Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

I have never read anything so heart wrenching

Customer Rating:

This book was addictive from the very first page. I never wanted it to end. I walked around in a daze after I finished it for a few days. I just could not get the characters out of my head. I grew to love Liesel and wanted her to be my little girl, she was so real. How dreadful war torn Germany was and this book magnifies that. I left the book wanting to know more about the places mentioned and also the lives of the real people who survived that time. Markus Zusak wrote this book in a luminous and compelling way. I bought this book from the recommendations on Amazon and it would not have been a book I would have selected in a shop. So thank you fellow reviewers, without you I would never have discovered this delight.

One of my favourite books

Customer Rating:

This is one of my favourite books. I found it great company. I loved it from start to finish and couldn't put it down. Markus Zusak creates beautiful characters (e.g. Liesel, Rudy, Hans Huberman etc. ) that you just fall in love with. My only slight grievance was that I would've liked to learn more about Liesel as an adult. But maybe this was because I didn't want the book to end! Overall though its a fantasic read. Highly recommended.

Fantastic and unable to put down

Customer Rating:

I was given this book by a friend's mum to read as she thought I would enjoy it. It's not something I would have chosen for myself so I am extremely grateful to my friend's mum! A fanstastic read that I simply couldn't put down. I read until well into the early morning the first night before deciding I really needed to get to sleep. When I got up I picked the book up again and didn't put it down until it was finished. It made me laugh and cry. Death was not portrayed in the usual way as being something evil that is determined to get your soul no matter what. Instead death was a gentle 'being' who carefully cradled the souls he collected and who was haunted by humans. I don't want to give too much away for those that haven't read it but each of the main characters in the book is special in their own way from Leisel (The Book Thief herself) to her friend Rudy, Max, the Jew they hid in their cellar, and her foster parents who appeared on the surface as the mother being the harsh disciplinarian and the father being the gentle soul, until you got to know more about their characters and looked beyond the brusqueness of the foster mother's demeanour and of course there was Death himself. By the end of the book I could barely see the words on the pages in front of me through my tears. Very thoroughly recommended.

Excellent!	Customer Rating:
This is the most amazing book with the most interesting story I have read in a long time. The author has done an excellent job in telling the story in a very ambitious way. I definately recommend this book to someone who looking for a praise worthy read!

A great read!	Customer Rating:
I love the way this story is told by the character 'Death' and it reminds me slightly of Terry Pratchett's character 'Death'. This story focuses on the characters lives and relationships and doesn't go into details about the war, which is refreshing. The characters are portrayed very well and the ending is absolutely brilliant. Highly recommended read.