the one where death is the author.

This book absolutely wrecked me.  I'm still scraping away tears as I write this review.  The first fifty pages had me confused, the next 400 pages held my interest and the last 50 swept me away.

I will remember images from this book forever . . . Hans Habermann keeping watch and reading with Liesel through her nightmares, Rudy Steiner asking for his kiss, Rosa calling everyone a Saumensch, the pluckishness of Liesel stealing books from the mayor's wife.

I loved the last line of this book.  "I am haunted by humans."  Stories of World War II always grip my heart but this is perhaps the best novel I have read yet about Nazi Germany - the brutality, the heroism, the complex relationships that existed then.

The narrator in the book is Death himself.  He talks about collecting souls.  If you have ever lost someone close to you and witnessed their transformation, this book will mean something different to you.  I hope my soul is "sitting up" when that time comes.

The author has such control over the reader's emotions, revealing the plot at surprising moments.  You're left breathless.  Such an amazing book.  I want to read it all over again.