The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; historical fiction, young adult; 560 pages (about 12 hours on CD)This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for years, but since it's outside my preferred genre (fantasy!), I was always finding myself putting it off. Then my book club chose this as the October book, and I HAD to read it. Even then, I chose to listen to it instead, and I'm glad I did. There were some difficult parts to get through in this story, and I'm happy I had the audiobook continuously plowing along so that I had to keep going.
Death is the narrator of this story, and that right there should give you an idea of where this story is going. Leisel is only ten when she's brought to live with a working class family on the outskirts of Munich in 1939. She's enrolled in school for the first time in her life, and between school and her foster father's dedicated "classes," she discovers the joy of reading. As the WWII begins to heat up, Leisel and her family begin to feel the restraints of living under the Third Reich, but it isn't until the arrival of an old family friend that the cruelty of Hitler's rule is really brought home.
Leisel relies on books for a lot in this story: escape, distraction, enlightenment, and friendship, to just hit the tip of the iceberg. Through it all, there are the interactions of the crazy but lovable cast of characters: Rudy, the boy next door who's secretly in love with Leisel; Frau Holtzapfel, half of a longstanding feud between herself and Leisel's foster mother; Frau Hermann, the mayor's wife, who is still haunted by the death of her son in WWI; and of course Leisel's adopted parents, Rosa and Hans Hubermann, whose interactions with Leisel were one of my favorite parts of the story.
Knowing how this book ends (it's no surprise--Death tells us in the first chapter) made it hard to read, but it was so well written, and rich in characters, that I'm very, very glad I read this (even if it did make me cry while driving home).
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