Happy Friday, booklovers! How have you been?
As I told you in my previous post, I was in the middle of a reading slump; however I can say that in a certain way I overcame it thanks to The Book Thief, written by Markus Zusak.
<In the middle of World War II, little Liesel will find her salvation in reading. A beautiful novel, tremendously human and exciting, which describes the adventures of a nine-year-old German girl from the time she was given up for adoption by her mother until the end of the war. Her new family, simple people and not Nazism enthusiast, teaches her how to read and through the books Liesel manages to distract herself during the bombings and fight sadness. But it is the book she is writing that will finally save her life. Source
The first peculiar thing in this book is who tells the story: the Death itself. We are told the story of Liesel, a German girl who discovered during the Second World War the pleasure of reading and the horror of war. The story begins when her mother sends her to a foster home, where she is adopted by Hans and Rosa Hubermann in a house in Himmelstrasse.
Despite the fact that this is one of many books dealing with the Holocaust and contrary to what happens at The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, this tells the horrors experienced by the characters being German citizens who tried to live their lives as normally as possible, while in the distance dramatic events such as the bombardments about which rumours were sometimes heard. I fell in love with each one of the characters, despite having ways of being so different from each other (as you may have seen from my other reviews, I don't usually talk much about the characters, because I would like you to discover them yourselves as you read).Image source
In this novel we find the love for reading (and also for writing) that the author feels and that he transmits to us through his protagonist, that girl who collects all the books he finds and turns them into his most precious possessions. The reading of these books will have a positive power on her and on other inhabitants of the small population... Throughout the book you will see how. I will only say that when I got to this part of the story I started to reflect on the impact that words can have on people, and that in times of crisis or war, books will always be there for you, to accompain you through those hard times as happened in The Book Thief.
Something I definitely didn't like about the book (but that doesn't change my opinion about it) is the technique used by Markus: the flash-forward resource, which, unlike flash-back (which shows us events that took place in the past), shows us a future that hasn't happened yet. You guys, I felt that they were constantly spoiling me, hahaha so I think that detail took some spark away from the story. However, I must point out that these "mini-spoilers" made with the flash-forward were not total spoilers. They tell you what will happen but not how it will happen, which in a way is a bonus, because as you know what happened, you want to read more and more to find out how it happened... So probably this technique isn't so bad, hehehe.
Although they become weird at first, the reader quickly gets used to these spoilers and understands that they are part of the way this story is told.
Dear booklovers, in general terms this is a unique book, one of those that you fall in love with. Raw, strong, terrible, but written in a very beautiful and poetic way. This book will make you shed some tears, because the Book Thief will undoubtedly steal your hearts.
This is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read, and it goes straight to my favorites' list.
My dear booklovers, I hope you liked this review as much as I liked writing it and reading the book... Have you heard about this book? What did you think? Tell me in the comments, and don't forget to give me a upvote if you liked the review!