So it's been a while

Hey Everyone, 

So it's been a while....
      I can't believe I haven't posted anything in way over a year....
             To be honest....I kinda forgot I had a blog for a while....
                      But now I've sorted everything out and we're back!



I have read so many books since my last update. I won't be discussing all of them because I feel like we would be here until next Christmas : P  I will, however, talk about some of my favourites and some of my not-so-favourites. 

After Christmas this year I was in a stormy/miserable/hate-the-world mood. I read a lot of WWII based novels and mysteries.

One book that I read which I thought was brilliant is called "The Book Thief" by Markus  Zusak.

The predominant narrator of the story is Death and it follows the lives of several people in Germany, especially a young girl named Liesel (the book thief).  The story begins by following her travels to a small German village after the death of her own family. She is adopted by a local Painter, Hans,  who is loving and his brash, no nonsense wife, Rosa. The plot continues to develop as Liesel grows and learns to read. The makeshift family, takes in and hides a Jewish man, Max, in their basement beneath the stairs.

The war has only barely begun in the beginning of the novel but by the middle of the book you are struck by the viciousness and brutality of war. There are scenes that take place in a basement during air raids and as the reader you really feel like you are in dank, cramped basement waiting for the bombs to stop. Other scenes make you really uncomfortable (I actually had to stop reading for a bit because I was so uncomfortable). 

The weight of the book (not physically speaking) is amazing. Even now writing this blog about a book I read over six months ago, I find it difficult to talk about why this book is so good. The content is difficult to read about, for instance, the author describes how Jews were marched down the main street of the town (Molching) toward Dachau and their treatment at the hands of the Nazis. Also, it describes how Liesel was enrolled and educated as one of the Hitler Youth, taught how to march, salute and speak.  It discusses Nazi Germany in plain words, it does not glorify anyone, I feel that it also doesn't embellish for "shock value"....the author simply lays it all out there to be interpreted in any way.

I highly, highly recommend this book. Adults and youth would enjoy it. Scratch that, enjoy is the wrong word...perhaps, "would be moved" by this book.

I won't lie...I was crying by the end of the book and I mean all out crying.

I give this book five stars * * * * *

Much love <3,
Ginger Spudman