Book Club Report -- Beware: Spoilers for The Book Thief ahead!

[deanish_ness]

I hosted book club on Monday night (later I'll tell you why I'm just now getting to sit down and write about it), and on the recommendation of july_july_july and reading1066 we read The Book Thief. Now I would like to hold an ebookclub meeting on it with y'all!

Everyone gave it a positive review, which is really rare with our club. Most of the time we're split down the

Comments

[deanish_ness]

Hmm.
1 -- I don't know about this one specifically, but I don't think the lines have blurred enough to do away with the genre altogether. There's a lot of young adult crap out there. There's a lot of adult crap out there, too, but I'd definitely say it's a different genre of crap. But I think you can have a really good book that belongs in the young adult section. I'd say Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia and Anne of Green Gables would all fit into that section, and they're all favorites. The Book Thief ... I think it did have kind of a young adult feel to it, maybe. But that could be because I was predisposed to think of it that way.

2 -- But that's what I'm saying. I don't think the book was really about books. I think he tried to build it that way, but it just never happened. The books never felt as important to me as he built them up to be. You can make the case that Leisel would be dead without them, but that really feels kind of tangential, since the book pretty much ended there, anyway. It didn't seem to me like the book would have been any better or worse without them.

3 -- You just don't have any reason to think that Max is really a very deep thinker, except that he writes these books. He's only really described as a boxer. And he doesn't otherwise seem very intellectual. He just writes these books with all this symbolism from nowhere. I think that's the main thing. I wouldn't have had trouble with him writing a book, period -- about his experiences or something. But what he wrote is not what I'd expect from the character he was set up as.

4 -- But his father didn't have any real power over him. And I'd guess that his mother often stood over him as well. It just didn't make sense to me. Also, it bothered me that in both the books (I think both -- but especially the second one) he talked like Liesel was a Nazis who converted. I didn't get that at all.

5 -- I liked Death's asides a lot, too. I just didn't get the colors. It ended up feeling like a plot hole.

6 -- The brutal part was the right speed. It was just the wrap up that felt to me like he was just trying to get it done. I think I agree that I like the lack of specifics about Liesel's life ... but it seems like there would be something more there. Not sure what, though.

Anyway. Honestly, despite what it may sound like, I loved the book and I've passed on the recommendation to a few people. I just think there were some weird loose ends that could have really won him some major acclaim if he'd taken care of them.