Week 5 - Overall Opinion

Overall, I thought The Book Thief was good, but not as goods as it claims to be. I've heard numorous people say how excellent this book is, which made me expect it to be absolutely amazing. Part of the reason I didn't think it was amazing was that it is Teen Fiction, a genre I can't stand. I thought this book might have strayed from those elements of Teen Fiction since many adults find it amazing as well. It had not. Some things I didn't like about the book were how I always felt like the author was trying too hard by overemphasizing things. The most obvious example of this was the random bolded phrases throughout the book. They serve no purpose except to emphasize things the author felt would bring a sort of staged depth to the story. A book should be able to have depth without this added effort. Another way depth is forced is how the last scentence of each section or chapter is overly dramatic. I feel like a book's substance should be dramatic (if that's the purpose of the book, as it is for this book), and not focus on the last scentence. However, there were some things I liked about The Book Thief, such as its use of figurative language and the idea that Death is really afraid of humans. I liked how throughout the book Death is acting tough and sarcastic, and at the end we discover it's only his way of covering up the true fear he has of us humans. Scenes such as the bomb raids where the entire street was crowded into and waiting in silence in that one basement, as well as Death's character made me think more about war and what a horrible destructive power humans really are. I also reccomend to anyone who hasn't already to read or at least skim the interview with the author at the back of the book. Finding out what Marcus Zusak's own thoughts while writing The Book Thief really made me appreciate it more as a whole.