Book # 8

It feels like it took FOREVER, but I FINALLY finished this book:

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist – books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

It sounds really good huh? And it is a pretty good book.... It just took me a long time to get into it.... Like 200 pages!! I have trouble with books that take that long to get going!

But I am really glad I stuck with it because there is a great meaning behind the story and it really makes you think. It wont ruin the story for me to tell you that this book it told from Deaths point of view. Death talks about collecting souls.... especially those of the Jews killed in gas chambers. There were many part that made me cry. This was one of them:

"They watched the Jews come down the road like a catalog of colors. That wasn't how the book thief described them, but I can tell you that that's exactly what they were, for many of them would die...The suffering faces of depleted man and women reached across to them, pleading not so much for help - they were beyond that - but for an explanation. Just something to subdue this confusion."

If you read this book, just go in with an open mind and just keep going.... even when you think it is SO boring!!