The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I'd heard a lot about the Book Thief but just barely read it. Narrated by Death itself, it tells the story of a young German girl during WWII and how she deals with losing her family, finding a foster family, and coming of age in such a difficult time. With the help of her sweet foster father (my favorite character in the book) she deals with her grief through learning and books. The humanity and sadness in this book was almost too much at times but I am so glad I read it (and glad to be me!)

Favorite quotes:
"It's much easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something that to actually be it." Wise insights for a little girl!

"A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequences of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the food sense to die."