Monday, August 26, 2019

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl

by Anne Frank

https://amzn.to/2YC2nAc


Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘📘📘
Genre - Historical Germany Biographies, Jewish Holocaust History, Jewish Biographies
Format - Paperback
Pages -337

"I don't believe the war is simply the work of politicians and capitalists. Oh no, the common man is every bit as guilty; otherwise. people and nations would have rebelled long ago! There's a destructive urge in people, the urge to rage, murder and kill. And until all of humanity, without exception, undergoes a metamorphosis, wars will continue to be waged, and everything that has been carefully built up, cultivated and drown will be cut down and destroyed, only to start all over." - Anne Frank Wednesday, May 3, 1944

*Amazon Blurb*

In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.

*My Review* 

This book is just amazing. As you read you can actually see the change in Anne. She becomes so mature in such a short amount of time. The fact that a young child was able to not go crazy in the years they spent in hiding is simply shocking to me. No going outside, not knowing day by day if you're going to be captured, if you will have enough food to eat and everything else they had to worry about. I don't know any kids today that would have been able to follow such strict rules for so long.
I posted an excerpt from the book that really hit me. The fact that a child so young and in the year 1944 basically described what is still going on today made me sad.
The worse part of this book for me was the sudden ending. I realize that they believe she died in February or March of 1945, but I feel like her life really ended on August 1, 1944 when she wrote her last diary entry. I would prefer to think of it this way, instead of thinking about the horrible conditions she live in during the period in between.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Letters From The Apocalypse by Blake Pitcher

Letters From The Apocalypse

by Blake Pitcher



Rating (1-5) 📘📘
Genre - Post-Apocalyptic, Science Fiction
Format - Paperback
Pages -157

*Amazon Blurb*

The sun is strange, and the lights in the sky have shut down the world. Technical writer Roger was on a work trip to Texas when it all happened. Trapped between chaos and the rise of a mysterious, fanatical rancher known as the White Texan, Roger seeks to find his way north, and home to his wife. Except it’s even harder than it seems. And he doesn’t even know if she’s alive. Letters from the Apocalypse is the story of two people separated by the end of the world, and the letters that could bring them together again.

*My Review* 
 
I always love getting books from local authors to read, but it's sad when they don't reach my expectation. This was unfortunately one of those.

Possible Spoilers in my Review


The name of the book, Letters From The Apocalypse, had me under the assumption that there would be letters going back and forth. There were 2 letters that were sent. The first one took 5 years to write and the response apparently just minutes.

I don't know why, but this book really aggravated me. Roger is so heartbroken about being away from his wife, but spends years writing pages to a letter instead of working his way back to her. Instead of just walking and hiding from people so he isn't killed, he stays and goes along with the Freedom Republic. Seriously, even walking, it would've took less than 5 years to go from Texas to New York.

Even in the beginning before the Freedom Republic gets ahold of him, he find a deserted house to stay in. I'm sorry, but if something like this happens I would scavenge up all the supplies I could possibly carry and head home.

There is a second book in this series, Return from the Apocalypse, that I'm not sure yet if I will read.

Saturday, August 10, 2019

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

https://amzn.to/31tKalc


Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘
Genre - Dystopian Fiction, Censorship & Politics
Format - Paperback
Pages - 311

*Amazon Blurb*

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.

*My Review* 

This book....ugh. There was so much hype about the book and the shows. I was so excited when I got this book that I didn't even set it IN my TBR pile, but rather on top to be the next book I read. I think that the shows might be better than the book (don't shoot). I can't believe I actually just typed that. It all just seemed like everything was in slow motion. They walked here, they walked there and always moving at the same pace and not looking around. Each class of women wore the same outfits and spoke the same lines......zzzzzz.

Can someone who has read this tell me I am just in a reading funk and it was a really good book??

Not sure if I'll check out the next in the series, The Testaments, but I guess if I want to find out what happens with Offred I will have to.....or I can google spoilers (but what fun would that be?).

Friday, August 9, 2019

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Asylum

by Madeleine Roux



Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘📘
Genre - Teen & Young Adult, Fantasy, Supernatural, Mystery, Thrillers, Horror
Format - Hardcover
Pages - 310

*Amazon Blurb*

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, the New Hampshire College Prep program is the chance of a lifetime. Except that when Dan arrives, he finds that the usual summer housing has been closed, forcing students to stay in the crumbling Brookline Dorm—formerly a psychiatric hospital. As Dan and his new friends Abby and Jordan start exploring Brookline's twisty halls and hidden basement, they uncover disturbing secrets about what really went on here . . . secrets that link Dan and his friends to the asylum's dark past. Because Brookline was no ordinary mental hospital, and there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

*My Review* 

I think this was a good horror book for young adults. I did enjoy the book, right up until the end. The fact that an old asylum was turned into a college was a great story-line itself. It screams haunted. I mean what teenager wouldn't want to go and stay at an old asylum?
The story flows nicely with the kids meeting up and the trouble they get into. To me it just seemed that with all the secrets hidden beneath the dorms it should have led to more. I was really expecting more "excitement".
The ending seemed a bit rushed too. Maybe it has to do with the fact that this is the first in the series of 3. Overall a good book and I might look into the rest of the series.

https://amzn.to/2YRFqEr

Thursday, August 8, 2019

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird

by Harper Lee



Rating (1-5) 📘📘
Genre - Classic Literature, Fiction
Format - Audio-book

*Amazon Blurb*

One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

*My Review* 

I borrowed this Audio-book 3 times. I don't know why it was so hard for me to listen to, other than the fact that I couldn't do it with my 5 year old around because of the language.

I thought the book was going to have a lot about the trial of someone wrongly accused, but instead it just seemed to have a lot about the kids doing and saying whatever they want. I really feel as if I missed something with this and maybe I would do better with re-reading a printed copy in the future.