Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

99 reviews

corallig's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse

Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, and War

Minor: Genocide, Mental illness, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

bookishperseus's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

asurasantosha's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Antisemitism, and War

Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Genocide, Racism, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

saumyagupta's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Suicide, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Vomit

anindistinctaccountant's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Bullying, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Body horror, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

kryolitee's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Death of parent, Abandonment, War, and Classism

Moderate: Bullying, Genocide, Suicide, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

buzzinfly's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Moderate: Ableism, Cursing, Racism, Torture, Trafficking, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Biphobia and Homophobia

timmytunter's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, and War

Moderate: Bullying, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

sample_text's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Violence, Antisemitism, Death of parent, and War

Moderate: Confinement, Genocide, Suicide, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Alcohol

megfriedrice's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective slow-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail