The Book Thief

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
550 pages
Publisher: Knopf
Source: paperbackswap.com
★★★★☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

At the beginning of World War II in Germany, nine year old Liesel is whisked away to foster care by her mother.  She quickly fits in with her new Mama and Papa and the war really gets underway.  When a book burning occurs to commemorate Hitler's birthday, Liesel steals a book from the bonfire and starts her careers as The Book Thief.

I enjoyed the way the story is told.  I thought the point of view (I don't want to ruin it by telling you who is telling the story) was very unique.  In several cases the narrator tells the reader straight-up what's going to happen, but that kind of extreme foreshadowing really worked in this book.

This book held so many emotions.  Since it's a book about WWII in Germany, and thus the Holocaust, it was extremely depressing and disheartening to read at points, but there were also parts that made me smile and one part in particular that made me happy.

It's times like this I wish I did half stars, because three and a half seems more appropriate to me than a plain three or four.  So I'll round up just because it's so popular.  If you're even remotely interesting in the war or the Holocaust, I think you would enjoy this book.