Question 10.

[Carol]

10. How did you rate this book? Did you like the story?

[Lauren]

I tried reading The Book Thief last year and bailed after the first hundred or so pages. I thought it was absolutely horrible and very much overrated.

Here's part of my "review" jotted down after putting aside The Book Thief last year:

This Holocaust-era story (as told by Death) comes across as a bad combination of too many overused plot devices and just begs for a parody (and yes, I know enough of the plot to know such a comment is borderline blasphemy – but, really, I blame the author and possibly the Family Guy writers, who made Death into one of their most endearing and complicated characters). But, hey, overused plot devices can still make for a good story … except when the writing style is the written equivalent of nails on a blackboard. Can we please institute a moratorium on exploiting the Holocaust in fiction? Please?

[Carol]

I am a budding Holocaust reader, but this is the first book I have read which I didn't find myself trying to rise out of the mire. Instead, he focuses on what a young girl would have seen with her eyes of the war in her perspective. While the picture he portrays isn't that cheerful, there is joy among the characters who truly care for each other and are trying to live their lives as best they can under such very difficult circumstances.

I gave this book a 5, and felt it was very deserving. Lauren, your answer is just fine to help me understand other possible perspectives on the way this book can be perceived. I don't know enough about the Family Guy to know what you are alluding to, but what intrigues me is to learn that that is even done on main stream TV. Hmmm. Fascinating. Interesting to read too, that you found Death as one of the most endearing and complicated characters.

[Ashley]

I rated it a 4.5. It was just imperfect enough for me to dock it a half point. But overall, quite amazing.

I found the tone and cadence very jarring and downright irritating at first, before I managed to stop trying to fit the text into my own idea of pleasant sentences and take the style for what it was. Once I did that, I enjoyed the book a lot. Honestly, in the first 50 or 100 pages, I was a bit worried. I didn't see how I'd get through it! Nails on a blackboard, Lauren? Yep, that's how it felt. But like I said, I eventually got used to it and just accepted the style.

I, for one, do not particularly care for Holocaust literature, but mainly because I find it so hard to read and shake off after I read it. It sticks with me uncomfortably. Haunts me, even. In fact, last November, my brother visited from Seattle and insisted on going to the Holocaust Museum in DC, which I had successfully avoided since living on the East Coast. I did my best, as did Mums, and we both caved at the giant photograph of a dead little girl in Polish street, laying by her dead parents. She still had her winter coat--was it her only coat? Her shoes. Had her parents seen her die? Or, did she have to see her parents shot? She was about 4 or 5 years old. And Mums and I left the museum in tears, waiting for my brother outside.

Like the Holocaust museum in DC, Holocaust literature is important. We should be made to be uncomfortable. Now, I think more to Lauren's point, is that there is a difference between exploiting the Holocaust in fiction, and making an important artistic statement about the Holocaust. I think The Book Thief falls into the latter category. I really do. As the novel progressed, it became clearer and clearer to me that this was a deceptively profound book.

[Meghan]

I read this book a few years ago and had a hard time getting used to the cadance and style but like ashley once I did I enjoyed it. I think Ashley says it all about the sturggle with Holocaust literature and this novel. 4 stars for me.