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The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

Start date: March 1, 2013

Finish date: March 31, 2013

Discussion: Group Read

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What Members Thought

Jun 12, 2014 Brooke ♥booklife4life♥ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book, read-in-2016, amazon-reviewed

Basic Info

Format: Audio
Pages/Length: n/a
Genre: Young Adult; Historical Fiction
Reason For Reading: On the YA Top 100

At A Glance

Love Triangle/Insta Love/Obsession?: No
Cliff Hanger: eh
Triggers: n/a
Rating: 3.5 stars

Score Sheet
All out of ten

Cover: 8
Plot: 8
Characters: 7
World Building: 7
Flow: 7
Series Congruity: n/a
Writing: 7
Ending: 7

Total: 7

In Dept

Best Part: Books!
Worst Part: Dumb MC at times.
Thoughts Had: You really should have been caught!

Conclusion

Continuing the Series: n/a
Recommending: Yes

Short ...more

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Sep 09, 2013 Gabrielle rated it liked it

Shelves: reviewed, read-for-school, classics, physical-owned, big-books

I didint like this book but I greatly appreciated it it was an extremely powerful book if I could use one word for it, it would be powerful did I like diesel? She was not amazing but it was more her story that was amazing but I never really connected with the book much less the characters. The hitler world war 2 setting is not my scene or my preference but this book was very deep and there were a lot of quotable parts. It made me look at death in a completely different way, it makes you question ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 23, 2013 Marijoe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: goat-favourites, historical-fiction

I think this book deserves constellation because everything about this seems impeccable. When I heard that Death is the narrator of this story and this is set in Nazi Germany, I stirred right away on this.

This is truly a heap of arts and words. Every word that is pieced together forms a sentence that reads like poetry instead of a prose. This is well-thought and artfully formed and written. Because of that, I planned on reading this for days even though I know I can finish this in one seating, b I think this book deserves constellation because everything about this seems impeccable. When I heard that Death is the narrator of this story and this is set in Nazi Germany, I stirred right away on this.

This is truly a heap of arts and words. Every word that is pieced together forms a sentence that reads like poetry instead of a prose. This is well-thought and artfully formed and written. Because of that, I planned on reading this for days even though I know I can finish this in one seating, because I want to appreciate its every content in every day that passes by. This is like a combination of an academic or historical book with fictional characters. I also like the fact that this is realistic-- set in the Nazi era where nations were at war and people were dying. The flow of the story has a nature of keeping whats real with its theme while putting humor, suspense and adventure along the way in the characters of Liezel, Rudy, Hans, Max and Rosa.

I am thankful that Zusak used a character of a young girl as a protagonist she embodies curiosity, childishness, impulsiveness, exploration and a learner that serve as tools to pave way for the protagonist to swing along with the plot of the story. No contest that if this has a historical piece in it and the readers want to learn, using a child as a character who is nothing but a learner and an adventurer would be the perfect fit. Liezel’s curiosity paved way to the discovery of life’s depth during the war, but her stealing of books didn't give me much of a taste of satisfaction—for the learning part—since the content of the books she stole and read didn't level the morals that were supposed to support the story. It’s like those books she’s stolen must be significant and be more than guidance but instead I find it nondescript since Hans and Max made very good teachers to her instead of those books. But for the shocking part, those books didn't only bridge her blank slate brain to her state of learning in the latter part, but to her salvation.

Further, my favorite character here is Rudy. He’s like the extenuation of everything hard rock suspense and serious. The fact that he admires Jesse Owens his whole life, the idea of coloring himself black, his wanting to kiss Liezel, seriously what’s not to love with Rudy? His character also showed how a kid could still be a kid even though you were enveloped by the fear of dictatorship – He stole food with Liezel, he’s not attending the youth practice, not caring about whom the Fuhrer is and what he can do, and just free hating on him. And I think that is a loose knot for this story, this didn't strangle you with your prime knowledge that the Fuhrer has a hold on each person’s life in Germany that time, that there were people performing their own small rebellious act against him somewhere, like Rudy.

Apart from him, I also like Max and Hans. It wasn't obvious that there will be Jewish people involved in this story, like duh it’s Nazi Germany; it would never be completed without the holocaust and the Jews. And for the record, I never knew that reading about the holocaust is as scary and thrilling as much as watching videos of it. Every chapter that has Max in it sent a Nazi-air kind of chills to me, maybe because The Nazi Era is one of my favorite lessons in the history. Hans on the other hand is the epitome of irony in this story. Read this to find out how because I don’t have the power to pen it down because it might include spoilers if I do.

And let’s go down to the Narrator—Death. Even though I think the ending is just a piece of a lesson which I never noticed that is connected to the story since I was carried away with how beautiful this is, there I found out what Death is trying to convey. That in this world even if you think physical things are the only ones that make other physical things move, you’re wrong, that sometimes abstract things mostly do the moving of people, scaring them, making them happy or simply making them feel all kinds of emotions, simple as that. That even if you think humans hold the control over everything, we should take a seat and be in deep thoughts because we don’t. That what we feel doesn't chase us or swallow us for good, but we choose to feel them, we just don’t know how we do it but it’s just there and we let it control us, the way we feel and the way we behave.

So to wrap things up, if you are a sucker for a great story you might want to stir on this but please don’t get mad with the ending. Some of us might find it hard to believe and some of us will be contented with the ending, and in all honesty I don’t know which category I fall on. I just love this book to bits because I don’t think there is another book that is written with such beautiful words pieced together, characters that epitomize innocence, humor, adventure, bravery, irony and more, a story that is set on one of the most remarkable era in the history and lastly with a Narrator you would never expect to tell a story like a human does.
...more

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Jan 25, 2014 Madelene G rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was such an amazing book. One of my all time favorites. It was magic, scary and it made you think. It was just pure magic, magic through words. A book everyone should read.

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Mar 14, 2013 Madelene G marked it as to-read