The Book Thief

This book really gripped me. I felt present for everything that happened in it and I just couldn't put it down. The book gave me an idea of what life felt like for everyday germans during the second world war. Which I think is an icredibly important perspective if we want to prevent history from repeating itself. ...weiterlesen

First I am going to mention the few aspects that I liked about the book: The narrator being << Death >> certainly makes the book more unique and interresting, especially since its character is understandable and relatable in the way that << Death >> feels sorrow and compassion for humans and is amazed by their nature and their abilities. I also liked how << Death >> describes the ways he viewes the world and how it helps him distract himself from his job. Also I like how in the book << Death >> sometimes randomly adds what seem to be the readers thoughts in his narration without interrupting the flow of the story. Another thing I liked were Max‘ books and that we get to enjoy his scribbles as well as his words, which I found quite sweet, especially when Lisel spoke to Max in the words of << The Word Shaker >>. Now to the negative aspects: What fooled me into buying and reading this book was tictoc as well as my compassion for history, unfortunately my expectations for the historical background where not met and on the one hand that is undersandable since this book is still a novel and not a history book but on the other hand a few aspects could have been elaborated on further for a better understanding of Lisels feelings. One example for that is when in << The Word Shaker >> it is described that the people are being fed words or when Lisel starts hating words and blaming them for the chaos in the world. This cannot truely be understood from the contents of the book alone, you would have to know how the nazis used their speech and propaganda to convince the people. Anpther thing that really triggered me about the book (not in a good way) is its lenght. For the fact that the book has over 500 pages it really is not that good of a story and the plot is actually very short. So the story telling often goes on and on without anythong important really being said, which makes it a pain to read. But the thing that triggers me is that the narrator << Death >> throughout telling the story often drops hints which seem exciting at first, but than they just keep adding up without being elaborated on until these hints just aren‘t exciting any more and just feel fake. Then when the hints are finally being explained, the story behind them just isn‘t good enough to justify the long wait. That makes the whole book unsatisfying to read. Furthermore the outcome of the story is being spoiled by the narrator itself in the middle of the book. I first thought that that was justified because there was more to the end, but there wasnt. It was exactly what has been given away anyway. Also the epilogue was really not necessary. I would have preferred the book without it. There is just no point mentioning Lisels further life and how she dies. Also something of the books ideology was just randomly added in the end which has not been there before and that is that Lisels soul talks to death and the world of the dead is shown. It just makes the book unrealistic even for ist own set standards. ...weiterlesen