#markus zusack

Book Recomendations #1

So I think this would be a good little nifty thing. I’m intending to do one for cartoons, anime, manga, comics. And not just one for each, either. I find those are so limited.

Instead, the ones I consider 4-5 stars I’ll talk a bit about them, what they’re about and why I liked them.

It’ll be any genre I read/watch, and not straight either. I’ll put a M/M or a F/F in those cases. My links…

The Book Thief

Author Markus Zusack  Published 8 September 2007

Blurb

HERE IS A SMALL FACT - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION - THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH.

It's a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.

ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW - DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES.

Review

Here is another important fact: You will need a box of tissues.

Narrated by the omnipresent and world-weary Death, this novel is packed with Liesel’s interactions and exploits with her friends as she grows into her childhood, mixed with the growing menace of the Nazi regime present in the background.

“***A SMALL PIECE OF TRUTH*** I do not carry a sickle or scythe. I only wear a hooded black robe when it's cold. And I don't have those skull-like facial features you seem to enjoy pinning on me from a distance. You want to know what I truly look like? I'll help you out. Find yourself a mirror while I continue.”

We see the questions, opinions and reactions of a child experience the during then worsening economic conditions, book burnings and anti-semitism in powerful force.

It happened in a small town of Hitler’s heartland.

The flow of more suffering was pumped nicely out, and a small piece of it had now arrived.

Jews were being marched through the outskirts of Munich, and one teenage girl somehow did the unthinkable and made her way through to walk with them. When the soldiers pulled her away and threw her to the ground, she stood up again. She continued.

The morning was warm. Another beautiful day for a parade.

Gripping, with a captivating cast of characters, Zusack skillfully presents to us the Second World War from the civilian eyes and civilian perspectives.