The Book Thief
This book was distinctly okay. It kind of felt like it wanted to be all things to all people? I've seen it classified as young-adult, and that works, in a sense, but I also get the impression that Zusak's ambitions were somewhat more "literary" than that? And in the same breath, I feel like the writing is often even more juvenile than young-adult literature tends to be. The narrator should be interesting, but isn't. Terry Pratchett portrays Death (and death) interestingly. Zusak doesn't. Death's narration left me cold, I felt no rapport with him, despite the conversational tone he took. Similarly, all the telegraphed plot points - mainly deaths - left me with nothing left to look forward to in this book, in the sense that, if we had to have a bleak ending (which, of course, we had), then we would bloody well know what KIND of bleak ending we were going to have! Like I said, it was okay. There were some nice scenes. But I didn't really feel anything about it and I feel like I should have. It was just so... simplistic. So black and white. I've had meatier Big Macs.
