The Book Thief

Markus Zusak said his novel, The Book Thief, symbolized for him everything that is beautiful and everything that is horrible about humanity.“We have these images of the straight-marching lines of boys and the ‘Heil Hitlers’ and this idea that everyone in Germany was in it together. But there still were rebellious children and people who didn’t follow the rules and people who hid Jews and other people in their houses. So there’s another side to Nazi Germany.”

My blog post could never do any justice for this book. And no matter the amount of time it took me to read the whole thing, in the end I finished. And in the end, it was worth it, every single word. Because I really did love it. Those last 100 pages I read in an hour. And I ended up crying. But because Zusak made me feel what Liesel felt. Her pain is unimaginable to me. One second, her life was fine, and the next, everything was gone. How could that have happened? All it took was a bomb.

Zusak had written his book centered around Death and Death's contemplation over the worth of humanity. The whole reason why Death had read Liesel's book was because she was a symbol of hope. Hope that there were people out there whose hearts were filled with as much compassion as Liesel. The last line of the novel was: "I am haunted by humans." It was a note by Death. Because after Liesel, he found himself unable to judge us, and instead stuck in the mindset of fear and awe of the abilities of humans.

I honestly wasn't very interested in the book until nearing the end. And I have no idea what to say about those last pages. Idk... but its's still during World War II. There are "parades" of Jews going to concentration camps and Liesel ends up seeing Max during one. She runs to him but a soldier tells her to get away. She refuses and recites part of The Word Shaker to Max. If you end up reading this book, this will probably make a lot more sense. Then she and Max end up getting whipped by the Nazi soldier. Everything starts to go downhill from that. Max is stuck in the concentration camp. And then her neighbor commits suicide because of his guilt for wanting to be alive. Then the day when the bombs drop, Death comes to collect the souls. Everyone is goes with him, but Liesel who's safe in the basement. Himmel Street is piles of rubble, Liesel is the only one who made it out...

Okay, so that was a really messy blog post, but I just don't know how to prove how amazing this book really is. Just read it, pleaseeeee.

Here's a better review over the book
And also a short interview from Markus Zusak