Book Review

 
The Book Thief, Mark Zusak
This is a relatively new book, only a little over 10 years old, and I'm several years late in discovering it. I think it's been adapted to film already as well. But I didn't even really know what it was about when I put it on my list a couple of years ago. I just knew it had a good hook in the synopsis that I saw when I was looking it over a couple of years ago. The line about stealing a book called The Gravedigger's Handbook being the beginning of an illustrious career in book thievery. It's an artsy book, set in WWII Germany. The kind that people discuss in book clubs. The kind that could fall in to the category of "classics" after enough time has passed. And it's worth the time.
When the narrator of the story is Death, you know it won't have a happy ending so I didn't expect one, but it wasn't as macabre as one would expect it to be with such a unique POV. I was surprised at how gentle the book was. Instead of torturing the reader with morbid and grotesque visuals, the end was spoiled several time within the story so that the tension was minimal. The focus was on the characters, not the inevitable outcome. (Think of the movie Titanic without all the time spent on the sinking of the ship.)
The story unfolds from a unique perspective too. It revolves around an illiterate German girl living in a small community on the outskirts of Munich in the midst of the War. Her family and many of the people on her street aren't interested in Hitler or his war, nor do they hate Jews. They're just the people caught in the middle of it all on the wrong side and too limited to effect any real change. They're not starting a revolution, they're just getting by and thumbing their nose at the system in small ways from time to time. The father, by hiding the son of an old Jewish friend in a cellar. The kids by stealing food or being rebellious towards teachers and coaches, and later giving food Jews in defiance of the Nazi soldiers. All of the characters have a story attached to them, but the central story of the book is that of Liesel Meminger. The story of Liesel's book thievery is more personal to her character. The motivation behind each book she steals represents events during this time in which the war has effected her, her family, their income, their fates, the Jew in their house, etc. and her feelings and epiphanies that go along with each event. She learns to read in order to know what it is she's stolen and eventually goes on to write her own story in a book which Death steals, explaining how he's able to relate it all. But the end of Liesel's story isn't what you think it is by reading what I've written. I won't spoil that.
It's an easy read and it plays out like a movie, which is probably what a lot of modern authors are going for nowadays when they write. But the content is also very easy and not manipulative. As stated before, it only grazes the horrors of war so as not to overwhelm, but apart from a short remark here and there, there's not a lot of endless lecturing and preaching regarding the political or moral viewpoints of the author either and it stays fairly neutral. It's hard to do especially with a story set in this time period. Of course, I have to compromise a little when it comes to reading modern writing. I have no problems with characters cursing in dialogue because that's how people talk, but I think using cursing in descriptive narratives is cheap and lazy. However, the narrator is speaking in first person, so that counts as a character which I have to take into account as well. Sometimes I have to just dismiss the whole problem and decide whether or not it's a good enough story to justify the writing. I think in this case it is. It's a good story and I recommend it.