You have probably read The Book Thief and loved it. It’s #14 on the NPR Great American Read list, after all. When I picked it up, someone saw me holding it and said “oh, are you re-reading that?” And I said, “I’ve never read it.”
You know what? I’ve still not read it. I got a fair bit of the way in, too. But here’s the thing: right now, I don’t need a book about Nazis doing horrible things. I don’t need to read about how society goes down that slippery slope towards hate and violence and intolerance. It’s bad. I know that, and I see enough of it happening in the world right now. And The Book Thief was not a compelling enough story to make me forget that.
Plus, the Death character in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels has, apparently, ruined me for all other characterizations of Death.
The Book Thief was not for Kates.