Book Review Before Bed

I'm one of those people that can rarely walk into a bookstore without leaving with something. It's just not in my nature. Kinda like some Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, if I pass a bookstore I have to go in and I have to buy something. 

Okay it's not really that extreme, I've walked into Barnes and Noble and left with nothing, but it was REALLY hard!!!! I can also spend hours exploring, running my hand over titles, trying to see which book catches my attention.

So during my spring break I went to visit my friends from Northern Arizona University. I was meeting up with my friend's girlfriend at the time at Barnes and Noble. I had a while to kill so I was browsing the Teen Fiction section. Which is usually a bad idea, all their books now-a-days seem to be all the same, angsty teen love stories usually with some fantastical creature activity: vampires, werewolves, witches, fairies etc. Don't get me wrong sometimes I want to read what my 10th-11th grade English teacher calls "Junk-Food Books," but usually I need a little depth and meaning.

I'd read on tumblr ages ago a review for a book that I thought sounded interesting. It was called "The Book Thief." I found it, bought it, and just finished on Sunday. And let me tell you, I have not cried that much since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in a good way. I don't know about you, but I get attached to characters if they're not too whiny. I love being able to relate to a character.

"The Book Thief" is based in Nazi Germany, a time period which for some reason fascinates and horrifies me. First, the story is told through an interesting perspective, Death, a strangely gentle being who is tired of cleaning up after humans and saddened by the things they do to each other. But he gets glimmers of true humanity, the reason he keeps doing what he's doing. He says "I see everyone at their best and their worst." He's telling the story of Leisel Meminger, a young girl who loves words. She "steals" books, learning to read them with the help of her loving and patient accordion playing foster father, and eventually learns to write. There is love, laughter, grief, pain, suffering, play, happiness and death throughout the book. The amount of description in this book is perfect, it's not overly drawn out and boring and it's not empty. Death likes to bounce back and forth between the end of the story and where he left off, he hints at his... "surprises" I suppose, but everyone knows what happens at the end of their own personal story, so I guess it's really no surprise.

I will warn you, that it is a very sad book. Like I said I cried quite a bit, but it's so beautiful. When I'm a teacher I'd love for my students to read it. Except I'm not sure if that much sadness could be handled by children. It'd give them a pretty good idea of reality, understanding that life isn't all peaches and cream and that it's really short.

So great book. Go read it. Let me know what you think.

I gotta sleep and estudiar para mi examen final de español en la mañana.

Love, etc.

Dorothy Grace