Finished this book quite some time ago, had me (shamelessly) crying buckets of tears nearing the end.

Personally I find the story to be quite compelling, it's youthful, it's warm, it's enlightening all wrapped in one (if insufferably long) book. Like what being mentioned above, the other (and generally more notable) written literature of the period (World War) is Anne Frank's Diary. However I feel The Book Thief is a bit more personal and a bit more dramatic (then again it's fiction, what would you expect?). I like how the author employs Death as the narrator but then again that has been criticized for being dramatic for the sake of dramatic.

I guess The Book Thief has fallen into that category of great books (or if you prefer, classics) which has two general followings, one of which who love it to pieces and the other who would love to see it in pieces. Personally, for this one, I belong with the former.