Review // The Book Thief

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

❝I love this place and hate it, because it is full of words.❞ (522)

Nothing spoilericious in this review, but if you like to figure out things by yourself—like, say, who the mysterious narrator is—I recommend you come back here after you're done reading.

This book took me almost an entire month to read. Instead of Halloween candy, which can all be consumed in an afternoon (urgh, stomachache), The Book Thief was an apple pie, rich and thick, meant to be savored and way better than a crappy fun-size Snickers*.

Death tells the story of Liesel Meminger, beginning summer of '39. Liesel is an illiterate German child who is sent away to live with a set of foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann, in Mulching, Germany during World War II and the Holocaust. Coping with the too recent death of her younger brother, Liesel turns to her newfound papa with a stolen book, The Grave Diggers Handbook. The book sparks a passion for words as Liesel fights her way through growing up in Nazi Germany, protecting a Jew in her basement, and thieving—mostly books.

It would make sense that a book about words uses good ones, and The Book Thief is pages upon pages of perfect lines and incredible diction.

There isn't really any mystery in this book, not that that is a bad thing. Sometimes the narrator will spoil something 200-300 pages before it happens. Because the subject matter of the book was so thick, I think that if Zusak tried to cram too much mystery or suspense into these pages, that it might have quickly become either too cheesy or too much to handle. However, spoiling just enough so that the story read like the life story you might tell your grandchildren made it much more believable. It's not like everything was spoiled either, I was still very surprised when the climax and then the ending came.

I think the portrayal of Death is spot on here. As a whole humans tend to be haunted by Death, and making him just as equally perturbed by humans was a remarkable twist.

I feel like I should mention something about the characters: Liesel, Papa and Mama, Max, Rudy Stiener, Ilsa Hermann, but right nothing is coming to mind. They're all excellent people that kind of take the weapons and numbers out of war and make it more about the people, that there were actual lives going on in the midst of this war, and that Germany wasn't made of terrible emotionless leeches.

OVERALL (because this is apparently a high school essay), I can only recommend that you read it. I have nothing but praise for The Book Thief. It's a very sad but nonetheless full story about a girl and some words.

And now I must confess: Sometimes books from teachers' shelves may or may not end up at my house well into the summer, and when that happens, I don't always return them.

☀☀☀☀☀ - 5/5

*Please Note: I hate Snickers and love apple pie. You may mentally adjust foods as needed to suit your own taste buds. I would really like an apple pie right now. Or maybe some cheesecake.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Forbidden Forest

The Forbidden Forest

In which Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Draco serve the scariest detention ever. 

For being out of line up in the off-limits highest tower and getting caught by Filch, Harry and Hermione have to serve a detention. Even worse, Neville got caught trying to warn them that Malfoy was tattling on them, and he got caught too. Even worse, they lost 150 points for being out of bed after hours and everyone hates them. The silver lining to this predicament, I guess, is that Malfoy got caught trying to bust them.  

At one point McGonagall says, "I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?" (243) I think she said that based on what she knew of James and the other Marauders, thinking that Harry would be the same as his father, and I think it was an unfair assumption on her part. Harry is like James in a lot of ways, but I think he also inherited Lily's softer, compassionate touch. 

For the next few days, Harry is talked about and hated by all Gryffindors, except for Neville, Hermione, and Ron. Get used to it, Harry. If no one else, Neville, Hermione, and Ron will be a part of the small faction of people you find you can trust in coming years. You'll even start to doubt Dumbledore, but you'll always trust Neville, Ron, and Hermione. 

A little bit of irony: they serve their detention after hours in the forbidden forest (key word: forbidden), even though they were all caught for being in a forbidden part of the castle after hours. Though Filch despises the punishments they give these damn'd spoilt rotten cretins, at least the gang gets to serve their detention with Hagrid. Even when he's not spilling crucial plot details left and right, he's still a great guy. Their mission: find dead unicorn.

Whilst frolicking through the forest of mystery, the gang runs into a centaur. Centaurs don't play a huge roll in the books, but they do play an important one. And something tells me that "Mars is bright tonight," (253) isn't just a mysterious observation on the weather. Mars is the bringer of war. Maybe it was in reference to the fight between Voldemort and Harry (spoiler alert—coming up in one chapter), or maybe it was a hint at the war to come. The second wizarding war. If J.K. Rowling mentions something twice in a chapter, it's probably important.

Harry stumbles across something important when he travels deeper into the forest and finds the dead unicorn. A not-human, not-animal being swoops down upon it and drinks the silver blood. And Harry's scar burns badly. Get used to that, too, Harry. Scar = Voldemort. Luckily the centaur, Firenze saves Harry before anything terrible happens. And a little more about the meaning of the unicorn blood is revealed. Basically, if Voldemort gets his hands on the stone, Harry faces the same fate as the unicorn.

In slightly happier news, Harry gets his cloak back. Dumbldore, you goober.

Back to the Table of Contents 

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

In which a dragoness is born.

Finals are just beyond the horizon—ten   w h o l e   weeks away—for the first years, Hermione already has them color-coding their notes. It's like your first year of high school when you think final can't possibly get any worse. But fact: they can, and do, get worse each and every year. Unfortunately, wizards don't have the luxury of a senior year where they don't need to take finals—if I remember correctly, they have NEWT's in their seventh year, which just seems terrible.

At the library, they find Hagrid looking for some books. Hagrid does a lot of domestic things: makes tea, cooks, cleans, gardens, knits, and bakes. For some reason I always saw him being a reader of the classics: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind. Don't even deny it, Hagrid is in a book club with some middle aged witches from Hogsmeade.

But NEWT's and book clubs take up 0% of this chapter, so we must move on.  

Basically, Hagrid's hatching a dragon. And Harry, Ron, and Hermione happen across it because they were in the right place at the right time—not that Hagrid would have ever been able to keep a secret as big as a dragon. 

The little picture of baby Norbert(a) at the top of the chapter is very cute and all, but I expected a Norwegian Ridgeback to be terrifying. A Ridgeback is no Horntail, but I don't think a Ridgeback is a winged alligator either. (Not that alligators aren't terrifying in their own special way.) 

"Hagrid, you live in a wooden house." (233) Oh, Hermione, you infinite fountain of wisdom.

Hagrid, oh my gosh, needs to keep his trap shut. Not only does he tell three impish eleven-year-olds that he's hatching an illegal dragon, but he also reveals that the teachers each have their own parts in protecting the stone: Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Quirrell, Dumbledore, and Snape. If Harry and gang weren't suspicious before, they certainly are now. 

Though Norbert(a) is still illegal, though Hagrid still lives in a house made of wood, Harry, Ron, and Hermione make an arrangement with Charlie to transport the dragon to Romania—home, home on the range / where the dragons and Snorkacks all play / where seldom is heard . . . 

Anyway at midnight on Saturday, Hermione and Harry break in the new invisibility cloak and transport nervous Norbert(a) to the tallest tower, cleverly marked, Tallest Tower ↑. On their way back downstairs, however, they forget their cloak and promptly get caught by Filch. Dude, how the the hell could you forget your fancy new invisibility cloak? If Ron were with you, this never would have happened. 

"Well, well, well, . . . We are in trouble." (241) Crap.

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Harry Potter Hullaballoo - Nicolas Flamel

Nicolas Flamel

In which the mystery of Nicolas Flamel is solved and Harry plays another game of Quidditch.

Neville, at this point in the story, is struggling. He's got Malfoy bullying him left and right, he doesn't feel confident that he should be a Gryffindor, and his forgetfulness and nervousness aren't doing him many favors. He's got Hermione, Harry, and Ron as his fellow Gryffindor comrades, but he's not ♥best-friends-for-life-even-when-we-die♥ with them, and he hasn't really developed a sense of self-confidence yet. Harry, Ron, and Hermione try to help Neville when Malfoy casts a Leg-Locker Curse on him. Neville kind of plays the role of the token—I don't want to call him an idiot—not-the-brightest-wand-in-the-shop (there is at least one of these in every Disney show), but luckily he grows up and, particularly around the fifth book, starts to grow into his enormous shoes. This is not a metaphor; Neville really does have larger-than-average feet. It all leads up to the end when he reaches his full potential of badassery. Stick around to the end, and I'll talk about it.

After helping Neville, Harry receives a chocolate frog card, ugh, Dumbledore again—OH MY HOLY MAJOLY, IT'S NICOLAS FLAMEL! See kiddies, always remember to floss your pearly whites and read the backs of your chocolate frog cards. At this point in time Hermione has a revelation about the Sorcerer's Stone, which we all know about, so I won't explain it here. However, it might also be in your interest to note that Flamel is from Devon, which is also the home of the Weasleys, the Lovegoods, the Diggorys, and some other wizards whose names I can't remember. 

The second half of this chapter is focused on the Quidditch final, which Harry wins. In record time. Snape is refereeing this particular match, which makes Harry very nervous, and apparently he's not the only nervous one, as Dumbledore comes to watch the match, even though he hates Quidditch. Just kidding, he's just too busy making hunches and saving the world and playing hide-and-seek with Fawkes to ever show up at any matches.

It's after the match when things get really exciting—or scary, depending on how you look at it. Harry follows Snape and Quirrell into the forbidden forest and eavesdrops on their private conversation. And according to Harry the stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape. Actually Harry, you've got it almost completely backwards. As long as Quirrell doesn't know how to get past Fluffy, the stone is safe. What you really need to do is make sure Quirrell doesn't go out for a drink anytime soon. I think the whole reason J.K. Rowling wrote the series was to warn children of the dangers of drinking. (Just kidding. Sort of.) But a lot of the bad things that happen can be traced back to alcohol: Ron almost dying in the Half-Blood Prince, Slughorn giving away his memories, Hagrid winning all sorts of all sorts of illegal creatures from gambling in sketchy bars, yada, yada, yada. . . .

And now that we know all drinking is bad, we round out the chapter with a Gryffindor house party. In which I'm sure Butterbeer is consumed.

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Review // Persepolis

Persepolis

by Marjane Satrapi

I know I've read a graphic novel before, maybe in middle school, but I don't remember it at all, so I'll just count Persepolis as my first real graphic novel. Yay.

When I think of graphic novels, my mind immediately  spirals to funny, anecdotal, and generally amusing content. Like the comic strips in the news. The story of Persepolis is a true autobiographical account of Marjane Satrapi's childhood (preteenhood? young-adulthood? eleven-to-fourteenhood?) in Iran in the 1980s, during the Iranian Revolution.

The juxtaposition of the serious story and the less serious comic book format worked well, in my opinion, especially so because I had little prior knowledge of the topic. It was laid out in a manner that was very easy to understand and follow.

Throughout the story I admired how ballsy Marjane and her family were. Though they were in a terrible situation they still managed to have fun: they threw illegal parties and housed illegal things in their homes. Marjane herself was brave (or stupid) as well, sneaking out of school, wearing improper clothing in the streets, and coming into adulthood by testing cigarettes. That made me laugh. Marjane's an amusing girl.

If you haven't read a graphic novel before, or maybe you have, or maybe you're just looking for something a little bit different from what you've been reading lately (something that's not that crap that your English teacher assigned you), then I recommend you read Persepolis. And if you don't like it, it's really short and not likely to do much serious damage.

♢♢♢♢ - 4/5

If you want to find out more about the Iranian Revolution, visit your local library today! Just kidding—here are some links. I know Wikipedia is, like, the cardinal sin of researching, but:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_Without_My_Daughter
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZfO_A7mNVM&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W2SUn1ZNU