Monday, October 7, 2013

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book was a little boring in the beginning. But then towards the last 200 pages the pace was very fast, leaving me in awe after each chapter. Here is the thing:I didn’t know anything about this book until I started reading it. I am not one of those people who read the synopsis beforehand. I just heard that it was a great book and so I had to read it.

It circled around Germany before and during World War II.How this war was a lot to take…not on the world but on the Germans. What I really liked about this novel is that it focused on the Germans during this devastating period of time. And especially on the book thief. The book thief is the main character of this book and we witness her growth over the years.

She suffered the sight of watching her brother dying. And this had impacted her for a very long time. Then she developed a passion for reading. But there was one problem: BOOKS WERE FORBIDDEN. Apparently Hitler didn’t like books so everyone was forced to throw all their books to a pile. That pile was later to be burned to ashes. That however did not add a single flame onto The Book Thief's passion. The Book Thief had the willingness to sacrifice her life for a book.

This book really showed me how it was like back then. The clock kept ticking in 2013 but my whole being was in the late 30s and early 40s.

I don’t recommend this book to people who don’t like history and politics. I mean I like history but this book took forever to explain or discuss anything historical.

Fun fact: of course there were a lot of German words thrown here and there. I don’t know German but I recognized the word "Leader" and "My Struggle" in the German language. I remembered them from history class in high school. Did I mention that I love history? And so that made me feel proud.

The writing style was just amazing. I mean that last sentence was a great way to end this book. I even tweeted two quotes from the book. So many great meanings and lyrical words.

The first thought that came to me after finishing this book was "I gotta check out more of Markus Zusak's novels."


1 comment:

James said...

I really enjoyed this book! I also felt it was a little bit long but the story was so good it really draws you in to keep reading until the end. I too didn't know anything about the book before picking it up to read, I literally just saw it on the shelf and chose it for some reason, but I am glad I did! The only thing that disappointed me a little was the movie adaptation. It stuck quite close to the book but it didn't feel quite as powerful or moving as the book did.

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