Book 58 - The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Reading date - January 2021

This is a book I have had on my bookshelf for ages..and by ages, I mean years.  I bought this back in 2014 when the film came out (I only know this because the book has a film sticker on it) and when I was working in Canary Wharf.

For some reason, I never ever got around to reading it so I decided now was as good a time as any to do so.

This book is so easy to read.  Many people had told me that the story was harrowing and that it really upset them but I must be either a cold-hearted bitch or I just didn't find it as sad as everyone else said..which I think is just the same fact repeated.  

The book is sad, but it's not like cry your eyes out, break your heart sad like A Little Life (which I read last year, was).  Only two books have ever made me cry, one is my To Kill a Mockingbird and the second is A Little Life.  If that book doesn't make you cry then you're totally dead inside.

Anyway, getting back to this beauty.  The book is set in Nazi Germany and follows little Liesel Meminger, a girl whose brother dies on a train and who is then left with a family as her own parents have been taking to the concentration camps as Communists.  I have been to a concentration camp in Germany and it was horrendous.  Once you actually take in what happened there, it stays with you forever.  I'll never forget going to furnaces and being shown how and where the bodies were burnt.  What surprised me the most was that the guards lived literally outside the concentration camp so when they burnt the bodies, the ash and remains would fly around the gardens and land on any people who happened to be out at the time.  How on earth can you live with yourself when you're doing things like that?!

The book isn't about Jews.  It's about Germans, Germans who were in the Hitler Youth (but didn't want to be) and about a man who has a great dislike of the Nazis (Liesel's de facto dad).  The book is a day to day telling of Liesel's life..from before the war started to when the war starts.  

I really liked the way the book was written, it's a great descriptor of relationships and childhood.  There are, of course, twists and turns but I won't spoil the book.  I think the name is a bit misleading as she only really steals about four books but other than that, I'd deffo recommend it.  The ending is really sad and I reckon if I watched the film, that's when I would cry.

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