The Book Thief/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: The reunion of Max and Liesel. Both of them burst into tears and hug each other.
    • Not-leaving: An act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.
    • Liesel finally reconciling with Ilsa Hermann.
    • It's revealed the mayor and his wife survived the bombing. When she finds out the bombs orphaned Liesel, she comes as fast as she can and offers to adopt her. Liesel accepts.
    • Death reassures the reader that Liesel had a happy life, despite the pain she suffered. When he reaps her soul, she's a grandmother living in New York. She can't believe that he has her book, and read it all.
  • Iron Woobie: A vast majority of the cast. World War Two does that to people. Though a notable example is Death, who has the most miserable job on Earth and still cares about humans.

You see?
Even death has a heart.

  • Tear Jerker: Considering what the book's about, are you really surprised?
    • Among others, there's Michael Holtzapfel's suicide, Rudy giving the teddy to that pilot, Death's way of describing Rudy when the bombs fall, and way, way more.
    • She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips.
    • The Standover Man is somewhere between this and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming. A Jewish man writing about his friendship with a German girl on painted-over pages of Mein Kampf? Yeah. That's sad.
    • The death of Hans and Rosa and how Death remembers them.
    • This Troper has read the book several times over and STILL sobs like a child every time the last bit comes up.
    • This little line near the very end of the book:

Papa was a man with silver eyes, not dead ones.

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