Anyone one remembers my first blog post where I promised to do a 30 questions book challenge? yeah, I almost forgot too!! BUT I’m here to address something that has plagued my existence for quite some time!!
SO
number 14 on this book challenge is: Book turned into a movie and completely desecrated….
THE BOOK THIEF
This book is humanity itself. I know it’s technically YA fiction (although to me it’s historical fiction because its message is universal).
Each character is beautifully woven into the tapestry of the pages. And Death’s hard to hear, ‘fly on the wall’ narration of the book thief’s life as she (Liesel Meminger) arrives on Himmel street.
This book has hard, biting imagery of the terrifying and constricting life, not only during WWII but in Nazi Germany.
I love this book so much because of its concept. The book itself is Liesel Meminger’s life through Death’s eyes. In the book, we see the inhuman chaos created by Hiter, the poignant moments of a girl’s life as she turns to thievery as a way of gaining power with words within a world where there is no certainty, and the friendships she makes that change her life forever.
And so when I heard one of my favourite books was going to become a film I was BUZZING LIKE A BEE! ok I was imagining the crisp and cold images that came alive in my imagination as I read the book. I thought how amazing it would be to actually see these beautiful characters come to life and to show the heartache and the happiness as death tells the tale of the book thief.
I WAS SO WRONG.
Death narrates the beginning, maybe a li’l section in the middle, and then he pops up at the end when he comes to collect everyone’s souls. WHERE WAS HE? I know a book can’t be translated 100% into a film and there are changes that need to be made to make it viewable….but??? Death as the narrator is the main concept of the book!
And the characters I had fallen in love with were just stilted characters in a period drama. Liesel never called herself a thief, in fact through the whole film she protested she was just ‘borrowing’ EXCUSE ME… is it called ‘the book borrower’ …nope, thought not!
And oh dear Lord have mercy, RUDY STEINER, my dear little saumensch, you deserved so much better.
And even Max, they down played the terrors he faced… he had nightmares and lived in the basement for over two years because he was hiding from the Nazis!
I feel like the film was made for a certain audience and therefore the creators were dancing around the sensitive and tough subjects. Which is wrong, this story’s combination of humanity and history is what should’ve been portrayed on the screen. The community spirit as a neighbourhood hid in an air raid shelter together, the rationing and the simple pleasures of childhood documented in Liesel and Rudy’s friendship.
This post is becoming far too long and I’m trying not sound too ranty…but this film lets me down so much!!
Don’t get me wrong, the sets and costumes were all amazing, but the plot had no correlation to the book whatsoever (in my opinion).
So yes, that’s question 14 answered, please don’t take offense to me not liking the film!! the beauty of this world is that we’re all different!
Also… if you’ve never read the book, you should totally go buy it now, because it’s one of the best books I’ve EVER read!!
Make sure to follow me on twitter! we can talk about books together!! yahh!
chloee ✨ magic 