Customer Reviews
Whats that all about? - By: Cormac Farrell, 09 Apr 2008 
I bought this book about 8 months ago & only got around to reading it recently. It came highly recommended to me by a number of people who had read it. I must confess that when I had got over the idea that I had to like it, I realised that it just didn't live up to expectations at alll. The premise of the book is good. It tells the a story of how the War affected ordinary German citizens. It debunks the myth that everyone in Germany during the war was a Nazi sympathiser, & and that overnight they alll became "bad" people. This is interesting & a subject that I think deserves more attention from writers in general. But the book is badly constructed. It's deficiencies are added to by a bizarre narration by "Death",which is intensely annoying as almost every chapter he has a litle diatribe about the meaning of certain words or little clues about who is going to die when & also at times it's like he is addressing the narration to children & talks in a patronising way. I also felt that some of the main charachters were scarcely believable. They just don't behave the way kids of that age behave. They are heavily laden with pointless idiosyncracies. There are good points to the book as well & I found the grown up charachters to be a little more believable. But the fact that every piece of dialogue ends with the words "saumench" or "saukerl" or "arschloch" is extremely irritating. It's a shame, without the "Narrator", with a little more realism injected into the child charachters, I think that the book could have gone somewhere important. As it is I can't reallly say that I enjoyed it. To be fair to the author, his ability is not in question, although I haven't read any of his other books it is obvious that he has what it takes. I just think he made a few executive decisions regarding this book which didn't work out.
A far better book I felt was The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. A similar story, told from an unusual viewpoint. About one third the size of this book, but gets the message across far more effectively & leaves a longer lasting impression.
Heart rending - By: A. Cheshire, 03 Feb 2008 
Words fail me to adequately describe this book. It evokes an entire range of emotions with its beautiful, lyrical description of the lives & events of the people of Himmel Street, particularly a little book thief. I cannot imagine how anyone could read this book & not be touched (and in tears by the end).
A Steal For Younger Readers - By: Not Stoppard, 10 Jan 2008 The book jacket tells us that this novel is narrated by Death - a promising start but one which arguably fails to deliver its dark potential. The story has warm, moral characters but also a light, safe quality more suited to the imagination of the younger reader, especiallly as the protagonist is a young girl. The hardcover layout supports this element, as it is easy on the eye, with illustrations, hand-written entries & short chapters.
There is a poignant portrait of a father struggling to protect his daughter from poverty, illiteracy & the indignities of war & an endearing presentation of a community refusing to be split down the seams by Nazism.
Unbelievable - By: Hubble, 08 Jan 2008 This book is fantastic. Read it. You won't be dissapointed.
8/8 of my fellow book club members agreed.
A little underwhelming - By: Particular Press, 03 Jan 2008 Given the press attention & lavish praise that was foisted on this book, I suppose this was always going to disappoint to a certain extent. It's a lovely book as an object - nice heft, beautifully typeset - but for such a large book, there's not an awful lot going on.
The story is touching - albeit a little guilty of piggy-backing on the associated grief & gravity of the holocaust - & the narrative voice of 'Death' is a nice touch. But it does dip in to the melodramatic a bit too often. This isn't the important book that you might have been lead to believe. That said, younger readers - who I feel are the real target audience - might appreciate this more than I did.
