The Book Thief floated around my mental, then digital, book lists for years. In elementary school, librarians recommended it. Once I even checked it out from my public library but never read it. So I put it off for years and years until one day I was at Barnes & Noble and picked it up again. The movie had come out months earlier, but I hadn’t seen it.

I had certain expectations for this book – the kind of unconscious assumptions that build up before you read a book. In some cases, the book falls short. Not this one. I expected sad. I expected interesting, and a good story. The Book Thief didn’t fail me there, but surpassed my highest expectations. I didn’t expect the tragic, thought-provoking musings – or actual happiness in a World War II book – but this is a complete and beautiful story.

Markus Zusak’s writing may be the best I ever encounter. His frequent yet lasting imagery and thorough character-building gives his words the power that Liesel Meminger sought so desperately. The Book Thief follows four years in Liesel’s life during which she lives with foster parents Rosa and Hans Hubermann. She runs the streets with Rudy, the boy with lemon-colored hair, and Hans teaches her to read. They harbor a German Jewish man who shares Liesel’s love of words. All the while, Death narrates their tumultuous and fragile lives in World War II Germany.

Zusak perfectly balances action with inaction. There are spurts of fear, loss, and adventure, but nevertheless, the everyday moments are frequent. These are sweet, touching, and sometimes funny.

Each moment in this book demands to be appreciated and felt – and strongly so. Maybe it’s due to the setting, Death’s narration, or the fact that Liesel’s story begins with loss. Maybe it’s all of those. It’s life, isn’t it? We know our end might be coming any day, but we continue living anyway. We keep laughing and crying and making friends. Death himself reminds the reader of this often. It is easy, especially during a war, to blame Death for taking Liesel’s brother in the first chapter. But if this book tells us anything, it is that Death is not evil – humans are. They are also heroes.