The Book Thief

The Book

Markus Zusak had a genius idea when he decided to use Death as the narrator for his novel. Through him, you are able to have a bigger picture of the atrocities and deaths taking place across Germany but maintain the focus on Liesel, the book thief, and her story. He is able to provide warnings and fore-knowledge of the future in order to maintain interest and pace, because Death is the only character who we know for certain will still be around at the close of the book.

As a librarian, its hard to resist a title and story that features books! The novel is a homage to the book and the power of stories, as it is what keeps characters like Max, the Jew hidden in Liesel's basement, and all the Germans sheltering together from bombs, sane and distracted from the terrible situation. Stories are able to transport you to another place, where your interest focuses on others and away from your own troubles.

John Dies at the End

The Book

The book is a 400+ page mix of sci-fi hokum, schlock horror and Farrelly brothers type humor. Certainly easy to read but frustrating in that much of it seemed so random and disjointed. For example - John and David are in a deserted Mall. They are attacked by a large mutant deer which explodes and inside the creature was a box with a key. The key to a room. They pick it up and its never mentioned again. You'll find various exploding animals and people throughout the story.
There was an over-arching storyline (all-seeing evil god-like being that exists in other dimensions trying to invade ours) that got to a sort of conclusion, but by the end it seemed that even the main characters didn't care about what would happen next, let alone the reader.
There were some neat ideas and premises within the hotchpotch - X-Box and Playstation games training children to be cold-hearted killers, waiting for an alien trigger - but maybe these could have been used in their own right rather than added to the brewing pot of slights of hand, misdirection and twists that left me unphased and bored.