The Book Thief, Part 2

I could not go to bed last night without finishing this book, so I ended up awake until almost 2:00 am, tears streaming silently down my face.  I almost decided to wake Aaron up just to give me a hug because I was so sad.  But instead I just wiped my face with the covers, went to sleep, and had horrible dreams.  This book is narrated by Death so death is everpresent.  The question I kept asking myself at the end is whether I would want to live if basically everyone I loved was dead.  Horrible to even think about, isn't it?  What else would you have to live for?  Books, I guess.

This author was able to really make me care about the characters, they seemed like such real people.  I think they were so likable because their lives were so difficult but they still managed to love each other and be funny, and that is what real people have to do.  I was a little skeptical at first of the choice to have Death as the narrator - it's such a human story, I thought maybe it should have been told by a human - but now I think it was really cool because it was a tool to see these characters from an omniscient birds eye view and to also fit in information about what was happening in the war and in the death camps.  One of the most beautiful things in the book is the word shaker story that Max writes for Liesel, and message in that story is that as long as there are some people who are willing to stand up for the oppressed, change will happen.  Hitler's downfall can start with just two people.  So the idea that Death could become so interested in following one little girl and telling her story fits perfectly with that theme.

This is definitely a book that will stick with me, although I think I might still be a little too sad to fully appreciate how much.  It actually made me think of The Hunger Games a lot as I was reading it, just in terms of the impact of war and totalitarianism on young people, but like The Hunger Games, it is so much more than just a war story.  I think what I will remember most about The Book Thief is its portrayal of Liesel's relationship with her foster parents and what it says about what makes a family - you don't have to be blood-related or even affectionate, you just have to be selfless.  Read this book, Saumensch!

Up next: Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson