I’m a little behind in my book reviews!

I finished The Book Thief in a matter of days. It looks imposing (560 pages) but it’s technically a young adult book so it goes very quickly. Overall, I liked it. I guess I should really start giving star ratings to these books / restaurants / shows / movies / other things I judge. I did find the book to be a little gimmicky. It’s narrated by Death and I thought that was sort of unnecessary and distracting, but it was really interesting to read a “Holocaust book” that followed non-Jewish people. I guess I never really considered how much the Germans who were not Nazi-supporters also suffered under Hitler.

Oh, and I hated the ending.

So for The Book Thief … 3.5 out of 5

Oh geez, this is why I don’t rate things. I’m already feeling guilty. Should I have given it a 4? No. I need to be firm.

Moving on. The Girl Who Played with Fire. Again, liked it a lot, didn’t LOVE it. I found it a bit stressful (I’m also the person who used to turn off Saved by the Bell and Full House before the main characters got in trouble because I felt like I was getting in trouble), but I couldn’t put it down.

The book is very exciting and I’ve been recommending the series to a lot of people. An issue I had with this second book had to do with the narration. Much of the book follows a female character, Lisbeth, and it became OVERWHELMINGLY obvious that it was a male author writing from the female perspective. It kind of seemed like the author just wrote out all his female and lesbian fantasies and tried to pass it off as how women really think and behave. For that reason, I would say I enjoyed the first in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, more.

So again, 3.5 out of 5

I reread Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants this week and I’ll write that up later. For now, if you’re not in the middle of a summer read, get your butt out there!