Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Book Thief

Multiple people were telling me to read this for ages and I kept putting it off. It sounded sad and it also seemed like it would drag (over 500 pages about the Holocaust from the perspective of death? Wow!). Not from being uninteresting, just from being a lot.

It is a lot. But it's also not so much about rhe Holocaust, it more just about the war, its devastation and the personal story of a girl who lived through it.

It's heart breaking, of course. But there's also beautiful moments of love and friendship.

The first couple of chapters (parts? Idk, the book is organized strangely) were harder for me to get through because I didn't care about the characters much yet. But I an so so glad I stuck with it and read and enjoyed this book.

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saumyagupta's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Still, it's possible that you might be asking. Why does he even need a holiday? What does he need distraction from?
Which brings me to my next point.
It's the leftover humans.
The survivors.
They're the ones I can't stand to look at, although on many occasions, I still fail. I deliberately seek out the colours to keep my mind off them, but every now and then, I witness the ones who are left behind, crumbling amongst the jigsaw puzzle of realisation, despair and surprise. They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs.

It was only the children I carried in my arms.

A hauntingly beautiful story. I have no more words than that

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anindistinctaccountant's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

To be very clear, the book is stellar. Just because I wasn't the biggest fan doesn't mean you shouldn't read it. It's very poignant and picturesque. I simply am not one to connect with so depressing a story.

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kryolitee's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

my heart will never recover from this

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joanabrt's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I always have a hard time rating/reviewing a book right after finishing it - everything is so fresh and emotions are still running high. When I do I know I'll look back and rethink them. This one though is, with no future doubt, a 5 star read for me.
The book is quite long, which was a concern in the beginning, but it didn't prove to be a problem - the narration and description of the events and characters kept me captivated and interested. The moments of honesty and the confessions of Death, the glimpses of the future, although they revealed the direction of the story (and the ending), never detracted from everything else: the present moment, what would happen between now and then, what would cause it and what would follow.
The strong bond that is built with the characters, both the main and secondary ones, creates a constant desire to follow their journey. They all grow and unfold over the course of the book, portraying a Nazi Germany where not everything was black and white.
It's a beautiful and devastating book, that portraits a time in history when being human was both the ugliest and the bravest thing one could be. Cried my eyes out.
"I am haunted by humans.” me too...

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bokslukaren's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

‘I was foolish.’
‘No,’ Papa said. ‘You were a boy.’
The typesetting and design of the book were alluring; the fonts, chapter headings, the narration styles - the whole arrangement really. The book's punctuation feels poetic and Zusak artistically uses imagery. On the whole, the book felt very comforting, even though its contents (as most books about the holocaust are) were devastating.

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lolovg__'s review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

If you want to get into writing, this is a must read. The way that Zusak depicts everything in this book is unmatched to any other writing style I’ve read. Most beautiful book I have ever read

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timmytunter's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak is a remarkable novel set in WWII-era Nazi Germany, chronicling the life of Leisel Meminger from the age of nine. After being forcibly removed from her communist parents, Leisel is placed with the middle-aged Hubermanns, where she begins a journey of self-discovery amidst immense personal loss and the harrowing realities of the world around her.

The story's unique innovation lies in its narrator: Death, personified. This narrative choice opens up creative possibilities and insights that would otherwise be unattainable. Death's matter-of-fact and somewhat sardonic tone lends an unusual air to the story, particularly in the frequent descriptions of people's deaths.

Leisel herself is a kind, loyal, and daring girl. Initially defensive and guarded, she gradually learns to trust her foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, and grows to deeply care for them, as well as her neighbor Rudy and the Jewish fugitive Max. Her compassionate heart and quest for justice, challenging traits to possess in Nazi Germany, are central to her character development. The story is populated with fascinating characters, each contributing to Leisel's growth in some way: Rudy, the German boy who idolizes African American runner Jesse Owens; Max, the Jewish fistfighter; the mayor's tentative wife Ilsa who lets Leisel steal her books; and the fervently Führer-faithful Hans Hubermann Jr, at odds with his parents.

Zusak employs various literary techniques that enhance the narrative, such as occasional sketches and handwritten excerpts, parenthesised announcements for background details, and plot foreshadowing. With regard to the latter, as an example, it is relatively early on that readers are informed of

Rudy's impending death

, and the timeframe within which this will take place. This approach has the effect of there being relatively few unexpected twists in the plot as the narrative progresses, but underscores the inevitability of certain outcomes in a historical World War Two context while maintaining narrative tension.

Leisel's journey from illiteracy to discovering the power of words and books, guided by her papa Hans, is deeply moving. The unique relationship she shares with Max, grounded in a love of words, is embodied in the stories he writes for her, literally rewriting history by writing over torn out pages of Mein Kampf. Zusak’s novel itself is something of a love letter to words and books, a sentiment that resonated profoundly with me as a fellow lover of language. "The Book Thief" is a unique and intriguing reading experience that will remain with me for a long time.

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