Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This was once again a book recommended on Goodreads. I did hear great things about it even before that, so I picked it up to see what it was like. It did not disappoint.

I really, really loved it. First of all, this is not an easy, happy book. It's not something that you can breeze through, without really thinking about it and it's not a book that you can relax to. I mean, that goes even without saying because it is about World War II. Still, it's an amazing book. It's about a girl called Leisel Meminger, who is traveling with her mother and brother to a foster home when her brother dies. That's the moment she steals her first book. After that, she arrives at Himmel Street, where she meets her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. As Leisel learns how to live with them, and as she starts to learn to read and starts loving books, she is also slowly getting to know people on Himmel Street, amongst whom she finds her future best friend Rudy.

And after a while, her parents start hiding a Jew in their basement, Max, and he and Leisel soon become very good friends.

I should've mentioned this before, this book is narrated by Death. I thought this brought so much to the book, and really elevated it to the next level. Because, one thing that really dominated the WW II (or any war for that matter) was Death. So, who better yo translate the feeling than the Angel of Death himself? I also liked that the book wasn't consistent chronologically. It sort of jumped through time as... well, Death tried to reconstruct the life of Liesel Meminger, the Book Thief. I really enjoyed that.

I really liked the way this book was written. It was honest and the story ran smoothly. Also, the characterization was really nicely done, because there was this wide range of characters that you hated at one moment, but liked and understood at other. 

I really loved this book and would recommend it to anyone. I think that branding this book as YA doesn't make much sense because I don't think this is age specified. I think adults can read it and enjoy it, which goes for some other YA books obviously. So, in conclusion, great read and I really thoroughly enjoyed it.

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