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| Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Black Swan
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.86
You Save: £4.13 (52%)
New (35) Used (10) from £3.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  333 reviews
Sales Rank: 31
Media: Paperback
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.4
ISBN: 0552773891
EAN: 9780552773898
ASIN: 0552773891
Publication Date: January 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Too Little, Too Late... October 2, 2008
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
Quite frankly, I can't see why so many people wax lyrical about this book. I'll start with the good points though...some of the metaphors are quite lovely, and a few of the characters are sufficiently well developed such that you feel true empathy for them. Also, the ending i.e. the last 50 pages or so is devastatingly compelling. The problem is, this book is about 540 odd pages long.
Now for the bad points...It has to have one of the most annoying starts I've ever come across. You get the impression that Zusak is trying WAY too hard, throwing every literary trick available at the book in an attempt to impress. The result is verbose and intensely annoying. Taking the fact that this is a 3rd person narrative into account, Death is a very "in your face" narrator. None of this gently guiding the storyline stuff. Throughout the first third of the book, the flow is constantly interrupted by his little "asides". To be honest, the first 100 or so pages are written in a style more suited to teenage fiction and I had to fight the urge not to abandon ship.
The lead character here is meant to be a little girl called Liesel. Unfortunately, I thought she was the least developed of all the characters. My favourites were her adopted father Hans Hubberman and her trusty sidekick, Rudy Steiner. It was their lives I was most interested in. Liesel remained fairly 2 dimensional throughout.
All in all, a disappointing read for the first two-thirds of the book followed by a vindicating final third. If you can hang on for that long, it's an OK read.
 Very enjoyable book September 30, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I agree with some other reviewers that this book is a little clumsy when it comes to style but, if truth be told, I loved it. I couldn't put it down, thought the characterisation was great and, more than once, it had me in tears. Great book.
Engaging, well paced, but also immature and stylistically flawed September 27, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Not just essentially a children's book, but a rather immaturely written novel, centring on a warm-hearted German family in a small village near Munich around the time of WWII. The narrator is Death, which is an interesting device, since it allows a useful distance, almost an innocence, to reign over the proceedings. But I don't believe this device was fully worked out, as one never really understands how Death works - is he omnipotent, as is implied in some places, or almost completely ignorant, as is implied in others? Also, Death allows the novel to talk a lot about "souls" and "hearts", which seriously weakened it for me. The plot is well-paced, very engaging, and includes some fascinating, believable details about the hardships of trying to survive amidst the war - for these reasons I did enjoy reading the novel, and was even moved in places. However, it's also rather sentimental, shies away from the full brutality of events, and constantly borders on the simplistic. The style is too fussy, too inventive, and some of the language is just ridiculous in its attempts to generate vivid metaphors. There are many other semi-adult books out there that deal with WWII and the holocaust so much better (Maus particularly springs to mind).
 A Fantastic Read September 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have wanted to read this book for sometime and I have to say it did not disappoint. This is a great story from a very unique perspective. Although sometimes harrowing reading, having Death narrating from a childs perspective is very interesting. I found myself laughing one minute and upset the next. You do have to concentrate on the book as it does jump from one story to another but well worth the read. I cried my eyes out at the end at the characters jump out the page and by end you feel as if you personally know them. Would highly recommend
Absolutely beautifully written September 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I picked this book up because it was in a 3 for 2 offer and I wanted something new to get into. Initially I was unsure how well Zusak would be able to pull off writing not only Nazi Germany, but from such an unusual perspective, but he achieves it absolutely beautifully.
Set in Nazi Germany, "The Book Thief" tells the story of Liesel Meminger, an evacuee sent to live with foster parents, narrated by Death. Sounds simple enough, but events take an interesting turn when her foster parents decide to hide a Jew in their basement.
Every time I read this book I read it as slowly as possible, because the sentences are simply beautiful. Even had I not enjoyed the story itself I would still have adored Zusak's prose - some of it reads almost like poetry, so clear and strong are the images. The scenes in which Death describes his workload are stunning. Every character feels utterly real, with even Death seeming to be a living creature, and the ending makes me cry every time - for me, it is heartbreaking. I hope a film is never made based on this book, because I don't think it could do it justice.
If you are looking for something beautiful and compelling, that will stay with you long after you turn the final page, I absolutely recommend this book.
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