Liesel Meminger is a nine-year-old girl living with a foster family in Nazi Germany. Things only get more complicated, however, as a Jew is hidden in the basement, and books are stolen.
Where to begin? These were 500 pages I was deeply sad to reach the end of, but not for reasons which are easy to define. The writing, for example, is excellent and glows with memorable imagery ("the young man's voice was scraped out and handed across the dark like it was all that remained of him") but it's so effortless that it's difficult to exalt.
And that seems to be a running theme when I think about the book:
· It is theatrical, but it is dark, and those two moods are handled neatly.
· Death narrates the story in a disarmingly human way which is touched on only briefly, because it seems an obvious decision.
· The ending is revealed quickly, and you have no choice but to love the characters anyway.
· It gives no easy answers, and doesn't demonise anybody, trusting the reader's intelligence without seeming pretentious or problematic.
· A dry sense of humour runs through the book, gently keeping the tone from falling too far into morbidity.
· I can only write in bullet points, because each and every thing that I have to say about this book is simply and wholeheartedly good.
I don't understand how people can see it as tacky, or lacking nuance. I found The Book Thief to be nothing but extremely readable and eventually heart-wrenching . If you haven't already, you should go and read this book. It's destined to be a classic.
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Book Reviews
No FicciónCarried over from my Tumblr, this is a personal project tracking what I read through time, largely because of my awful memory. These aren't long reviews, but the books are varied, and the opinions are honest, so I hope you enjoy.
