The Book Thief Book Review

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2005

Young Adult, Historical Fiction

**This review has major spoilers**

Goodreads summary

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

This week, I took a trip back through time. I first read this book when I was in seventh grade. I’m now in university… The Book Thief was always a unique book on my shelf because I never reread it after the first time. Throughout Middle school and early high school, I would normally reread the books I owned at least five times each. Yet each time I went to pick up The Book Thief, I would be reminded of the complete heartbreak I felt after first reading it. So basically, I haven’t read it around eight years. I think having more perspective made me enjoy the novel in a different way. The ending though, is still as tragic as ever.

One of the things that stood out to me while reading was the narration. I LOVED Death as a narrator. I found it very similar to Aphrodite narrating in Lovely War. I think Death is a perfect way to deliver a story taking place during WW2 and definitely makes it stand out in the historical fiction genre. I understand now why it was such a popular novel in the early 2010s. Death’s deliverance of Liesel’s tale was representative of how many times she was close to Death as he took people around her. Personifying a concept of life is not easy, but I thought Zucker did well to make Death Himself feel so real.

To jump ahead to the ending, I love that Death gets the last words in the novel. It’s part of the reason why I’ve written so much about why I love Death as a narrator. The ending line is “I am haunted by humans.” In the end, Death always has the last words… Perfect…. Iconic… Never been done before…

I thought that Liesel was a well-developed character and interesting through his eyes. While I would have liked to have heard more of her inside thoughts, I understand it would not have worked due to the style of the novel. I also loved the revelation at the end of the novel that Death only was able to tell Liesel’s story because she wrote it down herself. It was such a nice way of tying everything together.

Hans and Rosa, Liesel’s adopted parents, are the real deal. Such good people and I love the short chapters about them. I don’t think I need to say more than that.

Max, a young Jewish man that Hans takes in, has an arc that is both heartbreaking and hopeful. When I first started reading his parts, I was sad and hating reading them because I thought he died at the end. When I learned Max survived and got a happy ending, I was relieved. One of my favorite things about Max’s parts of the novel is the addition of artwork. I think drawings can be a wonderful addition to storytelling and I love authors that take the risk to include mixed media. I thought the small, hand drawn pieces were perfect and made the book feel even more real. Even though this is a novel and it needs words to be classified as a novel, pictures really can convey a thousand words.

One of my favorite characters of the novel is Frau Holtzapfel. She’s married to the Nazi mayor of the town and is still not living her best life throughout most of the novel. The deaths of all her sons further represents how few benefitted from Nazi Germany. I thought her progression as a character and how she fits into the story was perfect. Her adoption of Liesel at the end really surprised me, as I’d completely forgotten about it. She really gets the chance to grow and redeem herself by the end of the novel.

While there were a lot of things I liked about the novel, there were two things I didn’t like. Firstly, the love story between Liesel and her bestfriend Rudy. I hated how much Liesel expressed disinterest in Rudy and the number of times he didn’t take no for an answer. It seemed like the love story was forced and only leading up to the tragedy at the end. Which leads to the second thing I didn't love. I really liked the end of the story, but the ending epilogue gave off a completely different vibe than the rest of the book. It felt like the main novel was super deep and thought provoking and then the epilogue came along and went Sike! Here’s a happy ending. This is a novel meant for a younger audience, meaning that the ending probably can’t be depressing, but I felt that the ambiguity of the ending without the epilogue would have worked really well. Anyways, both of these points are solely personal opinions and in no way take away from the overall book or its message.

Rating:5/5 The Book Thief is one of the most popular historical fiction books out there and after reading the story for the first times in years, I remember why. I think for any fan of historical fiction, The Book Thief is a classic of the genre and worth the read!