The Book Thief

I recently finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The book is a New York Times bestseller, at least according to the book cover and wikipedia, and was purchased on a buy 1 get 1 half price deal when I was in the UK ages ago (yeah, its been sitting on my shelf that long).

It details the story of Liesel Meminger,a young girl in Nazi Germany, during World War II. The girl is abandoned by her mother (for reasons untold) and goes to live with foster parents in a small German town. Although she starts the book as an illiterate, she learns to read with the help of her foster father and via various clandestine methods (book thief, remember?), acquires several books to further her education. This love of books progresses until she finally realises the power inherent in words when she reads to the small German community during late night sojourns in bomb shelters. At this point in the narrative, everyone dies (pretty much).

What makes this book different is that it is written from the perspective of Death. Not Death as he is normally described but rather someone who is overworked due to the high number of deaths during World War II. It was this change of perspective that drew me to the book. Well, that plus the fact that it was at half price. :)

Although the book raises some interesting points, overall, I have to admit that I was bored. To be fair, this isn't a reflection of the book, which is extremely well written, but rather of my own reading style.

The problem is that the scope of the story is very much a slice in the life of Liesel Meminger. At times, the story is so slow it almost feels catatonic and the story doesn't really get much oomph until halfway through (when Max the Jew shows up and lives in the basement). The majority of the book is simply about how Liesel deals with daily life.

Again, I have to stress that I can recognise that the book is well written - the problem is that its just not my cup of tea. I generally much prefer to read high fantasy, sci-fi or thrillers - basically, escapist novels. Ultimately, I read books to escape from the dreary humdrum existence of my life - not to enter the even more dreary humdrum existence of someone elses even more depressing life.

I guess I should have known to avoid this book from the fact that it was a New York Times bestseller.
:)