By Markus Zusak
My take: Definitely worth the read, but only if you're prepared to cry a little. (Or a lot. I bawled my way through the last thirty pages, but I am a book crier. And a movie crier. And an excellent-talk-in-church crier. Okay maybe I'm not that bad.)
The book is set in Nazi Germany, and mostly follows the exploits of a teenage girl named Liesel Meminger, who lives in a suburb of Munich. Before you think "oh another one of those," hear me out. There are two things about this book that really make it different, and make it worthy to be on that "Top Ten Books to Read This Summer" list, where I discovered it.
First. The book is narrated by Death. Cool, huh? Not the scythe-wielding, Dementor-robe-wearing, Grim Reaper Death. Death in this novel is actually very human, which I thought was an interesting take on the whole concept of personifying Death. Plus, he's an omniscient narrator, which often seems clumsy to me, but in this book, worked out very nicely. Death was able to tell you what was happening all over Europe at that point in time because, well, he was all over Europe. Plus Death, or Markus Zusak's idea of Death, provided an unusual perspective for the terrible events of that part of history. Very thought-provoking.
Second. Almost all of the characters in the book are normal German people living in a normal German town. They aren't Jews; they aren't Gestapo. They're ordinary Germans. I've always heard that Germany was responsible for the Holocaust and for WWII, so I just assumed that most of the German people were in on it. But Zusak gives readers a look into the reality of what German people thought of Hitler and his regime, and it wasn't like I believed. So it was refreshing to learn that plenty of Germany was not onboard with the Nazis; they just couldn't do anything significant to stop them.
You'll learn a lot about human nature by reading this book. Keep the tissues handy.
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