The Book Thief
Death is going to be your guide, and he will tell you who is going to die, fairly early in the story. And, he will remind you.
And from there the suspense builds, bittersweet and tender as the main character, Liesel, and her friend, Rudy, grow, play, and try to understand the world in a time when everything is turned on its side.
This book captures why we live, why we love, and why we try, even though we know, at the end of it, where we are all going. We just don’t know when. Or how. Or even who we will meet along the way, and how they may need our compassion, or us, theirs.
I can’t help but read this book and wonder, like Death, how people can be so beautiful, and so ugly. How we can love so tremendously and hate so ferociously. How we are capable of so many things.
I think, or at least I hope, that you will find this book a challenge. Not because it is difficult to read, but because of how it treats our humanity. I suspect that you may look at your fellows with a bit more wonder, compassion. And in that regard, I feel that this book succeeds as a piece of literature, in that it shows us as we are, using the characters as the mirror and lens into our collective soul.
If nothing else, read this book for the wonderful imagery Zusak paints throughout the novel.