Catching up on book reviews

Hey friends. It's been approximately one million years and 5 books since I've updated you all on what I've read. Some of that was unintentional (finished a couple at once and just forgot to update the blog) and some of it, I'll confess, was intentional ("eh...I'll wait till I have more and just do a big post"). At any rate, I'm back. Here's some very brief thoughts about what I've been reading.

taken from Goodreads.com

I really loved Gayle Forman's original two-part story, If I Stay and Where She Went. Like, really really loved them. So I always kind of had this two-part story, Just One Day and Just One Year, at the back of my mind. Here's the short version of my opinions about this first book: I hated the first 30%, enjoyed the next 50ish%, and then grumbled and rolled my eyes dramatically throughout the last 20%. My sister was visiting me for a long weekend while I read it and I would update her on all the obnoxious, teenagery things that I was reading. She left to go back home before I finished and I called her and left a ten minute voicemail telling her the end in great detail. Her response? "As soon as I heard how it ended I thought 'Oh crap, now she has to read the second one.'" YUP. Gayle, darn you and your cliffhangers. So, yeah. It was fine. Whatever. But I have to read the second one now.

taken from Goodreads.com

I have listened to Shauna on the Relevant podcast for years but really hadn't read much of her stuff until recently. I read Cold Tangerines last year and now I've finished Bittersweet...Bread & Wine will be read soon and JT and I are working our way through Savor together. I've already preordered her new book, Present over Perfect, though, and cannot wait. That being said: I really really love her books and love the depth at which she writes and the things that she's willing to explore and wrestle with...but I also have found that in both this one and Cold Tangerines, there's always a moment about 75% through where I just kind of get bored. Maybe I feel like she's already reached that point where she's said what she needs to say and she's just kind of repeating herself. Regardless of that, I really did love this book. A lot of the subject matter really hit close to home; she spends much of the book describing the pain and emotional journey she and her husband went on in the wake of a miscarriage. I obviously cried a lot of tears over this book as I was forced to remember our own similar journey and recovery. She covers some really hard subject matter with a whole lot of beauty, grace, and encouragement.

taken from Goodreads.com

So you remember Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events from back in the day? There were 13 books that were made into a movie and is now being made into a Netflix television show? Well my brother and I LOVED that series - and read a lot of them together, taking turns reading aloud - and we now officially love this series. It's a prequel to the Series of Unfortunate Events, explaining Lemony's childhood and how he ends up in a position where he's writing about the Baudelaire family. I'd actually already read this one about 4 years ago when it came out, but then time and life got away from me and I'd never read the rest. They're all out now - there are only 4 in this series, which is much easier to handle than 13 - and they're ridiculously easy and quick reads. Also, they're HILARIOUS. So so so funny. I highly recommend them.

taken from Goodreads.com

I read this one because it felt like everyone was reading it, and everyone was loving it. I'm not sure how much I really loved it, to be honest. I liked it a lot, and I fully appreciated the master storytelling and the beautiful writing. Beautiful. But I also didn't miss it when I wasn't reading. I wanted to finish it, but I didn't have this burning desire to see it through. I just kind of liked it, that's all. That being said, it is a really and truly beautiful story with complex and beautiful characters and a fresh perspective on a time in history that is so thoroughly covered in so many ways.

taken from Goodreads.com

Guys, I LOVED this book. I have now read all of Rainbow's work (not counting her brand new book that I have no interest in), and every one of her books I've liked so much more than the last. I kind of liked parts of Fangirl, I liked Eleanor & Park a lot, I loved Landline, and I LOVED Attachments. Very quirky and realistic characters living in a pre-Y2K world where the rules of the internet are fuzzy at best? So. Good. I laughed (a whole lot, sometimes out loud), and I cried. And I super duper loved these characters. Rainbow's gift is dialogue, which I appreciate because I feel like I suck at it. Read this one. All the gold stars and thumbs up.

Diary of a Young Girl: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

Since high school, I've tried to read this book three separate times and haven't gotten very far any of those times. I don't know what it was about it, but I just couldn't ever get into it. The fact that this is a worldwide classic and a staple of most middle and/or high school reading lists didn't make me feel too great about never reading it, and I always had it on that list in the back of my head that I would get to one day. Once again: audiobooks save the day. I enjoyed this book a lot; it's amusing to me because Anne is SUCH a teenage girl, but she also has moments of incredibly wise insights. The way she sees and comments on the world is pretty incredible, and definitely worth a place on the shelves of the Classics. I did find myself thinking, though, on several occasions, that all the rest of it (the parental drama, the boy drama, the incredibly detailed personal/sexual descriptions) seemed a little unnecessary and long winded - and maybe even inappropriate? - for a book to teach in a classroom. As a stand-alone book and memoir, though, I definitely enjoyed it.

Rapidfire book reviews

As promised, here are the single paragraph book reviews of the last several books I've read, since they haven't made it onto the blog yet. Moving forward, I may stick to this style for time's sake.

taken from Goodreads.com

I grew up hearing about this book, Created to be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl, from my mother and many of her friends who studied it and adopted it as their lifestyle. Now that I've read it myself, I can say with confidence that I agree wholeheartedly with about 95% of this incredibly conservative and biblical description of God's design for wives. My only wish - apart from the minor details I disagree with her on - that she had written the book with a little less harshness and a little more grace.

taken from Goodreads.com

This one, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, had been on my list for years, and I finally listened to it on audiobook. This YA book about a middle school boy with severe birth defects and facial deformities is heartbreaking, hilarious, and deeply heartwarming. I loved the way the author explores both the very worst and the very best about the middle school-aged population. I definitely recommend it and I am excited to read the companion books.

taken from Goodreads.com

To Kill a Mockingbird was a reread, half in honor of the release of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman and half because I claim it's one of my favorite books and yet I have never reread it. (I never ever reread books anymore, always in the pursuit of the ever growing "list." That's something I'm determined to change in the future.) This particular reread was well worth it: I still love it and it's still wonderful. And I am equal parts giddy and terrified of the sequel.

taken from Goodreads.com

Elie Wiesel's Night is one of the books that I am shocked I'd never read until now. I hadn't realized before listening to the audiobook that this book is actually the author's story of imprisonment in various concentration camps during the Holocaust. The tale is horrifying, heartbreaking, sickening, and shocking; there are so many stories about the Holocaust that it's almost easy to become hardened to it, in one ear and out the other. But some of the specific details of this story were too disgusting and horrifying to grasp, and when I tried to tell JT about them later on the words literally wouldn't come out of my mouth because I knew I'd start crying. This is both a terrible and special book, and if you haven't read it I do recommend it.

taken from Goodreads.com

I read Jeannette Walls' first book The Glass Castle, which is her own personal memoir, when I was in college. It made a huge impression on me and whenever I've seen her other two books for sale or on friends' shelves I have made a note to read them someday. Someday came in the form of an audiobook for Half Broke Horses, which is the hilarious and thought-provoking story of her grandmother's life. This story becomes especially interesting when Walls' grandmother's daughter Rosemary is born, and you learn of so many of the reasons and life events that turn her into the future mother and wife that raises Walls. (Super confusing sentence...I couldn't figure out how to make it more clear so just reread it a couple times till you see what I mean.) This overlapping of the two books and three generations makes me really want to reread The Glass Castle.


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So there you have it. You're caught up on the reading I've been doing since the blog went quiet. I'm up to 33 books this year, which is already one more than last year's 32, and I'm pretty stoked about that.

Unbroken: a brief review

taken from goodreads.com

I first heard of this book back when it was written in 2010. WORLD magazine did a story about it and I remember sitting in awe as I ate my breakfast and read a summary of Louis Zamperini's life. I vowed to read the book as soon as possible, but trying to graduate from college turned into trying to graduate from grad school which turned into trying to survive my first year as a teacher (which I only just barely did). I started reading it this summer, but 20 pages into it my husband wrecked his motorcycle on the interstate and I spent some time taking care of him and - needless to say - not reading. Then my daughter was born. THEN, a friend recommended audiobooks and even though at first I thought it wouldn't make sense for me, Serial helped me realize that it makes a ton of sense for me and here we are. I have read Unbroken, at last.

If I thought Louis' story was powerful based on the WORLD article, reading the book was incredible. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but for a single person to experience even one of the horrifying things Louis experienced in the first 30 years of his life would be amazing. For one single man to have gone through everything that he went through is...incredible. That's the only word I can use to really describe this book and this man: incredible. Olympic medalist, plane crash survivor, stranded at sea, rescued by the Japanese, tortured in several different POW camps and eventually rescued, Louis experienced hardships that I literally can't even imagine. I feel extremely inconvenienced by having to wipe my dogs' feet before letting them inside when it's muddy. Louis was tortured in truly incomprehensible ways for years. It is incredibly powerful - and incredibly convicting - to read about such a life. I absolutely don't want to ruin anything about this story, but I must say that the darkness that fills so much of this book is completely eliminated by the incredible light that is the last few chapters. Those last few chapters, friends, are worth the entire horrible story that precedes them. Our God is one of such compassion, such love, and such amazing grace.

I think I need to say, though, that Louis' story is not necessarily the book itself. What I mean is that Louis' life is utterly incredible, and therefore reading this book was utterly incredible, but there were times that I felt the book was a little long winded or a little too detailed. There is a lot of subject matter in Louis' life that I just know nothing about and have a hard time reading about (planes, flying planes, the parts of planes...), and those parts were a little boring for me. I will say, though, that I think Hillenbrand did a great job documenting his life, and I do love how she incorporated so much historical and personal context throughout the book even though it did add to the length quite a bit. I do think that because of all of these things (the parts that weren't really my favorite, the length of the book), it was a perfect choice for audiobook. I think it would have taken me approximately the entire calendar year to get this book read if I hadn't listened to it, and instead it took me a week. So I will be hunting down and finding every audiobook on my list, and I'm super stoked about it.

Speaking of which, here's my progress on my 2015 reading list:

-Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
-Monster, by Walter Dean Myers
-Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
-The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion
-Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell
-Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling
-Yes Please, Amy Poehler
-A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
-This is Where I Leave You, by Jonathon Tropper
-Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
-Serena, by Ron Rash
-finish the Harry Potter series

And I'm like 20% through The Rosie Project. And it's not even February yet. I consider this incredible progress.

Code Name Verity: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

This book came to me through my book club this past month. I did a horrible job of planning out my time - still getting the hang of reading books under a schedule for a designated meeting - and had an unexpected trip to my parents' house that got in the way of me even going to book club anyway, but I pressed ahead and finally finished it yesterday. I have to be completely honest: I'd never heard of this book before it was "assigned" and I had a little bit of a bad attitude about reading it (I'm planning a post that will delve into this bad attitude in a lot more detail). I have lots of conflicting thoughts about it now that I'm done, and I think that even as I type I'm still sorting through all those thoughts. So this should be good.

Elizabeth Wein's historical fiction novel Code Name Verity is the story of two young girls fighting for the Allies in pre-Normandy WWII. One is a spy and the other is a pilot, and their time together in training and fighting has made them best friends. When a simple flight turns into a near death experience that separates them, both girls are left to fend for themselves in the middle of occupied France. (I realize that's a really vague description, but that's intentional because it's hard to say much more without giving important surprises and details away. And the best parts of this book are the surprising details.)

Here are my really conflicting thoughts: I didn't understand the entire first half of the book. I genuinely didn't. The reader is thrown right into the middle of the plot with no information or context, which sometimes works really well and sometimes is just really confusing. This time, I personally felt really confused. I was confused by what was happening in the plot as well as what I was the actual content was: I can watch war movies all day long but I just cannot read about it. It all goes way over my head and I have no way of picturing what's happening or understanding the details. BUT, the second half was really great. And the farther you get into the book, the more everything starts to make sense. Even that super confusing first half. By the end of the 480-something pages, the light bulbs are all on and you realize how freaking brilliant the book is as a whole...but I still couldn't help but be frustrated by the fact that it took me that long and that many pages to get to that point. Because really, the book as a whole is freaking brilliant. And wonderful. And beautiful. But I have a hard time recommending it because of how long it took me to see the brilliant, wonderful beauty.

So here are my summed up thoughts: this is a beautiful book about friendship, loyalty, maintaining incredible decisions under stress, and some spunky 1940s era European girls. It's also a book you're going to have to be - if you're a reader like me, anyway - really patient with, and see through to the end. 480-something pages is a whole lot to feel like you need to be patient with, but I do think it's worth it. Because, like I said, it's freaking brilliant.

The Book Thief: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

Have you ever finished a book and needed some time to sit quietly and digest? Like...don't talk to me or ask anything of me for a while, because I am filled with both love and the deepest of sorrows and I'm not sure how to proceed. That was me last night. I truly loved this book, everything about it, but I'm finding it a little hard to put into words why. Not because it isn't obvious, but because it's so special I just want to hold it close to me and cherish it. That might sound odd - and it very well might be - but all I've done since finishing it is sleep and eat breakfast so I'm still in an emotional state.

Markus Zusak's The Book Thief has been well-known and well-loved since it's creation, but it's become wildly popular since Hollywood turned it into a movie. In fact, that's when it got bumped from my "I really want to read that list" to my "I now have a deadline to read it before I see the movie list." I loved it from the first page; as someone who is attempting to write a novel of her own, I can't even put into words my level of respect for Zusak and his incredible ability to describe, explain, and paint his characters into existence. One of my favorite examples of his characterization comes from the beginning of the book:

She was good at being furious. In fact, you could say that Rosa Hubermann had a face decorated with constant fury. That was how the creases were made in the cardboard texture of her complexion. (page 32 on Kindle)

As far as an actual plot description, here's my attempt: Liesel Meminger's mother is forced to place both Liesel and her brother in a foster home in pre-WWII Germany, but on the journey to their new town Liesel's brother dies. When she arrives at the Hubermann's home, Liesel is young, alone, and terrified. Her initial observations of her ill-tempered foster mother and grumpy foster father, though, quickly become brushed aside as she realizes the depth of their love for her. Whether it's sitting with her all night after a nightmare or expressing affection through vulgar nicknames, Liesel quickly finds her home with the Hubermanns on Himmel Street. As time progresses and the war begins, she finds love in other places as well, like the next-door neighbor boy Rudy who is intent on kissing her, and the stranger Max who has moved into the basement. Through it all, Liesel finds solace and excitement in the books she steals and the way they bring all of the people in her life together.

I can't even describe the happiness and the heartbreak that this book brings. You will absolutely adore the characters; you will absolutely adore this book. Zusak took an interesting approach when writing this book by using Death as the narrator. It sounds a little odd, and it does take a little bit of time to get used to, but it's also a completely appropriate choice given the content. I'll end with one of my favorite - and most haunting - paragraphs in the book, as told by Death himself.

Summer came. 
For the book thief, everything was going nicely. 
For me, the sky was the color of Jews.
When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched at the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came toward me, into my arms, and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth. They just keep feeding me. Minute after minute. Shower after shower. (page 349 on Kindle)

Read this book, if you haven't already. 

And for added excitement/incentive, here's the extended trailer for the movie (which comes out on DVD today, actually).

Number the Stars: a brief review

When I looked at my bookshelves a couple months ago and realized how many books I hadn't read yet, this was one of the ones that embarrassed me. I'd heard people talking about it for years, including colleagues who mentioned it casually in conversations about Holocaust fiction as if everyone had read it. I knew I should have been included in that "everyone," and rather than admit how I'd managed to overlook it all this time I just nodded my head in agreement and reminded myself once again that I really should read this soon. Well the day has finally come (and it literally only took a day to read because it's a short 130ish pages, yet another reason why there's no excuse for not having read it long ago).

Lois Lowry's depiction of the Holocaust in Number the Stars is a little different than most that I've read. Ten-year-old Annemarie lives with her parents and little sister in Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II; soldiers with guns on every street corner are a reality she and her family are used to. When Jews in their neighborhood start to disappear, though, fear rises. Annemarie's family isn't Jewish, but their best friends and across-the-hall neighbors are. When an opportunity to help them escape to safety presents itself, Annemarie and her parents must weigh some dangerous risks for the sake of friendship and human decency.

There are a couple reasons why I think this book is different than most I've read on the topic, and I'll try to explain them without giving too much of the plot away. First of all, the protagonist is not Jewish. I know that there are several other examples of this approach (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, for one) but I feel like most literature comes from the perspective of the oppressed (Diary of Anne Frank, Chains, The Color Purple, etc.). I think the biggest reason I find Number the Stars to be distinctive, though, is because of how little Annemarie understands throughout the entirety of the plot. It's not a naive and frustrating lack of understanding, though, like I expressed in my review of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas; Annemarie trusts her parents and her uncle and bravely follows their instructions even when she doesn't fully get the big picture or most of the details. She acts courageously and helps them all relocate many Jews to safety without ever being told any actual facts or insights into what the plan is, and she doesn't complain like I imagine most 10-year-olds would in such a situation. She is extremely observant and picks up on clues along the way, but doesn't press for more information.

I'm mostly just in love with Annemarie and her family. They don't seem to ever question their role in this dangerous fight against the Nazis, they just act. Quickly, bravely, and wholeheartedly, they dive in and completely surrender themselves to what they know they need to do. It makes me wonder whether I live my life in that way, or if I would if I felt like such an opportunity was presenting itself. True, we don't live in a Nazi-occupied country that's been stripped of all rights and basic necessities, and we also aren't watching neighbors be inexplicably ripped from their homes in the middle of the night...but am I missing out on opportunities to quickly, bravely, and wholeheartedly throw myself into something that would change the lives of the people around me? It's worth seriously considering, I think.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: a brief review

It's with somewhat mixed emotions that I write this post. I literally just finished the last page of the book, and even though I'd seen the movie and knew how it was going to end, I'm obviously still deeply saddened. Saddened that such a time in human history ever occurred, and saddened that it is still happening now.

John Boyne's novel/fable The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is the story of nine-year-old Bruno, whose father is the Commandant in charge of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. Bruno doesn't know what goes on in the little town on the other side of the big fence, and he stares in curiosity at all the little people who wear matching striped pajamas every day. When he finally decides to get out of the house and go exploring one day, he finds another nine-year-old boy to be friends with...but this boy is on the other side of the mysterious fence. Thus begins an odd and secret friendship that lasts over a year as the boys continue to meet and talk while sitting at the fence line.

I said I had mixed emotions about this book. The topic is one we're all too familiar with as 21st century Americans, but it's told here from a slightly different perspective than we're used to and that adds a unique new effect. As if the topic itself isn't enough, the book's conclusion is just absolutely heartbreaking. But my confused emotions come from a state of frustration: the gaps in logic are quite large at times. Bruno would not have been nearly as clueless as he was in real life WWII-era Germany; the nine-year-old son of a Nazi Commandant would have definitely been involved with Hitler Youth and would have had Nazi propaganda instilled in him continuously. It also makes no sense that Bruno would be confused by the word "Auschwitz," replacing it with the phrase "Out-With"...he is a German-speaking child after all and the words "out" and "with" are English. The idea of a spot in the fence around Auschwitz having a hole big enough for an adolescent boy to fit under that is also never ever guarded or patrolled at any point over the course of an entire year is probably ridiculous. A house positioned directly next door to a concentration camp in which large amounts of humans were burned alive routinely would smell so strongly that no one in Bruno's family would have been able to stand it (or be confused at all about the purpose of the camp). Your typical nine-year-old child wouldn't be half as stupid as Bruno, either; he is probably the most annoyingly dense character I've read in a long time. But all of that aside, let's keep this in perspective. This is a work of fiction. A work of fiction that doesn't claim to be anything other than fiction. It's based on real events and a real place, yes. But it's fiction. And with fiction sometimes comes moments in which we need to suspend disbelief deeply rooted in hindsight and adult wisdom. Would I use this book as a lone tool to teach the Holocaust to a child? Nope. But I probably wouldn't mind using it as one of many tools, because it offers a unique voice not provided by most other books (it's also one heck of an opportunity for teaching inference and drawing conclusions).

In his author's note at the end of the book, John Boyne explains his choices:

"Throughout the writing and rewriting of the novel, I believed that the only respectful way for me to deal with this subject was through the eyes of a rather naive child who couldn't possibly understand the terrible things that were taking place around him. After all, only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all."

Honestly, I get it. Bruno is stupid and you want to strangle him to death throughout a lot of the book (either because he just will. not. get. it, or because he often whines about how bad he has it while watching his friend literally starve to death in front of him), but if Bruno wasn't quite so stupid the story wouldn't work. And honestly...are there areas in our personal interactions and/or areas in this world that we are as stupid as Bruno about? Are we the people whining about how our new house only has three floors when our old house had five while a dear friend sits across the table from us going through something that is literally killing them? Is it possible that we, as mature and intelligent adults, could be missing something right next door to us that's just as huge and heartbreaking? I hope not, but maybe Bruno can get us thinking anyway.