What Adrienne Thinks About That

I've just read The Book Thief for a YA book award that I'm judging (The CYBILs), and I've got to say I just don't get it. I find this one of the most depressing, weird stories I've ever read and I can honestly say I would never recommend it to a teen. I found the writing contrived and all over the place. Can someone tell me why I can't love this book as much as everyone else seems to?

I wouldn't recommend The Book Thief to a teen, either, unless he or she was an extremely serious reader. When I read the book, I thought its classification as teen fiction was weird. The book seems much better-suited for adults.

And, hey, I'm the girl who didn't think the Newbery book was All That, so I know where you're coming from, Patty. Personally, I've been thinking a lot about Craig's advice: "Whenever your own taste comes into conflict with that of others, it's helpful to remind yourself that once 'The Beverly Hillbillies' was the top-rated tv sitcom."

When I was reading the first couple pages of The Book Thief, I have to admit that I was like, "This is not going to work for me." But then I was hooked, and it did. Zusak uses Death as a narrator, I think, to create a kind of metafiction that doesn't feel so much like metafiction. I think the quote I used in my entry here gets to the heart of the book: Zusak isn't interested in the end. He's interested in process -- the process his characters are going through in the story but also, I think, the process he's going through as someone creating a story and the process we're going through as readers of the story. So Death plays around with his readers, shifting time and perspective, foreshadowing, constantly drawing attention to the way he's relating events. Postmodernism can be really annoying, particularly if it's not working for you, but I found that it really worked for me in this novel. Death told me right away that Rudy was going to die, but when it happened, I was shocked. I cried. The inevitability of death, of this particular death, made it no less powerful -- at least for me, and that's what I found so remarkable. It is very True. This is one of those books in which the way the story is told ties directly into the novel's themes, and managing that while also creating a readable story is quite a feat. Less so if you don't think it works, though. :)

I think this can be likened to The Lovely Bones. Creating a narrator who is dead (or is Death) is a conceit, and I think it's fair to say that using this kind of a narrator is, on some level, cheating on the author's part and is almost by definition contrived. I found both these books to be successful, but I know a lot of people who think they're crap -- and I'm not sure I can argue with them. I just know that I found them to be bold and interesting and fresh, and both books completely won me over.

On another note, I'm surprised at how many people in the blogosphere are saying they didn't like Octavian Nothing. I'd totally argue that that book is *amazing*. It's a difficult book, but I can't imagine not understanding why it won the Printz.

I should clarify here, since I don't mean to diss the Newbery. It just came as a big surprise. You can read my review for SLJ at amazon.com, if you're interested:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/1416901949/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-7324146-9493637?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

It's amazing how many emails and phone calls one gets when she's one of the people who reviewed the Newbery for a professional publication before it won. And just when I thought no one noticed my SLJ reviews.... :)

I want to read them all now.