The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

Rating: 5 Stars
Today, Sunday the 10th July, around 1:55 AM, I had finished the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. A book, though breathtakingly beautiful, it showed mankind at its worst and its best. How? I have no words that could tell you. Maybe the words were there, but they weren’t enough, no amount of them could ever be.

I couldn’t find one word that could that could describe the way this book made me feel as I burned through its pages full of life and death and as I read every single word it held so dearly.

Words, words, words. It was also the story of Liesel’s love affair with words and yet the words themselves could not do her story any justice. I’m sure, sure as Death, sure that even from the moment I read the first words that I was then a lifelong fan of Marcus Zusak. Making Death the narrator was truly original, very unusual indeed. He gave Death a personality, a personality that was interesting and that had drawn my attention and approval from the very start. Deaths was kind, had a sense of humour and believe it or not, he had a heart.

Now I attempt to share and describe my thoughts and my feelings. It was like riding some sort of emotional rollercoaster that had begun slowly and gradually gained momentum. Happiness had been constant after the cloudy days, but that didn’t mean that sadness and despair wouldn’t catch up. They did. Oh, yes they certainly did.

House on Prague Street by Hana Dementz

Rating:5 Stars

This story takes place during the second World War in Czechoslovakia where Helen's, through whose eyes we witness the heart wrenching events, sunny and care free world comes a-tumbling down when the Western parts of Czechoslovakia, known as the Sudetenland, were tamely handed over to the Nazis.Helen's German father refused to divorce his Jewish wife despite the pleas of his parents who had disowned him for their marriage.

Czechoslovakia lost its independent status and became a German Protectorate under the German Reich Protector Konstantin von Neurath. So life got tougher on them like it had on the rest of the Jewish population with the passing of demeaning decrees restricting access to transport, goods and services and a whole lot of other things. Helen grew up having everything she once had, the people, places and the things she had loved snatched away from her. The House on Prague Street deeply touched me and would always have a place in my heart.Sad as it may be, it's a book I'd re-read over again.

It's one of my favourite World War II novels despite being sad,but grief is rather an unavoidable emotion, especially during such a frightful time caused by the warped beliefs of the self-righteous.


Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2566076-the-house-on-prague-street