‘The Book Thief’ Book Review

My favorite thing about reading is the perspective shifts that come with being exposed to glimpses of other people’s realities. My favorite thing about fiction is the boundless amount of possibilities that humans’ imagination allows for exploration. Add a fictional perspective to realistic events and you got yourself a book guaranteed to be on my favorites list.

In ‘The Book Thief’, Markus Zusak chose death to narrate his story. Death, the most thought about, discussed, and feared event of every human’s life. An event that humans spend their entire lives trying to avoid yet know so little about. But what if death was a man? What would he have to say on the mess we’ve made of our little world?

The story he tells is the story of Liesel, a young German girl coming of age in a war-torn home. Death’s first meeting with Liesel was on a train to Molching where he was on a mission to take her brother’s innocent soul. That was when he watched her steal her first book by her little brother’s grave.

In his book, Zusak created a rich, multi-dimensional set of characters who capture the essence of humanity in all its beauty and brutality. Characters like the foul-mouthed, abusive Rosa who shows her softer nature here and there when she thinks no one is watching. And the sweet Liesel who walks around with a huge heart and many secrets far bigger than a child’s bearing.

The light humor sprinkled through the plot, combined with the vivid images painted by the poetic nature of his words, makes up for the overall gloomy atmosphere of the events and creates a perfectly balanced flow.

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief