The book thief is about a 12 year old girl named Liesel living in Nazi Germany. Her mom has to give her and her brother over to a foster care family because she is no longer able to take care of them. On the way, to their new house, her brother passes away. At the funeral Liesel notices something on the ground and picks it up. It was the the grave diggers handbook, the last thing Liesel has to remember her old life, and the first of many books that she steals.

The only problem was that, Liesel still didn’t know how to read. Her foster father teaches her, and forms a very close bond with Liesel. After several month’s living with  the Hubermanns, a new guest arrives at their house. His name is Max, and he’s Jewish. The family decides to hide him in their basement.

At first Liesel is distant from max, and only went down their when her foster mother made her go give him something. However one day she asks him about his life and she find out that they have a lot in common. Liesel and Max form a unique and close bond.

The book is really different from any other book I’ve read. It’s told through death’s point of view, but it’s really morbid. It’s written really well, but really differently, and it’s kind of hard to get into at first. However if your able to pull through the not so interesting beginning, the book is really good, and you won’t be able to put it down.

                  Looking for Alaska is about a guy named Miles, who his friends later call Pudge, starting a new life at a private boarding school in southern Alabama. When Pudge was in his old school he was an outcast and spent most of his time doing homework and hanging out with his parents, since he didn’t really have any friends. When Pudge goes to his new school his roommate, nicknamed the Colonel, introduces him to Alaska. Alaska is everything Pudge is not, and he quickly falls in love with her. Pudge compares themselves as “I was a drizzle and she was a hurricane.” Pudge meets two other people, Takumi, and Lara, and with them he becomes a completely different person.

                Just when Pudge is starting to find out more about Alaska then whats on the surface, she gets in a terrible car crash and passes away. The only thing about it though was she drove straight into a tractor trailer, who was parked in the middle of the road next to a cop car with it’s lights on. Pudge, and the Colonel spend the rest of the school year trying to figure out if she really did crash on accident or if she committed suicide. Pudge is also trying to figure out, what happens after we die, and is always looking for a sense of Alaska still being there with  and how do we get out of the Labyrinth of suffering.

             This book really gets you thinking and has a lot of really good quotes. It’s something that everyone should read, because the theme applies to everyone and everyone could learn something from reading this book.

Dolores Claiborne is told through Dolores telling the police about how she never killed Vera. Almost right away however, she admits to have killing her husband. Vera died in Dolores care, which was technically why the police were interviewing her. However we later learn that the real reason everyone thinks that Dolores killed Vera was because they thought that Dolores hated Vera, and although it was never proven most people know that Dolores killed her husband.

Dolores tells the whole story, starting from when she first started working with Vera, as a housekeeper, to the day Vera died. She also includes a lot of information on why she killed her husband. Even though the whole story is just Dolores talking, King keeps it interesting for the most part. The only thing I had to complain about was that it took a while for the stories she was telling to get to the point. When she did get there though, it was definitely worth it.

By the end of the book, you can almost feel like you are Dolores. Stephan King did a really good job at developing her character so that even about half way through the book you know her really well. It was fairly violent, obviously two people get killed, but not so bad. King did a good job at describing the part where Dolores killed her husband, again it took a while to get to that but it so well written and suspenseful it was worth it.