I think a friend who just moved away gave me this book. It's gotten jumbled with other Bookcrossers books now, so I'm not sure.

The Book Thief was amazing. The story is told from the perspective of death incarnate. Although it is set in WWII Nazi Germany, and I wept, the use of foreshadowing and the way that Death is sometimes emotionally involved and sometimes observes events at a remove, helped soften the blow to the heart. It's the story of a girl Liesel who is brought to live with foster parents in a distant town, how she learns to read and to love books, how she makes friends, how her family is affected by, and responds, to the developing war around it... It is heart-wrenching, but demonstrates the beauty of love along with the ugliness of hatred and inattention.