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sarahj13's reviews
434 reviews
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
3.0
I have always been fascinated by stories that centre around the time of World War II because they share a different aspect of life not found in history books. About the everyday struggles of ordinary people. I dived into the world of the book thief knowing full well that things, as in most war stories, will not end on a happy note. For the most part they will simply show how life can be unfair.
The story is narrated by Death, which only seems fitting. And through Death's perspective, the life of the book thief unravels like a spool of yarn.
~I saw the book thief three times~
It's a new take on narration or at least one that I had not read before. However, it annoyed me at most parts that Death often stated the outcome of certain events way before they happened, like a mini spoiler alert, which destroyed whatever suspense could be there in the book, or what could drive the plot forward. There was also no definite plot. Only an account of the many characters in the book, which felt dull at many points and small insignificant events seemed to drag on for pages and pages with excessive details. As much as I wanted to stay engaged in the story, I couldn't help but keep taking long breaks in between to read other things.
Liesel Meminger has a deep rooted love for books. She is not only fascinated by the words in them but also their covers and spines.
~She was home, amongst the mayor's books of every colour and description, with their silver and gold lettering. She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her~
This paragraph resonated with me for how I feel everytime I step into a bookstore and feel like running my hand across their covers and hardbacks, and feel the engravings. But on a sidenote, Liesel Meminger is a pretty boring and two-dimensional character. Everyone else around her seemed for more interesting, including Mama who, for the most part of the book, treated her worse than dog poop.
I enjoyed the writing style, the descriptions. Some of the details of how people coped with the bombings and rations were so vivid that I didn't even need to stop and imagine it for myself.
What threw me off about this book the most was how, for the longest time, I waited for something to happen and it was only in the last few pages that I felt I was hit with a tonne of bricks that came out of nowhere. Some of them I still expected though, because of Death's narration.
The story is narrated by Death, which only seems fitting. And through Death's perspective, the life of the book thief unravels like a spool of yarn.
~I saw the book thief three times~
It's a new take on narration or at least one that I had not read before. However, it annoyed me at most parts that Death often stated the outcome of certain events way before they happened, like a mini spoiler alert, which destroyed whatever suspense could be there in the book, or what could drive the plot forward. There was also no definite plot. Only an account of the many characters in the book, which felt dull at many points and small insignificant events seemed to drag on for pages and pages with excessive details. As much as I wanted to stay engaged in the story, I couldn't help but keep taking long breaks in between to read other things.
Liesel Meminger has a deep rooted love for books. She is not only fascinated by the words in them but also their covers and spines.
~She was home, amongst the mayor's books of every colour and description, with their silver and gold lettering. She could smell the pages. She could almost taste the words as they stacked up around her~
This paragraph resonated with me for how I feel everytime I step into a bookstore and feel like running my hand across their covers and hardbacks, and feel the engravings. But on a sidenote, Liesel Meminger is a pretty boring and two-dimensional character. Everyone else around her seemed for more interesting, including Mama who, for the most part of the book, treated her worse than dog poop.
I enjoyed the writing style, the descriptions. Some of the details of how people coped with the bombings and rations were so vivid that I didn't even need to stop and imagine it for myself.
What threw me off about this book the most was how, for the longest time, I waited for something to happen and it was only in the last few pages that I felt I was hit with a tonne of bricks that came out of nowhere. Some of them I still expected though, because of Death's narration.