Overall Rating: 2.5
out of 5 stars
Appropriate for: Ages
13+
Genre: Historical
Fiction
Length: 550 pages
Year of Publication:
2005
In this historical fiction novel by Markus Zusak, our
narrator is Death, and he needs a vacation. He needs distraction. It’s not
because of the number of souls that he must carry away, however. It’s because
of all the humans those souls leave behind: the survivors. This book is about
one of those survivors, a person Death calls “an expert at being left behind.” To
start off the tale, Death recalls that he saw this survivor three times. He
calls her “the book thief.”
The book thief’s name is Liesel Meminger, and her story
begins when she is nine years old, on a train with her mother and brother. They
are in Nazi Germany, and it is January 1939. Her mother is bringing her two
children to a street named after heaven to live with foster parents, who will
hopefully be better able to feed and educate the boy and girl. However, Death
sees the book thief for the first time on that train as he takes the soul of Liesel’s
little brother. Liesel steals her first book in the graveyard where her brother
is buried. She alone is delivered to her foster parents, and her new life on
Himmel Street begins.
Death recounts the following five or six years of her life,
describing both the beauty and ugliness of the young girl’s life in the messed-up
world. Through the experiences that define this part of her life—reading with
her loving foster father, thieving with her loyal friend and neighbor Rudy, caring
for the spirited Jew hiding in their basement—Liesel begins to see the power
and value of words and to recognize their demanding presence in the world.
Books and words begin to mean everything to her—and so do the relationships
that she develops with her parents, her neighbors, and others whose lives
converge with hers.
This book creatively examines themes such as the power of
words and the mysterious nature of humans—creatures who often tend toward hatred and malice, yet can also be strong,
good, and loving. It also illustrates the implications of a worldview that lacks the biblical understanding of God. Zusak
presents God as distant, silent, and careless of human history. The very
modern view of existence that the book presents makes it perfect material for
discussion and analysis. Parents of teens who read this book should take the
time to discuss the implications of the book’s worldview and the Christian
understanding of God’s involvement in history. Parents may also wish to discuss
human nature and the real cause of sin and death.
Although I have seen this book classified as a “children’s book,” I cannot recommend The Book Thief
to children under thirteen. Even though the reading level is not difficult, the subject matter is best suited to mature individuals. My
main reason for not recommending this book to young readers is because of the disappointingly large amount of foul language
and misuses of the Lord’s name that it contains. Reading a book is generally a much more intimate
experience than watching a movie, making the issue of language even more
significant than it is in movies. When you’re reading, all of the
words are loud and clear in your head.
The other aspect of this book that earns it a PG-13 rating is its
nitty-grittiness. The descriptions of death and dying are not for the sensitive
reader, and the accounts of the Second World War’s horrors make this book an
unviable option for children. Among other things, the author describes a few
fistfights, the aftermath of a plane crash, the bombing of a neighborhood, a
young boy being forced to strip naked for a medical examination, and Jews being
brought to a concentration camp. Although less of an issue, there is also some
content involving alcohol and smoking. Due to these elements, I think that even young teens should ideally read this book with a parent—if at all.
To more mature readers, however, I recommend this book as an
interesting and thought-provoking read. The style is innovative and the topics are very pertinent. This book is certainly a work of modern literary art. If you
are looking for an enjoyable, sweet, exciting, or suspenseful read, however, I
would not recommend this book. Although it is enjoyable, sweet, exciting, and suspenseful at times, it did not grip my attention or my heart until the bitter-sweet ending.
I decided to read this book after seeing the 2013 film adaptation. While I thoroughly enjoyed the movie (see my review), I did not
enjoy the book very much at all. I was actually quite shocked by my own
reaction. After all, the flavor of the book is very similar to that of the
movie, and, although some events are altered and the story is significantly
truncated in the film, the basic plot is the same. However, the character of
Liesel in the book seemed totally different from the sweet, innocent, curious
character I met in the movie. The novel revealed that her motives for stealing
books were actually somewhat spiteful. In the movie, she seemed to steal the
books out of curiosity and a desire to read them—not out of a desire to vent
her anger. This made it harder for me to enjoy the read.
When I started reading the book, I was expecting it to be
sad and traumatizing—like the movie was. But it was even worse. In addition to
being sad and traumatizing, it was also filled with a sense of despair and
fatalism that I hadn’t noticed in the movie. This was partially due to the
author’s style of writing—something you don’t get to experience while watching
a film. Zusak wrote The Book Thief in
a way that is very non-traditional, repeatedly using short, one-sentence-long
paragraphs and a plethora of sentence fragments—elements that are popular in
contemporary writing. He matched these choppy paragraphs and sentences with a
choppy plot, allowing the narrator to reveal many major developments before the
narration reaches that point in the chronology of the story. While I can handle
some foreshadowing, I didn’t enjoy being constantly reminded who was going
to die at the end of the book. The perpetual foreshadowing made the tone too
despairing for my taste—even though I knew what would happen since I had
already seen the movie—and the author made Death address the book’s future
events in a rather heartless manner. Although the narrator does seem remorseful and sensitive
at times, he often discusses the death of characters so matter-of-factly that the
fatalism even manages to kill any sense of sadness. There is only despair. Five
and a half hundred pages take a while to read, and that’s a long time to be
depressed about something that doesn’t even happen until the end of the book. It’s especially
hard when the plot leading up to that event is not even overly engaging.
This book is certainly a work of art. But, for every work of
art, there’s always some people who just don’t appreciate the artist’s work.
For this book, I guess I’m one of those people.
