Book Club Review: The Book Thief

This was a fast and fun read.  Although, I guess "fun" isn't the exact word I'm looking for here.  The book takes place in Nazi Germany and there really isn't a lot of fun about it.  But, I couldn't put it down.  I wanted to keep reading it even though I knew what was going to happen.

I knew what was coming because of history.  And, because the narrator is Death.  Doesn't take a lot to figure out.

We follow young Liesel as she grows through the war years.  Her father is either dead or disappeared because he is a partisan (communist) and her mother is running for her life.  We meet the main character as she is riding a train to her new foster home.  And, watches her brother die.  As they are burying her brother, the gravedigger drops a book in the snow and Liesel stealthily snatches it up.  "The Gravedigger's Handbook".  A book thief is born.

She goes on to live with her foster parents.  I was ready for them to be horrible, but they are taking in a partisan child during a war.  They get a small amount of money, yet not enough for that to be the reason for taking Liesel in.  She creates a very tight bond with her accordion playing foster father, Hans.  And, we learn to love the well meaning cussing and gruff from the foster mother, Rosa.

Liesel struggles to learn to read and falls in love with books.  Her second stolen book was from the ashes of one of Nazi Germany's book bonfires.  And, a very unexpected person witnesses the theft, the mayor's wife.  The mayor's wife has a large library and leaves the window open for Liesel to steal more books.  These are the books she reads to the town when they are all in a bomb shelter during air raids.

Liesel has two amazing friends in this story, not counting the mayor's wife who really saves her life, Rudy and Max.  Rudy wants to be Jesse Owens when he grows up.  He and Liesel get into all sorts of mischief together.  One of my favorite passages is when the scrape up enough money to buy candy but they can only afford one piece.  They take turns sucking on it.

Max is the Jew who lives in her basement.  Max and Liesel become good friends and due to a kindness done by Hans, Max has to leave.  Liesel searches for him constantly.

This book is about the horrors of war.  The overwhelming despair that comes with loss.  And, the overwhelming goodness that humans are capable of.

One of the reviews on the back of the book says that the author, "doesn't sugarcoat anything, but he make his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable."

Of the book club books we have read, this one is my favorite.