The Book Thief.

Best book I've ever read, hands down. I'm not sure how else to start this post. It was fantastic. I stumbled across an online book review, and knew I had to find this book. I've read my fair share of disturbing plot lines & horrific stories. I was a psych major for my first year & a half of college, and even then it stayed my minor- so I'm used to a fair degree. I found myself gripping this book and turning page after page, barely gasping for air to finish this heart-wrenching, gut churning story. I'll give a little synopsis without any spoilers (you can find the same info on the back of the book-but in much, much better writing :) A little girl named Liesel & her brother are being given to a foster family by her own mother-she can't afford to keep them. On the way to Himmel Street her brother dies. The book thief is born. She steals her very first book that night, as he is buried in a hole of dirt next to the train station. Her life on Himmel Street is torturous at first. She's haunted by her mother leaving & her brother dying. The war is going on & Hitler is in full force. She finds comfort in her quiet but loving foster father, while her foster mother loathes them both. Eventually a Jew travels to live with them, hiding in their basement. The relationship they develop is undescribable. It is such a touching & heartwarming story, although a time of severe hardships and losses. The book theif eventually realizes that words are so powerful-they can change a person, a life, a world. Words are so precious to her because she cannot read. Once she learns, she becomes obsessed with them. The book is written from Death's point of view, as if Death were a character. At the end of the book, I was crying so hard I could barely see. I find myself wanting to visit Germany & find 33 Himmel street. You'll have to read the rest of the book to see what happens. Markus is an exceptional writer. The way the book is written is brillant. I highly recommend it if you enjoy that time period in history (Nazi Germany, concentration camps, the Jewish struggle, war, etc.)I'm afraid to read another book after this one-for fear of disappointment. This marks my third book on our list so I am slowly making my way! Speaking of said list, yesterday we went on a crazy cleaning spree and I tackled round one of cleaning out our closet. I HATE doing this. Not only do I hate dealing with laundry & organizing clothing, I am really bad at getting rid of things. I tend to convince myself that I will someday wear every item in my closet. Even if it's been sitting there for years, I hate it, & it doesn't fit me. So yesterday I went through everything ::sigh:: and got rid of a huge garbage bag full of stuff (think those large heavy duty black garbage bags) yay! Afterwards it felt great. We are donating everything to the Lupus Foundation because they so conveniently placed a bag on our front porch & asked for it to be filled. Sometimes God is sooooo humorous :) But it was perfect. So I filled the bag yesterday & tonight Jay is going to go through the rest of his stuff and add to it. It's nice because they will take any household items as well, so I am going to try and go through that stuff in time to send it off with the clothing. That means I get to tackle our hutch next....which is completely packed with crap. We don't have much storage, and instead of getting rid of more "things" ...we stuffed them into the house. I can't wait to cleanse our house of unneccesary crap. Ok, sorry about the boring post! sometimes life is just boring like that =)