I know this book has probably been reviewed a zillion times since it isn’t very new, but it’s one of my favorites and I referenced it an earlier post…which got me thinking about it, which led to me rereading it for probably the fifth time. (I did this even though there were newer, unexplored, highly anticipated books waiting for me).

Why do I love it? Well, it doesn’t hurt that the main character’s name is Liesel, a lovely German name which I’ve loved since The Sound of Music. But I also love it because it tells a Holocaust story unlike any other I’ve read. This isn’t a story of the horrors of the camps, although they are certainly featured within its pages. (I’ve read so many memoirs and novels on this topic that they seem only to sadden but no longer shock me. It’s disturbing.) But in this case, the narrator of The Book Thief is Death. This I appreciate. After all, who better to tell the story of the senseless obliteration of six million Jews than the one “who carried them away”? This Death is no Grim Reaper, however. Instead, he’s more like a gentle, welcoming friend.

What else do I love about The Book Thief? I love the mini-stories and illustrations that are woven into the text. Max’s “The Standover Man”  and “The Word Shaker” haunt me with their simplicity and elegance.

But mostly, I think I just love the author’s crisp, vivid prose, unusual turns of phrase, and metaphors that take whole minutes to unravel. Here’s an example:

“After all, the guilt was already there. It was moist. The seed was already bursting into a dark-leafed flower. She weighed up whether she could really go through with this, ” (285)

and another:

“‘No, sir.’ He looked diagonally into the one eye he could see of his captor. Mamer was a barrel of a man, with two small bullet holes to look out of. His teeth were like a soccer crowd, crammed in,” (294).

and finally, one of the most touching and telling passages in the whole novel, when Death describes the concentration camps:

“So many humans.

So many colors.

They keep triggering inside me. They harass my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, all mounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coal-colored clouds, beating like black hearts.

And then.

There is death.

Making his way through all of it.

On the surface: unflappable, unwavering.

Below: unnerved, untied, undone,” (309).

Beautiful. Simply beautiful.