herself with reading at school.  how brave and lucky she was for not being killed by the nazis each time she intervened with the marching of the jewish prisoners.  and how beautiful it was when she and max discovered each others sufferings and helped each other overcome grief.  i loved how when he was sick she brought him a small gift, things to tell him when he woke up.  how sweet and endearing.

i loved the whimsy this book was filled with though i have to admit that some of the death's interjection did get a tad distracting.  i also have to admit that all of the foreshadowing that occurred via death did take away from the story.  i understand that the foreshadowing was to lessen the blow that would be dealt later but i think even the ya readers could have expected the impact.  no offense but a story about nazi germany, someone and quite possibly everyone will die.  also it made me too paranoid about the mayor's wife.  i kept waiting for her to snap but she never did.

regardless of all that, it was a very lovely read and i look forward to seeing the film.