Movie Adaptations: The Book Thief

**LEAVE IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK THIEF AND SEEN THE MOVIE

So, I just watched this movie.

So, I made a little pre-watching-movie review: http://bookahooligans.blogspot.com/2014/06/before-viewing-book-thief-movie.html
In the review, I talked about some things I wanted to see in the movie, and my general expectations for the film. I wasn't expecting much. I was let down.

The movie definitely changed some parts of the book. Some of the changes were good. Like Death didn't spoil you that Rudy was going to die halfway through in the movie. There was more closure, but I live by the books, so any of the added closure in the movies, I just regard as fantasies.
But let's just talk about what they changed, because I can come up with infinitely many things:

• Max didn't write any books for Liesel. He only gave her a book with blank pages. None of his cute little stories like the one with the bird or The Word Shaker. I wanted a cute little animation of his books on the screen, just like they did in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and there was nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I was immensely, IMMENSELY let down.
• Also, the movie didn't go into too much detail about Rudy's experience as a soldier or Hans's life. That was fine. I let that one slide, because I imagine that if I were helping to produce this movie, that would be one of the first things I cut. Those chapters bored me the most as well, so it wasn't much of a loss. I just think it would make it harder for people who have only seen the movie to understand everything, but the movie was still comprehensible without it.
• This one bugs me: the part where Liesel found Max in the "parade" was modified. She was searching for Max in the parade, but she never found him and they never exchanged their little words to each other.
• The Nazi that came into their house to inspect the basement felt like a really nice guy in the book. He acted nice, he was kind and caring towards Liesel, and I feel like this movie really antagonized him.
• When Rudy died, I was a million times more infuriated than sad. I didn't like this book much, but I still think that it's important for a movie to stay true to it. But Rudy got to say his last words to Liesel, which RUINED MY ENTIRE MOVIE WATCHING EXPERIENCE. NO!!! He was dead before, and in this alternate reality he gets to tell Liesel that he loves her? NO!!! I OBJECT!!!! I OBJECT!!!!
• And . . . . mmmmm. Right now I am punching the keyboard as I type and I'm seething. Because WOW. This . . .. .....   ,. . . ,.hbsdfyum70. Ahem . . ..In the book, Liesel only stole a few books. But in this movie, she only stole 3. In fact, she only received The Grave Digger's Handbook, a diary, The Dream Carrier, and The Invisible Man. Most of her complex relationship with the mayor's wife was excluded. That annoyed me eme eemmhsdhfs7 9yfe79mf y7s
• And Max never boxed Hitler.
• And Rudy's lemon hair was only added near the end. "Ah crap, guys. I just picked up this book and it turns out that Rudy has lemon hair. We should probably edit that in."

This movie didn't completely fail, though.

• Rosa was spot on, maybe better. I loved her character, she was the best part of the movie.
• The scene where Liesel punched someone in the face: fantastic.
• The Christmas scene: loved it.
• The scene where Mama stormed into Liesel's classroom: perfection.
• Jesse Owens scene: I'm just glad that was included.

The movie made me so mad after I finished watching it. The first 2/3 was good. The ending completely ruined everything for me. Nope. Hated HATED the movie.

Before Viewing The Book Thief Movie

Tonight, I am going to watch The Book Thief. I recently read the book and made a post about it here: http://bookahooligans.blogspot.com/2014/05/books-to-burnbook-talks-book-thief-by.html
Now, I didn't hate the book, as I stated in my review, but I didn't really enjoy my experience. It definitely expanded my reading into a different genre and intrigued me, but it is not an exciting book.

The Book Thief has beautiful language in it. Sure, in some cases, the sentences just made no sense. But most of the time, it was like reading a painting. I do not think that this will translate well on the screen. There wasn't a whole lot of astonishing dialogue in the book. It was mainly descriptions, and unless they figured out how to do justice to Death's narration on the screen, which would be amazing, I'm very wary of the movie.
I watched the trailer and I think I'm pretty satisfied with the casting, so there are no problems there. Besides the fact that the girl who plays Liesel is Canadian, and some of her speaking in the trailers sounded kind of overdone. But I think she'll do okay. I am worried that whoever acted as Rudy will not meet my expectations. Just because.
Now, this movie should be pretty hard to screw up. Percy Jackson was really easy to mess up, because there are lots of funny details that were in the book that were left out in the movie. However, this book has a pretty simple job: get all of the scenes where Liesel steals a book, get Max on the screen a lot, do one of those cool animation things for all of Max's books like they did in that one scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, get that one scene where Liesel punches someone in the face, and wrap it all up with one pretty little bow. That's all I want. I don't care if the 18th time that Mama made terrible soup is included in the movie.

I am looking forward to this movie because I think it's really easy to execute this movie well. Based on some of the reviews I read, I'm a little worried, but I think that they might be able to pull through.

Books to Burn/Book Talks: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

**To view spoilers, drag your mouse over the empty space between"<SPOILER>...<SPOILER>"

BOOK TALK HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANoFqxz0oHY

Where do I begin . . .
I have just finished The Book Thief.
To sum up my reading experience, I waited 550 pages for a plot and didn't get one.

Let me just purge my thoughts onto this blank page. Maybe you can sort them out for me.

The Book Thief is about a girl named Liesel who stole about three books and learned to read.

Just . . . I really am happy for you if you liked this book, and maybe I missed something, but I did not enjoy this book.

Okay. It's easier for me to sort my thoughts with bullets and it's more fun for a lot of people on the internet to read things that way.

• The writing style was beautiful. It was very difficult to get used to, but once you get used to it, it's really poetic and dramatic. However, some of the word choices were very strange (a breakfast colored sun) while others worked very well. The metaphors and other figures of speech were definitely very different than anything I'd ever read before. I just flipped open the book to a random page and found very interesting sentences.

-Papa apologized. "It's quite pathetic. I realize that." "Better than nothing," Max assured him. "Better than I deserve--thank you." p 208
-There was a constant urge to speak both expressions, spurred on by the affliction of guilt. p 208
-It was much the same as the way he left his family in Stuttgart, under a veil of fabricated loyalty. p 208
-To live. Living was living. The prices was guilt and shame. p 208
-She denied his existences. His rustling hair, his cold, slippery fingers. His tortured presence. p 209
-Drizzle came down in spades. p 209
-Dead leaves were slumped on the road. p 209

I mean, Markus Zusak should become a poet.

• The narrator. This book was narrated by Death. He freaking annoyed me. I was okay with him until p 241. You know what happened on p 241? <I suppose it's a SPOILER> HE FREAKING TELLS YOU THAT RUDY DIES. The big finale where Rudy dies is the only thing that would have given the book some sort of plot. But I was spoiled BY THE FREAKING AUTHOR. Maybe the author was just like "Oh, goodness. My ending is so great that I just can't keep it to myself." NO. JUST DON'T. <SPOILER> In the beginning, when the narrator kept on butting in, it irked me a little, but I got used to it. Then, with all of the dictionary definitions and the spoilers, I was just like . . .
  
• The plot. There was none. I don't think that someone learning how to read while hiding a Jew in their basement is much of a plot. There is only one moment in this book when I was thinking "Yeah! This is awesome!" That was when Liesel punched the kid who was making fun of her in the face. Then, you know what happened for the rest of the book? Nothing.
• The ending. Don't worry, if I tell you, it won't matter because DEATH FREAKING SPELLED IT OUT ON PAGE 24FREAKING1. But, it wasn't much of an ending. Yeah, it was realistic I suppose, but even with Death pretty much telling us what happened, it just came out of nowhere. <SPOILER> A bomb just comes out of nowhere and kills everyone but Liesel. Fantastic. <SPOILER>
  
• The characters. I liked Rudy. He was interesting. The whole Jesse Owens thing gave him a personality, and he was interesting. I liked his character. But the dreaded page 241 . . . ugh. Also, I imagine him like a normal, blonde haired dude, even though Death insisted that he looked like an anime character with lemon hair.

Liesel felt a little flat-ish, but I can appreciate that most of the people around her have died and she doesn't act like a complete Saumensch.
I liked Max. He was really nice and cool and I loved his drawing and I loved how he fought Hitler in his . . . dreams. But his arrival didn't really give the book a plot. On the back of the book, it says that "When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up and closed down." But it was just like "Yay! We're hiding a Jew in our basement! Let's feed him soup for 300 more pages!"
I liked Hans. I liked Rosa, much more than I thought I would, minus her constant swearing. I liked a lot of the characters, minus Hitler, but it didn't give the book a plot or anything.

• I liked all of Max's drawings. Pages 223-236 and pages 279 and 280 and pages 445-450 were by far my favorite pages, and they are the reason that I would rate this book 3 out of 5 stars. Those pages added to the story, especially page 280, which despite looking like it was drawn by a not-particularly-talented sixth grader, felt really powerful and stirred up more emotions inside of me than the sad ending of this tragic book did.
• The reviews of the book. I can completely see why people love this book. I totally understand. But The New York Times called this book "BRILLIANT and hugely ambitious . . . . It's the kind of book that can be LIFE-CHANGING." But you know . . . I don't think it is. This quote was really one of the reasons I was excited to read this book, but I felt nothing. The ending didn't make me cry, I didn't cry at all during this book. It didn't change my life. I just kept looking at the bottom of the page to see how close I was to being done with this book.

All in all, I didn't hate this book and I'm not going to burn it because it was expensive. But I didn't enjoy this book. It was just kind of . . .

Yay! I'm going to read this book!

Yay. I'm reading this book.

Still reading . . .

Still reading . . .

Ugh. It's over.

Yeah. I'm sure that some people will like this book, but . . . not me.