"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right." This was a quote of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, a story narrated by death. It tells the story of one little girl, who's life was changed by one of history's most traumatic events. Liesel Meminger is a foster child living in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. This story contains friendship, grief, and in the end, survival.

On page 518 Liesel pulls out a book she received from her Jewish friend. In one of the pages there is a boy with 3 medals hanging around his neck. Liesel's best friend Rudy Steiner asks "You told him about me?" Liesel responds "Of course I told him about you." To me, this showed a strong friendship between the two main characters.

While reading this story, I felt grief on page 498. "Rudy Steiner slept. Mama and Papa slept. Frau Holtzapfel, Frau Diller, Tommy Muller. All sleeping. All dying." After the bombing of Himmel Street almost everyone met their sorry end with Death. Only one person lived to tell the tale, Liesel Meminger.

"When they pulled her out, it's true that she started to wail and scream... She did not know where she was running, for Himmel Street no longer existed." On page 533, Liesel Meminger was pulled out of her basement to the sorrowful officer's faces. For even when Liesel survived, there were consequences. She lost the most important people in her life.

Markus Zusak showed friendship, grief, and survival very well in The Book Thief. I would recommend this book to anybody, because it had great universal appeal. We can all relate to Liesel's journey through her tragic life story.