I got into the characters right away. The story is good and the writing is good but there were scenes that could've been left out, like some scenes with Rudy and Liesel that went nowhere. In the beginning, the book establishes that they're friends. Good. I, the reader, cared about them. But their relationship didn't change at all; why do we need the umpteenth scene just to show that their relationship is still the same. I was wishing the last third of the book would go faster because I was anxious to know what was going to happen. And I don't want to be petty but I didn't like the last sentence. I guess you could say I wasn't crazy about the Death-as-narrater thing, I felt it drew me out of the story sometimes. But the writing had a good flow. (I wonder if I hadn't just read two marvelous books about WWII just before this one, would I have rated this one higher?)