I was attracted to this book at first because of 2 things:
1. It was a story about books, and book-stealing no less!
2. It was a story told by Death him-/itself. The first line of the book jacket synopsis and one of the first lines in the story is: "Here is a small fact: You are going to die." How appropriate for Death to say that.
In the end though, it was this 3 aspects that drew me into the story:
1. The well-elaborated plot, not only about books and book-stealing (though those books were an integral vein in the storyline) also about the Germans who suffered in the 2nd World War, and the conditions during that tumultuous time. I think a lot is said about how the Jews suffered, and rightly so, but the Germans not involved in the war suffered as well, like that Malay proverb about the innocent deer (kancil) in the middle of a war between the elephants and the tigers suffering (or something like that...). This book brings that suffering to light, while weaving a magical story about a little girl and her love for books.
2. The characters in the book are well thought out and well brought out in the telling of the story. Everyone gets exposition where due; everyone's story is known in some detail. I especially like the main character as she grows with the ever-worrying circumstances around her. Death as narrator is okay, but more on this later.
3. Zusak's style of writing is amazing. I don't know whether it's because English isn't his native language, or it's just that he's found his own inventive ways of description, but there are many new turns of phrases and descriptions of characteristics that at first seemed slightly odd (with the strangeness that new feels) to me, but came to make me delight in reading the story. All these phrases he uses seem so apt, no cliches at all.
The way he structures the book is superb as well - there is no feeling of discontinuity between the different subplots of the story, and Death's interjections within the story helps give the overall feel to the setting without breaking the story up.
2 things I didn't really like:
1. Death as portrayed by Zusak is a bit too human for my liking. To me, Death sounded more like a human who was saddled with this burdensome task of carrying human souls away, rather than more like, well, Death. The only other person who's written about Death from a 1st-person narrative is Pratchett, and even his Death has some kind of aloofness/untouchability that I feel Death should have.
2. The last line - it doesn't really make sense, or fit into the story, for me. I'm not going to put it here, in case you actually want to read the book (which I really highly recommend!) but it's the kind of sentence that makes you think why it's so when you read it, and it's fine as a sentence by itself, in the context that it's in. But taken with the whole bulk of the story behind it, and with the important role of ending line, it just doesn't make sense. There definitely are more suitable sentences to end a superb novel like this with!
Hopefully I haven't leaked out too much of the story (I don't think so anyway) to spoil the story for you, because YOU SHOULD READ IT! Enjoy...
Rating: *****out of 5
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