Is there anyone else on here who didn't love The Book Thief?

[TunipTheVegedude]

I was told to persevere with it and I'm now 63% through and it's annoying me more than ever.
I'm finding it pretentious and dull and while some of the characters are fine, the girl is totally unconvincing - she reads like someone has sat down and decided on some interesting characteristics to give her ('I know! I'll make her good at fighting and football!') rather than the character growing naturally.
Is it going to get better in the last 37%?

Read Unwound for YA

dear lord it's creepy

One of those dystopian ones where if you don't like your teenage you can have em "unwound"

A good plan

teenageR

another one for the list

Just bought Uglies.

Hully do you mean this one?

Clearly anything set in the future is now going to refer to Hunger Games on the cover.

Oh God, I don't think I can quite cope with reading that, Hully.

Well I really didn't like The Book Thief. Tried four times to get into it and it was still too tight so gave up in the end.

I just couldn't get with the girls character. It's not like me to give up on a book but I was getting annoyed every time I picked it up!

Yes that one.

My dc's copy has no ref to Hunger Games.

Of it's type, it's one of the better.

It was an odd summer, there were loads of them and the dc kept making me read them to share the horror.

Oh yes we had Uglies too, but I had had enough by then.

What's that awful one where a mobile phone is thrown off a tower block and gets embedded in a kid's head and there's terrible rape and violence and all sorts? He's written lots and people rave, dear lord I say again.

I did like How I Live Now a bit more

I ask you.

iBoy by Kevin Brooks, ds tells me

just don't go there

Ugh - I didn't like How I Live Now much BUT it is far, far better than the other crap she's written - that Justin one and that boy who's a girl living in a tepee or whatever it is one were DREADFUL.

There was a whole rash of books about girls being forced to get pregnant in the future. They got very tedious.

And not stolen from Margaret Atwood at all, no?! :)

tsk

As if.

Some books that don't say they are YA but crossover anyway are better. Like Curious Incident

Curious Incident is very good.

That's one I never got round to reading. Cote, what did you think of The Silver Linings Playbook?

I didn't read or watch it. Romantic comedies aren't really my thing.

The film gave it a more rom-com emphasis. The book was far more focussed on his development.

I liked the Justin one and the girl in the shack by the sea. I couldn't finish the god-is-a-teenage-boy one.

Kevin Brooks is too dark and violent for me .

Mal Peet is good, even the football ones.

The Cuba one is very good - is that Mal Peet?

I was joking about the royalty! [Reminds self to use smiley emoticons in future.]

I know the thread has moved on a bit but my real objection to The Book Thief was the attempt to be thought of as being a Serious and Important book because it was about a Serious and Important subject. And it doesn't work like that, in my view. (I feel the same way about the film of Schindler's list.)

Hackmum, do you know Joan Smith's essay in Misogynies about Sophie's Choice? She makes the same point.

You are all far too clever for me.

Interesting what Sauce said up thread, that 2 years of no sleep had addled her brain.

I think lack of sleep and too much wine have prevented me from having an intelligent debate about why I like or dislike a book.

But glad to hear I am not alone in not getting past the first chapter of The Book Thief.