This book was read by my book group for September. For being about a young woman surviving a Japanese death march during WWII, it is actually quite light hearted and non-depressing (is that even a word?). The story is told with grace and fortitude and even includes a bit of romance as an Australian soldier risks his life to help her during her ordeal. If the book would have ended with her return to the village where she spent her captivity and the resulting search for the soldier, it would have been a good thing. The story after that lost focus and drug on a bit. But I learned a lot and found it enjoyable. The story was oddly written from the perspective of her elderly lawyer which made the honeymoon scenes oddly disturbing.
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Favorite quote: “#$%* you,' Samuel said as he stole the ball, drove down the court, and went in for a two-handed, rattle-the-foundations, ratify-a-treaty, abolish-income-tax, close-the-uranium-mines monster dunk.”
I read this book as it was by the same author that wrote "The Lone Ranger and Tonto fistfight in Heaven" (which I would love to pick for my book group choice as it has been my favorite book I read so far this year but I can't in good conscience choose it as it has too many bad words). While the writer's stories are full of Native Americans suffering poverty, alcoholism, and the weight of a tragic history, the stories are so much more than that. They resonate with honesty. They are poetic. They speak of friendship, family, and loyalty.
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The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel by Sarah
Addison Allen / YA / *1/2
Juvenile. Groan inducing. Shallow. And the most alarming thing? This book has a four and a 1/2 out of five star rating on Amazon.com.
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Juvenile. Groan inducing. Shallow. And the most alarming thing? This book has a four and a 1/2 out of five star rating on Amazon.com.
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Favorite quote: “Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. It's like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you'll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud.”
You know I love dystopian literature. In this story, a weaponized virus has reduced the population of the world by 99% with the surviving 1% having an unexplained immunity. New babies do not survive, so the youngest child is now 14 years old. The survivors lives in protected barricades scattered across the globe. The story tells the tale of a group of teens trying to solve the problem of the zero birth rate and thus save the future of the human race. They soon discover there is more to the story than the virus. It is humorous, suspenseful, a bit predictable, but still an enjoyable read. And it's actually DYSTOPIAN instead of pretending to be. I love this haunting paragraph....
“When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death-- not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The earth was flat and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching in the distance. the last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing.” 5)
My friend Ker-Bear would love this book solely for all the Beatle references. The main character is even named Penny Lane. She has sworn off boys and dating during High School in response to the poor treatment received by herself and her friends. Soon other jilted friends join her in the "Lonely Hearts Club". The story is a bit cheesy and obvious but did emphasize the importance of having friends that accept you as who you are. And of course it had the fun twist of Penny falling for a pretty awesome guy and facing the possible consequence of getting kicked out of her own club....
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I devoured this book in one sitting and thought it was amazing and puzzling all at the same time. I loved the main character, Oskar. He obviously is not a normal nine year old.... he was brilliant beyond his years that made you forget he was inside just a little boy that was grieving his father. I loved the story line as he searched for the lock the key would fit. If the book would have just beein about him, I would have liked it much more. I did not enjoy the added story of his paternal grandparents. I suppose it had deep hidden meaning into Oskar's story as they too survived a tragedy but instead I found it distracting and a little strange. I need to watch the movie for this one now.
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From goodreads:
Guided by a tattered map, accompanied by Thomas the Pig Boy, and inspired by the storyteller’s blood that thrums through her veins, eleven-year-old Trinket searches for the seven stories she needs to become a bard like her father, who disappeared years before. She befriends a fortune-telling gypsy girl; returns a child stolen by the selkies to his true mother; confronts a banshee and receives a message from a ghost; helps a village girl outwit—and out-dance—the Faerie Queen; travels beyond the grave to battle a dastardly undead Highwayman; and meets a hound so loyal he fights a wolf to the death to protect the baby prince left in his charge. All fine material for six tales, but it is the seventh tale, in which Trinket learns her father’s true fate, that changes her life forever.
Sounds better than it was. It was cute and all, but not great. I don't think I could get over the fact that she was only 11. It she would have been older it would have made more sense. I loved Thomas the Pig Boy though.
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I know... I know.
But despite some of it's cringe-inducing lines, I still love Edward.
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and
These two books continue the story of Tally Youngblood from the book "Uglies". She has had her surgery. She is perfect. She is popular. She is having fun living a hedonistic life style of parties and pleasure that can only be described as "bubbly-making". But then she receives a message from her past that reminds her that her perfect life is not exactly perfect. She must fight through the induced fuzziness to fight conformity and escape from those that would keep her controlled. The authorities use her against her will but she fights to keep that inner spark that desires free agency.
A great series. As I said, the first book is the best but the whole story arc is worth experiencing.
I also read the next book that is related to the trilogy:
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This book has a few of the same characters but starts a new story line. The fascinating part of this story is that in the new world that has resulted from Tally's rebellion, popularity is determined by the number of "hits" on the person's name on the internet-like "City link". This book was written about the same time Facebook was launched and years before the "like" button was added. Sounds like the author had some pre-cognition to todays world.
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This book is the fictionalized history of the silent film star Louise Brooks. The majority of the book takes place when Louise is 15 and is given the opportunity to leave her small town mid-western life to receive dance training in New York. It also tells the story of her chaperone, who is using the trip to find the mother who abandoned her as a child. The story movies along through the summer for about three fourths of the book and then drags on for another 150 pages that cover the next 40 years.
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From Amazon reviews:
The authors mother has schizophrenia that full ydeveloped in her twenties after she'd married and had two young daughers. Her life and the
lives of her two young daughters became a downward spiral of hospitalizations
and medications and homelessness.
Bartok begins the story at the end, when Bartok reconnects with her mother in her mother's last days. In the process, Bartok discovers that her mother has kept a storage room for all these years, a room filled with the miscellany of their lives. It is by sifting through items from the storage room, her "memory palace", that Bartok tells the story of her mother's life and her own life.
Bartok begins the story at the end, when Bartok reconnects with her mother in her mother's last days. In the process, Bartok discovers that her mother has kept a storage room for all these years, a room filled with the miscellany of their lives. It is by sifting through items from the storage room, her "memory palace", that Bartok tells the story of her mother's life and her own life.
I though this book was reminiscent of Jeannette Walls, "The Glass Castle" but was not as heart wrenching, captivating, or intriguing. I would recommend "The Glass Castle" instead.
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Fascinating book written from two points of view. It tells the story of a biologist working on the Channel Islands off of the California coast who is working to restore the islands habitat to their original condition. This involves the killing of invasive species such as hogs, rats, and snakes. A group of radical environmentalists are fighting the inhumane killing of the animals by the government. Each chapter is from a different point of view and advances the story line while persuading the reader to the "rightness" of their viewpoint. It was fascinating. This book is being reviewed as part of the Richfied City adult reading program taking place this spring.
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I love John Grisham and have read all of his books and own most of them. I love his wit, his way of bringing characters to life, and his irreverent view of lawyers. While his most recent books lack the heart pounding suspense of his earlier works, they are still each satisfying in their own way. This book also does not disappoint and I would say is a lot better than some of the others released in recent years. One of my all time favorite books EVER by any author is Grisham's "The Runaway Jury".
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From Amazon:
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey
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Hated it. Crude and shallow. A true disappointment.
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One of the best books I've read this year. Really enjoyed this one.
It tells the story of two teen cancer survivors which is a reason to avoid the book all together. But the story is believable, raw, and a little irreverent while still reminding us to live every day. A great book.
For a list of all my 2012 books, click on the link below
http://bookwormfamily.blogspot.com/2012/01/sonja-2012.html
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