The Book Thief

I don't know what I expected when I picked up a book narrated by Death but I was hoping for a little bit more of a happy ending. Happy isn't even the right word. Many books that have depicted World War II can be uplifting. Stories of triumph in depressing times are inspiring and there can be many things that we can take out of these stories. The Book Thief had all of that potential but the conclusion of this story fell very very flat. (Spoiler Alert:) EVERYONE DIES, and there is absolutely no resolution after the fact. This young girl who makes tremendous strides after losing her parents and watching her brother die then loses everything and everyone she has come to care about and that is the end of the story. How does she deal with it? That is the real struggle, that is the story I want to read about, everything else is a set up for this.

The other thing that I really did not like about the book was how the Narrator continually inserted him self into the narration even though he had very little to do with it most of the time. He adds excessive foreshadowing and opinions on what is happening that pulled my so far out of the story that it was very hard to get back into it. When I read I just want to immerse my self in the story and enjoy what is going on. When an author does something that pulls me out of it, I enjoy the story so much less.

The actual story was very good but I hated the ending and the narration was awful.