The Book Thief and The Thirteenth Tale

Although The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak took me a while to get through, I enjoyed it very much. I first noticed the book on Seamus' required reading list for school. Sometimes I will read books from that list in order to have some knowledge about what books to recommend to my son. The Book Thief sat on our shelves for quite a while before I finally picked it up to read. I knew the topic involved the holocaust and often my heart cant handle the brutality of that theme. I waited... and waited... and waited until I was ready to take on the topic. In early December I finally picked up the book and slowly began reading. The narrator of this story is Death and that sucked me in pretty quickly. The descriptions of him going through his routine of plucking life from humans is done very beautifully and with thoughtful description. I enjoyed that writing a lot. I was also pleased that this book focused on regular Germans in Nazi Germany and how their lives were affected by the war and Hitler's regime. While the Nazi treatment of Jews was definitely a theme, it wasnt the only one. The Book Thief was not a quick read, in my opinion, but I would absolutely recommend it to my son or anyone else for that matter.

After reading The Book Thief I was hungry for another well written book. I went on amazon.com and after researching top rated books, settled on reading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I really wanted to love this book and I did for the first three quarters of the story. The plot centered around the mysterious past of Vida Winter, a popular and prolific author. Ms. Setterfield wove an evocative story that had me hanging on her every word. However compelling the story began, I realized 3/4 though that the ending was approaching too fast. Setterfield was either going to magically pull the story through to fruition or she was going to fall short. In my opinion, she fell short. There is no doubt the author is a talented writer and a gifted storyteller. It had been a while since I had been so quickly absorbed in a book. I literally didnt want to put it down. However, in my opinion Setterfield gave up at the end. The Thirteenth Tale's close felt rushed and finished disappointingly flat.