Mike’s Reviews > The Book Thief > Status Update

An excellent ending to an excellent book. This isn't the best book I've ever read, but I've certainly never read anything like it.

Again, I think I've mentioned this before, but this does an excellent job of capturing wartime fear and paranoia, without hitting you over the head with it. There's subtlety to it.

Zusak is very good at capturing anxiety and fear in a subtle way. This isn't intense, exactly, but it still communicates its mood very well.

This is one of the only books I've read about being the privileged class during a genocide that doesn't scream to me that it should've been written about the more marginalized group.

On the surface, this book isn't that different from anything else I've read. But I think there's something to be said about the fact that I have no idea how to articulate the experience of reading this book. I could only tell someone to read it for themselves.

This is going to be a hard book to review. I like it so much, and I have so little to say about why I like it. It's just really good, okay?

For something so popular, this is surprisingly subtle and slow-burning. I love it.

I don't really have much to say about this book. It's very good in a nonspecific way - it's more of just a feeling I get from reading it.

Max and Liesel are both such well-written characters. Having Death narrate could've easily kept us at an arm's length from them, but Zusak is skilled enough to avoid that. The whole thing works really well.

I very much liked this book at the opening. But this is starting to feel like all buildup, no payoff. I mean, I'm still less than halfway through, so I could be wrong, but I feel like I should have at least a little payoff by now.