The Book Thief
Over the 550 pages that follow, Germany fights what eventually becomes a war of attrition and the book’s narrator finds his workload only ever gets heavier. That’s because the narrator is Death and there are an awful lot of bodies to pick up.
Who would ever have guessed that Death could be such a quirky, approachable character; likeable, even. Who could ever have known he had such a way with words, for if there is only one reason to read this book it’s surely the style of language.
Zusak is something of a linguistic genius, and if you don’t envy his skill at constructing sentences you’ll certainly never have read before, then you really ought to be writing yourself. Never expect the expected, as he pulls out perfect adjectives, powerful similes and metaphors that make me very jealous indeed.
But perhaps the trouble is that that is the only reason to read this book, and that’s a shame. I didn’t identify with any of the characters, I didn’t feel sympathy or empathy, and even towards the end I didn’t really care whether they survived the Allied bombing or became a fraction in the statistics of war.
Yet, still I don’t feel that the hours I spent in Molching, watching Liesel grow and mature was time wasted, and Kathryn thought it was great, which perhaps explains how it won itself a place on that table.
Overall, then, three out of five. Brilliantly written, not so brilliantly plotted.
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