The book moved me to tears in the last fifty pages. The author lifted my heart in the first part of the book. The book made me happy for small joys of Liesel and Rudy. The last two hundred pages dragged my heart from the skies and dropped it like a bomb. It shattered into pieces and lay at the feet of the author.
This is not a book. It is poetry. The author sees beauty in everything. He mentions “a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon” in passing. Like it was an afterthought. But it conjures images of a day just as it was in the author’s mind.
Zusak describes people as he sees them. It cracked me up when he described a person as “A bathrobe opened the door.” He says things like “Hans Hubermann wore a face with the shades pulled down.”
This book messes up your senses. Zusak jumbles what you see, hear, feel, smell and touch. He talks about roaring sights, climbing smoke, emptying words into the sink, smell of friendship.
Zusak has a lot of ways to describe death as a person. Death gently lifts souls. It unentangles souls. It has a packet of souls. It shovels souls.
The book has words such as “lovelily” that I’ve seldom seen used. He is a sharp wit too. In one place, death says “It kills me sometimes, how people die.” I read that statement so many times. How can someone think like this?
Like in the movie “A Beautiful Life”, the author describes happiness in small things. A broken leg, stale bread, foul language from someone.
I was sad this book got over. I was glad this book got over. I don’t think my heart can take so much. You will do yourself a favor by reading this book.