In spite of my constant avoidance of all things Holocaust, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak counts as my second Holocaust read in less than a year following Beatrice and Virgil. Still, a friend was touting it as their favorite book and I will always read someone's favorite book.

The Book Thief is about a young girl named Liesel Memenger growing up in Nazi Germany. She leads a typical early teen life playing soccer with the boy next door when he isn't attending his Nazi youth camp, stealing books wherever she can find them even if they are smoldering at the bottom of Nazi book burning pile, or hanging out with the Jew that her foster parents have hidden in their basement. Typical.

The story is hard on the heart but I suspect, Zusak was attempting to show that there were incidents of normalcy and joy to be had in Germany during the second world war in spite of the waves of misery its people were hit with periodically. Still, in the end, its the Holocaust and there's no real happy ending to be found.

Zusak's style is excellent and this is one of the more creative books I have read in a while. The story is told from the point of view of a grim reaper or the grim reaper (I don't remember if he expressed himself as one of many or not). The narration is flawless - so good in fact that in many places, "Death" tells you exactly what is going to happen three or four chapters later but it doesn't feel like it was a spoiler when you get to it. The technique was probably used to make the imminent misery easier to swallow as you get to enjoy characters now that you have been warned are going to die later.

There are no plots to be found really. It's a coming of age in turbulent time story and is put together mostly of sub stories focusing on the relationships Liesel has with the people in her life.

While repeating that it is hard on the heart, I would recommend this to anyone who appreciates fantastic writing but only if they can tolerate a sad story. There is poetry and beauty in it for certain but its ultimately covered in crap colored misery.