Zusak Markus - The Book Thief ("Informal Buddy Read") revisit - Start Date Sept 20 2013; Jan 2017

[Gareless]

Also! anyone else has a sudden need to learn German? With the phrases and words in the book I now kind of want to know exactly what they're saying.

And yep, imagine having your mom calling you ( and everyone else) saumensch? I am actually glad the bolded notes clarified that Rosa does love Liesel though in a harsh rough love kind of way.

Her father is the best.

[[deleted user]]

I need to learn German! I mean, it's officially at the top of my list!

[Allyson]

So, how's it going?

I must say, I'm loving it more and more with each chapter. The writing style is fantastic and the characters feel like real people. I don't know what to think about her mum: I can see that she loves Liesel, and I understand why she acts the way she does, but, you know, she acts the way she does. Her father is just adorable.

I found his relationship with the son so sad. Actually, when there was the fight, I thought that they were going to yell at each other and it would have been a battle of wills, and was so surprised to see how it blew off and that the father ran after him pleadingly (I think it's written almost like this, it just stuck with me).

Now, the bonfire of the books and all those 'propaganda' items - does anyone else think that scene was splendidly written? It reminded me of the 'List Of Prohibited Books', which is a thing and a concept I've always found terrifying.

Also, anyone fighting the urge to read more than fifty pages or I'm the only one struggling? Zusak's got a way of ending chapters that's killing me.

And yes, it's making me want to study German a lot more.

[Gareless]

Yep it's really good. And Death brings a whole new level to the omnipotent narrator, I love when he mentions encountering a character in the future and sort of tells us how they fared. Like with the son? And how his future was to die during the war.

And a quote I really loved was when he was talking about soldiers at war and how they ' think they're running at other young men, but they're really running at me.'

We've only seen a bit of Max but I'm liking him, I imagined him to be older, closer to Hans' age, but he's almost my age so sometimes I imagine myself in his situation; having to abandon my family, traveling alone to a place where people might capture, torture and kill me, putting strangers' lives at risk and being so uncertain of the future. This book is making me interested in reading other books about ww2.

Also so glad that it seems Death won't meet with Hans in quite a long time because I really don't want him to die. He is such a sweet character.

I'm struggling with reading only fifty pages as well!