haunted by humans: a book review

“I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race— that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.” -The Book Thief, Markus Zusak


I finished reading The Book Thief last night at 2 am. I had heard people talking about this book on occasion all over the internet, so one day I decided to get it from the library. I didn't know what it was about at all. I just knew that a lot of people thought it was good. And wow. I was not disappointed.
I've read quite a few books. And I've never read one quite like this. The writing style is so haunting and intriguing, which I think is so appropriate to the story. This book is about the Holocaust and life in Nazi Germany. So, not exactly a pretty time in human history. There is lots of death (the whole book is basically death) and horrible circumstances that people had to endure. And their only comfort was each other.
Basically, I think that everyone should read this book. I don't know if I could read it again (I'm still suffering emotional trauma right now) but it is so brilliant. Like, I can't even put into words all of the things I'm feeling right now.
I think one of the reasons this book was so devastating to me was the lack of God. There were thousands and millions of people dying and the book doesn't mention God. There is no hope of an eternal afterlife. There is no hope for the future. Life is just awful and then you die. And I have to believe that there is more than that. I'm probably not explaining this very well, but if you have read the book, please feel free to talk to me about it. I'd love to discuss this (and any and all aspects of the book) with anyone who is interested.
Basically, I think that Markus Zusak does an excellent job of giving names and faces and personalities to Nazi Germany. It no longer seems like some far-off thing that happened. It feels much more personal. Much more awful. Which is how Nazi Germany should be portrayed. It was devastatingly awful.


Edit: I don't know why the font is different for this post... but I don't know how to fix it. It seems pretty insistent that it's going to look different. Whatever.