Everybody lies

This is one of those books I desperately wanted to like, just for the fact that the story is narrated by Death. Ever since meeting Terry Pratchett’s version of Death in the Discworld books, not to mention Neil Gaiman’s version in the Sandman comics, I have an ongoing crush on Death as a person.

Also, this book is about somebody who steals books. And honestly, if you have to steal at all, books are about the only thing worth doing it.

Plus, who could resist this beautiful cover art? I know I should stop judging a book by its cover, but I do it all the time anyway.

So this one should have been an easy sell on me. If, that is, there hadn’t been such a hype around it when it came out. Overhyped books generally, more often than not, turn out to be nothing special and hardly worth the time for me. *coughHarryPottercough*

And finding out that the story was set in World War II Germany didn’t help either. If there is one thing that really bores me to death it is stories about WWII, about persecuted Jews and the bad german Nazis, blah, blah, blah… I have read Anne Frank’s Diary, thank you very much. They tortured us with stories about that war all the bloody time in school, so I really am not interested anymore.

So I ended up getting a copy of the book, but whenever I looked for something to read on my shelves, my hand passed right over it and chose something else instead. But recently I finally decided I had avoided the book long enough and ought to give it a chance. And I’m glad I did, because the story really is beautiful.

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. Her brother died. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall. Death is busy during those years, but he manages nevertheless to keep an eye on the little book thief.

That sounds bleak, and it kinda is. But it is also a wonderfully hopeful story about love and friendship in unlikely places, about caring and trusting and dreaming in hard times. The fact that the story is narrated by Death himself makes the celebration of life ever so much more touching and memorable.

And then, there is Zusak’s beautiful prose. The guy really has a way with words. His language flows along and draws you into the story right from page one. Although it is a longish story I was sad to reach the end so very soon, because I just couldn’t put it down.

I ended up enjoying this book much more than I expected to. And that is always a nice gift, because it happens so rarely.