The Book Thief- Markus Zusak
"Here's a fact, you're going to die." Does this worry you?
Set in Nazi Germany, the book is about a girl Liesel Meminger. Your narrator is Death herself and shuffles you between misery and hope throughout. You will fall in love and start to empathize with this character. Liesel is taken to her foster parents in Molching because her real mother cannot afford to care for her. Her brother, however, dies during the train journey from severe coughing. It's the cemetery from where she stole her first book, The Gravedigger's Handbook. What started as haunting nightmares about her brother's death became midnight reading sessions with her papa, Hans Huberman. She developed a passion for stealing books but is not greedy. The journey from one book to another serves as a beautiful binding thread for the novel.
Life changes for Liesel with the arrival of Max Vandenburg, a Jewish fist-fighter. Hans owed the fighter's dead father a favour, so he houses Max in the basement. Gradually we realize there is so much common between Max and Liesel. Max also got separated from his family to save his life and had nightmares about fighting with the Führer, Adolf Hitler. The similarity of their struggles develops a beautiful bond between them.
The book is an eye-opener and provides deep insights into the hardships of life under Adolf Hitler. Ordinary Germans were also at risk of losing their lives in this terrible war, like the Jews. Light humour persists throughout, and its engaging writing saves the mood from being all sad. No words are enough to describe the sea of emotions that I felt while reading it. Nonetheless, I will leave it for the readers to experience.
Check out my other posts: https://brewoverbooks.blogspot.com/2022/01/farenheit-451-ray-bradbury.html
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