Hello everyone! I am here again with a new book review.

Liesel is a nine year old girl in Nazi Germany during World War II. She arrives in Molching after losing her brother to a cough on a train and leaving her kommunist mother behind. Hans & Rosa are her foster parents. Rudy is her new neighbourhood best friend. And Ilsa, the Town Mayor's wife, is also the most ardent encourager and availer of her thievery.

The story unfolds over a couple of years, as we witness the circumstances that compel Liesel to steal books & food, and later emerge as The Book Thief, not only in order to survive, but also save others. Like Max, a Jew, who one day drops by 33 Himmel Street, seeking refuge at her foster home basement, with a quiet promise of another beautiful friendship. Death the narrator of this story (very interesting) speaks to you with nearly excessive premonition, so you're always correct in your intuition about what's going to happen next, but stay hooked nonetheless because of how immensely real all the characters feel.

However, given that this was a re - read after like 6 years, I found a few things rather off putting. For instance, when Max goes into coma in the freezing basement, Liesel gets him 13 gifts hoping he'd wake up and one of them is... A CLOUD ! ? Also the way Markus made the end about how it was Death who found this book, which was actually written by Liesel, and is now narrating it to us itself honestly felt very bizzare to me. Anyway, not to take away from the fact that this heart - wrenching story accurately represents one of the goriest, most ruthless pogroms of all time AND also captures the love for words and books and their indomitable power of healing which is always a pleasant welcome, no matter the measure.

Historical fiction books are my favourite to read and TBT was probably my first foray into the genre - which I guess must be true for a lot of you too! I still adore it despite all the differences I have with it now, but perhaps that could be just another unfortunate outcome of this atrocious thing called growing up. Adulting sucks in every sense, I'm telling you.

// Intense tears were shed after page 490 (of course, all entirely exclusive of my daily sob routine)

Have a nice day ahead! 😌