So I’ve only read the book, not seen the show yet. I really, really appreciate some aspects of the book. I liked the slowly converging timelines, the prose was obviously gorgeous. Some of the images and scenes will stay with me for a while.
But at the end of the day it felt so….clinical?
One of my fave books is Zusak’s “The Book Thief” and so I was expecting something more akin to that. But for some reason I couldn’t emotionally attach to any of the characters in ATLWCS? I can really jive with an omniscient PoV most of the time, but I felt like the PoV was strangely distant and even in chapters that should have been emotionally poignant, the narrative would go on long asides about random passersby or the spin of quarks or whatever the heck instead of getting deeper into the characters’ heads, into their emotions.
We hear so much about Werner’s memories of Jutta but its always like “he remembered them picking through the trash”, but can remember how he felt then, what he thought of her, then? So much of the book felt like summary and not as close and intimate as I would have hoped as far as PoV goes.
4 instances in the plot in the last 100(ish) pages kind of bothered me:
1) we don’t get to be in Werner’s PoV when he kills van Ruempel. I’m assuming its cuz Doerr wanted there to be the suspense/ambiguity about who made it out alive but it felt anti-climactic and like we missed a crucial bit of Werner’s arc there?
2) Werner’s death felt kind of cheap to me. I don’t necessarily mean that he shouldn’t have died at all, but it felt so sudden, so preventable, so quickly moved on from. Maybe Doerr has a point in doing it like he did, but I felt cheated somehow. I’m not opposed to beloved characters dying, or even dying unfairly, but idk….
In “The Book Thief” it felt like all the characters who died had an appropriate send-off, but here we get a paragraph? Kind of?
3) WTF was up with the r*pe scene of Jutta, Frau Elena and all of the other women by the Russian soldiers toward the end??? Why did we need that???
4) it felt like the rising action/climax lasted about 50pgs, and the resolution lasted equally as long but it really, really didn’t need to. Honestly, I would have been fine if the book would have ended with Marie Laure walking across the bridge with the pillowcase away from Werner and him left holding the key, but after he died I lost all interest, honestly.
I’ve read my share of lit fiction, but its been a while, so maybe its taking me time to readjust to the genre conventions? Idk.
I liked it, but was expecting better, honestly.
Has anyone seen the Netflix show? Is it worth it?
by RovingVagabond