- Read The Book Thief.
- Don't read The Book Thief.
There are expectations that naturally come along with a novel about the holocaust. A novel narrated by Death yields further expectations.
None of these expectations include a happy ending.
So why, encircled protectively in my armor of expectations, was I still so singularly devastated by this novel? To the point where I cried for close to a half hour after reading the final page last night, and remain in a sort of fog today, trying to focus on process documentation and project roadmaps while my mind still lingers on Himmelstrasse.
The Book Thief is beautiful. And terrible.
Read it.
But don't say I didn't warn you.
