The Book Thief

I have just finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

• I chose it because it had been recommended to me many, many times, by people whose opinions are generally trustworthy.
• At several points during the reading of The Book Thief I thought to myself, why does everyone love this book? I do not love it. I tried to put it down a few times. But I always came back.
• I did not love it until around the last 100 pages. Then everything fell into place and I embraced the current section and all the words that came before it.
• The thing that kept me coming back to it was not the plot. It wasn't the wondering about what's going to happen. It wasn't the predicting of the final secrets. For the most part, there were no secrets. I knew what was going to happen, but I was intensely interested in the steps by which the characters got there. I wanted to hang on to these people as long as I could.
• The setting is World War II. I wince a little to note that, because I am not a fan of war stories in general and WWII in particular, even though I've made my way through a stack of them over the years. But it's a different side of the story than most, and the narrator is certainly unique.
• I had so much dread within me that my jaw ached from clenching it while reading.
• The Book Thief reinforced my gratefulness to be living in the time and place that I do.
• The Book Thief forced me to visit a local farmers market (the Wednesday Hilldale one) on an emergency mission to buy apples.