Andrea's Reviews > The Book Thief

** spoiler alert ** This review was originally posted on my book review blog, The Overstuffed Bookcase.

FTC Disclaimer: I purchased this book myself. I was in no way compensated for this review.

So I DNFed The Book Thief, you guys. But wait, hear me out.

I thought the story was compelling. Some of the writing was achingly beautiful. Many of the scenes were heartbreaking. But I just couldn't handle that stupid narrator, you guys. Don't get me wrong, I think that Death as a narrator is a cool idea, but I feel like Markus Zusak got this idea of having Death be the narrator, and decided to add it to this story about the holocaust. And when he realized that Death didn't really have many scenes in the story, he started adding him into places where he didn't need to be. Because what did Death the narrator do during most of this book? HE SPOILED US FOR THE VERY STORY WE WERE READING.

Death was not a good narrator, guys. He was always telling us what was going to happen before it happened. SEVERAL TIMES. At times he was actually telling us to pay attention to certain parts, because something big was going to happen. And other times he literally told us what was going to happen, several times, before it happened. I am a self-diagnosed spoilerphobe and I cannot handle a book that tells me what is going to happen before it happens. I love foreshadowing, and I can understand occasionally telling something before it happens, but this was ALL THE TIME.

A bit of a spoiler (I hate to do it, but I kind of have to...):

(view spoiler)[The narrator tells us at one point about a character going into a river. And then he tells us that that character dies. But then he's like, "No, he didn't die from that time going into the river, even though I know you're thinking that. He died years later." (I'm paraphrasing here but that's basically what the narrator said.) I wanted to throw the book and yell, "We thought that the character dies at that time because that's the way you phrased it! You put it in our heads and then you tell us we're silly for thinking that's how he died! And why the hell are you telling us that this character died years before he actually dies?!" I'm telling you, you guys, I wanted to throw this book so many times. (hide spoiler)]

I just couldn't do it anymore.

At one point I started keeping a tally of how many times we were told about something happening before it happened. I counted at least 11 times before I decided to stop reading at 242 pages (around 44%). Usually I DNF around 25% or around 100 pages, whichever one comes last. But I was reading The Book Thief for my book club, plus I knew how many people love this book, and I wanted to love it, too.

I marked it as "DNF For Now" here on Goodreads, meaning that I might try to finish it in the future, but honestly, I can't see myself ever wanting to do that. Which is a shame, because there really were some great parts of this book. I am, however, planning on watching the movie adaptation, because I think maybe Death won't be such a jerk and spoil us as much in the movie. But I am sad that I didn't love The Book Thief. Oh well, you can't love them all.