The Book Thief

After much consideration, I've decided that this is worthy of its own thread. Who's read it, and what did everyone think about it? Was eulogised over when it was published in 2005 and time seems to be increasing its reputation more than anything.

I've just finished it and I'm baffled, frustrated, p*ssed off and baffled some more.

Good points: the guy can obviously write and does so very pleasingly in places. Has giant balls of steel for tackling this subject matter in this manner. Tightly constructed given the narrative device.

Bad points: fantastically irritating narrative device. The tone of the whole book is f*cking smug, I think, and not at all appropriate to the subject matter. The narrative voice is massively sentimental and I cannot get my f*cking head around that because Death is the narrator. How can Death be sentimental, writing about collecting thousands of souls from the gas chambers but then one little boy "always made me cry." Dismissed the battle of Stalingrad as "that was no ski trip, I can tell you." Seriously, what the f*ck are you talking about, man?

Will await response before I discuss further cos (a) I'm curious to hear what other folks made of it and (b) I'm tired and I can't ge arsed typing any more.

Just as a footnote, the purpose of this thread is not for me to do a total hatchet job on the book because there are some decent things to say about it, I'm just genuinely curious to see what folks made of it. It's got four hundred and thirty three five star ratings on Amazon for Christ's sake, what am I missing? For the record, it's two and a half for me.

I have a few books to read first (David Mitchell's newest, and boy is that tiresome!, Florence and Giles, A Feast of Freud), but I shall put that next on my list and try borrow it tomorrow.