The Book Thief

…Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books.

With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau…

-https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19063.The_Book_Thief?from_search=true&search_version=service

Rule #1: Do not read the ending of this book at school because it’ll make you cry. (I was close but I am stronk)

This book I had on my tbr list for a long time and then I finally had to read it for school so it worked out perfectly (yay)! I expected it to be a good book considering it’s popularity but I did not expect such emotional pain. Yes, you will go through excruciating pain reading this book.

One of the main points of this book is the writing style. There are tons of little hints and foreshadowing in this book that it drove me insane. (I would know cause I annotated it). This book tends to spoil a lot of things. Apparently, Death, our narrator, likes to make things super clear to the reader. Clear enough that they just flat out say it.

At first, I found it kind of annoying but then it started spoiling certain things. It kept the suspense going on all the time. You knew a storm was coming for a certain character and even though some spoiled events happened in the end of the book, Death would repeat it again and again as if saying ‘Enjoy the good times while you can.’

Zusak knows how to toy with your emotions and he’s done a good job of writing it out in such a way that readers don’t have the feeling to give up reading the book because they already know what happens. He gets you attached to the characters then absolutely SHREDS YOUR HEART IN HALF. BRUTALLY.

Then the writing gives off an ominous feeling and keeps you flipping page after page. If I didn’t have to annotate this, I would’ve finished this book in 3 days max. Cause WHOA. I expected things to happen, but I couldn’t believe it without reading it myself and when I did, it was horrible.

And this wouldn’t have all mattered if it weren’t for the characters. I loved all of them (except the ones that were mean to the protagonists and Hitler. Yeah I don’t care what happens to them except when they fall to their demise muhaha). All characters had their own, concrete personalities that grew throughout the story. Whether it be from strong to weak or the other way around, I just naturally liked everyone.

To bring another review to an unnatural close (yeah I like to randomly stop sorry) just read this book. I tried my best to not spoil anything even though I want to spill my damaged feelings everywhere but everyone just needs to give this book a shot.

I give this book 5/5 dominoes.