I always feel a certain amount of trepidation before reading books like this. Best seller in 2005, on the New York Times list for 21 weeks and a finalist for the Michael L. Printz Award in 2007. Not to mention all the hype on the net and from people who’ve read it; the build up gets so big it gets harder to appreciate the story.
So, does this book deliver? Well, nearly. To extend the metaphor, I think it’s been delivered to a house a couple of doors down from me and now Amazon won’t give me a refund.
The majority of the story is set in the days during and closely preceding World War 2. We begin in 1939, the year after a certain eugenics crazed ex painter had won Time magazines ‘Man of the year’ (strange but true). We (though the narration of Death. Yes, Death. Capital D. Mr Death to you.) meet nine-year-old Liesel as she watches her brother die. This is the first of three times that Death will see Liesel without taking her.
Although unlettered and without even knowing what it contains, Liesel steals a book she notices dropped in the snow soon after her brother is buried. Thus begins her hobby of literature theft and her fascination with the power of words.
She moves in with a foster family called the Hubermanns. The silver eyed Hans and foul mouthed Rosa become her new guardians. She grows up in a small town just outside of Munich, eventually becoming fond of her new parents. She makes friends, goes to school, gets into fights and manages to carve out a life for herself. She even manages to steal more books for herself from the mayor’s library, though this seems to be actively encouraged by Ilsa Hermann; the mayor’s wife and custodian of the library.
Her chaotic but relatively normal home life comes crashing down when a secret moves into her life (well, her basement actually). Max is the son of a Sergeant that saved the life of Liesel’s foster father in World War 1 and is, quite inconveniently at this point in history, Jewish.
Locked up in dark cold cellar, Max’s only comforts are his words, his imagination and his bond with Liesel. Between her childish view of the outside world and his prose, they create an internal existence to drown out the war and persecution outside. Inevitably, reality intrudes and shatters their sanctuary, forcing them to separate.
I think I’ll leave it there so as not to spoil the ending. Suffice to say, it’s not a happy one for everyone (hey, Death’s the narrator), but it’s not overwhelmingly depressing.
I didn’t find that this lived up to all of the hype. It is engaging and has some very poignant phrases. However, I feel that these are overused. For every well written and heartfelt line there’s one that goes too far. For example: “the greying light arm-wrestled the sky”. I’m all for symbolic or metaphorical abstraction, but what on earth is that meant to mean?
I felt it was also slightly overlong and simplistic. I did enjoy the brief comments from Death at irregular intervals up until a point. Then I just felt that they were pointing out information that I could figure out for myself. No matter what people say, I don’t need to be hit over the head quite that hard.
Rating: 
