Book: The Book Thief

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

Length: 552 pages

Format: Hardback
Price: Free - checked out from library

How I heard about it: It's been recommended over and over by trusted readers

Basic Premise: Set at the height of the Third Reich in Germany, young Liesel Meminger loses her brother and mother to the Nazis and ends up in a foster home where she learns how to read books and steal them.

My Take: 4 out of 10 (scale here)

It seemed like this book and I would be a match made in heaven. It had lots of things going for it - It's Holocaust literature (I wouldn't call this an obsession exactly, but I read pretty much every YAL title in this genre that I can get my hands on). It's very well-written. It's popular. So I was pretty excited when it was actually on the shelf at the public library. I had been told it was a slow start, but when I was halfway through and the book and it still hadn't picked up, I started to get concerned. It took me FOREVER to read this book. I ended up taking a sick day today and the only way I finished it was that I planted myself on the couch at page 270 and DID NOT MOVE until I was done. Took me all morning. I don't know how I would have made it through otherwise. The book truly picked up on page 400, and the truth is, the 400-page exposition could have been whittled WAY down. This could have easily been a 300-pager.

There are things I really liked, like the fact that Death was the narrator. Like the fact that Liesel's foster father taught her to read. Like the relationship between Liesel and the Jew that was hidden in her home. Like the fact that her foster father took risks and stood up to the wrongs he saw happening all around him. Like the incredibly moving way the author penned the end of the story. But I didn't feel like it could quite redeem 400 pages.

List progress:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Parenting with Love & Logic by Jim Fey
Silver Star Jeannette Walls
Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
Mocking Jay by Suzanne Collins