The Secret of Ella and Micha (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen

If you are familiar with the Kindle, it is likely you have looked on the Kindle Best Sellers lists and combed through to find something fun to read.  This book kept popping up as a best seller and the description peaked my interest, so I bought it and read it.  Got to say…  pretty disappointing!

The story is about a young woman named Ella who is driven home by her roommate after her first year of college (where she has dramatically reinvented herself) to find that her best friend/boyfriend, Micha, who conveniently happens to live next door (and is perfect in every way) has been pining away for her and longingly awaiting her arrival.  She has a difficult past that she’s shared with him (hence the title) which involved the death of her mother, and she has been avoiding him because her memories that she shares with him are too painful to face.  In addition, she is afraid to love him because she is afraid of losing her best friend in him.

The problem with the story is that by the time you learn exactly what their “secret” shared experience is, it is somewhat anti-clamactic and at least I, at that point, didn’t really care all that much.  There is so much reference to the event and so much leading up to it that it is almost inconsequential when it does occur.  In addition, the loss of Ella’s mother does not feel dramatic to the reader because this relationship was barely described. There are no moments described when she remembers something tender that happened with her mom.  There is no vignette that gives us a picture of what her mother was like that made her relevant to Ella in the context of this story.  So when the loss is revealed, it just feels like too little too late.

The story is predictable and poorly put together.   Pieces are left hanging, but really, not much happens anyway, so this reader didn’t really care about what was unfinished.  Both Ella and Micha have pasts they need to confront but more time is spent in the book with descriptions of their sexual attraction and interaction than with the actual issues they are battling.  The dialogue is weak, without any punch at all.  And when there are characters of substance, they don’t go anywhere.  This is best exemplified by Grady, who has been a caretaker, even a father figure, to both Ella and Micha, who is dying.  Well, for all his significance, Ella visits him twice in a matter of weeks.  He tells her he wants to talk to her about something but we never learn what that is.  And, again, there is mention of memories but they are not described in any detail so that we do not have an understanding of why Grady is important to Ella.

A lot missing, a lot of empty connections, and a lot of disappointment!  Don’t bother!

The False Prince (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I love it when my kids ask me to read books that they’ve read.  I love sharing in the experience with them, discussing it with them, and hearing their reactions to special parts.  This was one book that my youngest son, who is not a huge reader, has been SO excited about — so I had to read it also.  The False Prince is an extremely well-written middle grade children’s book about Sage, a clever and brave orphan with an attitude.  Sage learns, after being bought by a wealthy noble named Connor, that he must compete with 3 other orphans for the position of prince, to replace the lost prince of (fictitious) Corythia.  Connor, who has the secret knowledge that the king, queen and older brother of the lost prince have been murdered, claims that if the lost prince and next heir to the throne is “found,” it will save Corythia from civil war.   Sage rebels against Connor and disdains his plan, but he realizes that he must vie for the position in order to save both himself and his country.

The tale is somewhat reminiscent of The Hunger Games, in its competition to the death theme and in some of its gruesomeness, but it is not nearly as violent or as disturbing.  It does have a torture scene, which was surprising to me for this reading level, but throughout the book there is more the threat of danger than actual danger.  The story takes unexpected twists and turns and was really suspenseful till the end.

There will be a sequel, so expect to see it later in this blog!

The Lost Wife (migrated from bookblogger)

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The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

This is the beautifully written saga of Lenka and Josef who fall in love in the late 1930’s in the romantic city of Prague, just prior to the onset of WWII.  The war separates them tragically and the story tells the tale of their lives during and after the war.  Lenka is caught in the Nazi web of ghetto, deportation, and concentration camps.  The reader feels her hunger and filth and cold along with her, it is made so real.  Josef manages to escape to America, but the loss of his family is a silent ache that he secretly bears his whole life.  Eventually, life brings them together but only after they have lived thinking the other had died during the war.

This book is a love story but it is filled with well-researched historical fiction, with more history than fiction.  Some of the characters that the author has woven into the story were real people that the author learned about in her research of the Holocaust.  The author highlights, in particular, the artwork that was done by both the children and the adults in Theresin, the showcase camp set up by the Germans.  These brave souls depicted, in their art, the hideous conditions in which they were living and some of their paintings and drawings were able to be leaked out to the world for publication.  Many more were uncovered after the inmates were liberated.  This book celebrated the many brave souls, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who fought their own artistic battle with their Nazi captors.

What was also unique about this book was how the author highlighted the tragedy not only of those who lived through the concentration camps but also those who escaped but lost family, homes and all that was familiar to them.  While those who lived through the camps suffered unimaginable horrors, those who were forced to leave their homes, their possessions, their birthplaces, were also displaced and    traumatized in their own ways.  Those who came to America had to learn a new language, become familiar with an entirely different culture and learn to cope with the losses they inevitably endured.  In addition, the “survivors guilt” must have been overwhelming.  I love that this book brought this to light,  showing further how the Holocaust caused such far-reaching suffering and tragedy.

Once We Were Brothers (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

When Ben Solomon begins his tale of how Otto Piatek, taken in and cared for by Ben’s family, turned against all of them and became a Nazi war criminal, you have the sense of this being just another Holocaust tale.  However, as his tale unwinds, you also begin to get sucked in to the charges that he stole from Ben’s family and how a civil suit is the means by which Ben might expose his true identity.  Otto Piatek, alias Elliot Rozenzweig, has created a persona for himself, however, enmeshed in the highest society of Chicago and known for his generous philanthropy.  It takes the team of a gutsy PI named Liam and an attorney with high ethics and strong drive, named Catherine, to help Ben pursue his challenge.

Essentially there are 2 stories that intertwine, with the telling of Ben’s story that took place in Poland and the tale of the legal procedures.  While the beginning of the book focuses on Poland, the latter part focuses on the lawsuit and the suspense of the legal proceedings builds and builds and makes the book very hard to put down.  The author definitely draws you in to feeling such affection for Ben and wanting to see him win in his cause.  You are also drawn in to feeling sympathy for Catherine who is fighting a whole team of expensive lawyers singlehandedly.   Catherine is quoted as saying that this made “David and Goliath seem like a fair fight.”  While it is only fiction, when you are reading it, it feels very real and very true, I think because of how well you’ve come to know the characters.  By the end, you just can’t help cheering them on or booing the “bad guys.”

An essential read for anyone who is interested not only in the Holocaust, but in anything related to human rights and in justice being served.

A Long Way Down (migrated from bookblogger)

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A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

This book, written by the author of High Fidelity, is a crazy novel about 4 very disparate people who happen to meet on the roof of a building on New Year’s Eve because they’ve each made a plan to kill themselves.  As they begin to realize that they are all there for the same purpose, they begin a discussion about why they are up there.  And so begins a bizarre sort of friendship among the four that somehow persists in spite of themselves.  Their dialogue is honest and raw and insane and their story is odd and quirky, and the mood vacillates from laugh-out-loud to profoundly sad.

What adds to the color of this book is the change in the voice.  Each chapter is narrated by one of the four main characters, and each of their voices is unique.  They are really so different from each other — really their only common thread is their mutual suicidal inclination.  They do not even seem to like each other, which adds to both the chaos and humor in the story.  Each one is philosophical in his or her own way, though, and through them the author manages to comment on life and life struggles and questions of why we bother with it all.  Each character, in joining this weird brotherhood of sorts, searches for what gives his/her life its meaning and makes it worth carrying on in the face of what seem to be insurmountable troubles.  And it’s fairly entertaining to join them for this ride!

The Casual Vacancy (migrated from bookblogger)

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The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

This long-awaited adult novel by J.K. Rowling was given negative reviews in the press, but I actually disagree.  I actually found this book very engaging and emotional.  The story is a gritty view of a small town and the many, varied characters who were affected by the death of one of its own, a man named Barry Fairbrother.  Fairbrother, well-liked by many and who had been fighting to keep open a controversial methadone clinic, left a “casual vacancy,” a seat in the town council.  Three men vie for this office, each with a very different motive for doing so.  Undermining them are their teenage children, who are involved in a complicated small-town drama of their own.  At the center of this drama, is a very troubled youth named Krystal, the daughter of a drug addict whose success for any degree of recovery hinges on this very methadone clinic.  It is Krystal who turns out to be the character with the most heart and, in my opinion, is the most beloved in the book.

In addition to creating characters that are interesting, complex and engaging, the author weaves a story that depicts themes of prejudice, stereotypes and class differences.  Prejudices that the parents have are thrust on their children and this either permeates their children’s behavior or it backfires in a dramatic way.  And the teens have prejudices of their own and both the leaders and the followers are punished for them in different ways.  Sadly, too, there are innocent victims and this is where the book is very real.

This book differs starkly from the Harry Potter books.  There, magic helps to save the heroes.  Here there is no magic — it’s real life.

Arsenic and Old Lace (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring

Believe it or not, I’ve never seen this play or movie and my son, Michael just got a part in this play at school.  So, of course, I had to read the book!

What a wacky play!  The characters are totally twisted and there is really no real “message” to the story.  I will not summarize the plot because that would take longer than the play itself.  Suffice it to say that it is outlandish and bizarre — sort of a Keystone Kops-meets-the-Addams Family, complete with sweet little old ladies and dead bodies.  Some of it is funny, but a lot of it is just crazy.

Hopefully. it comes alive onstage and that will be the magic!  (Directors must have much more imagination than I do!)

The Art of Racing in the Rain (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

I am still reeling from the emotional effects of this book.  So beautifully told from the perspective of a dog, this story is about a race car driver named Denney, who is married and has a little girl.  His wife develops a brain tumor and her parents sort of take over her care and the care of their daughter.  On the very day that the wife dies, the parents propose that they gain custody of the daughter, and so begins a Denney’s heroic battle to gain custody of his daughter.  The battle becomes unbelievably ugly and the reader is sucked in and kept breathless over the course of the fight.

The beauty of this book is in the voice of the dog.  I am sure I am not the only one who has seen dogs appear to understand everything that is going on and wonder if they really do.  The voice of Enzo, this particular dog, gives a warmth and a humor to the story that really engages the reader.  He is extremely philosophical and wise and has awareness of things beyond what people are able to sense — and it feels entirely plausible when you are reading it!

This is another book that after finishing, I could not rush into the next book because I really just wanted to sit with the characters in my mind for a day or two.  I love when a book does that!

One Moment, One Morning (migrated from bookblogger)

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One Moment, One Morning, Sarah Rayner

The idea of this book was more interesting than the book itself.  As a woman is enviously watching a loving couple on a train on their commute to work, she observes that the man suddenly keels over and dies of a heart attack.  What happens subsequently, is that this woman shares a cab with another woman who happens to be the couple’s best friend and eventually their lives all intersect.  Through the course of the story, each character confronts her own major demon — the death of a spouse, an alcoholic boyfriend, and coming out to a very conservative parent.

While there is a lot of emotional involvement, it is a fairly predictable story and somewhat flat.  A good idea but only fairly well-executed, in my humble opinion.  Oh, well!

Testimony (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Testimony by Anita Shreve

Another gripping novel by Anita Shreve!  The author takes a not-so-unheard-of story — teenagers doing something risky and foolish and suffering tragic consequences — and tells it in a very unusual way — a composite of “testimony” given by all of the characters who are directly or indirectly affected by the incident.  The story begins with a headmaster of a private boarding school watching a videotape of a group of his students drunk and having a complicated sexual encounter.  The rest of the story is told in a variety of voices and from each of the different characters and as each of the narratives unfurl, the story is given context and depth as well as intrigue and raw emotion.  The characters are complex and very human and the reader becomes entangled in their tragedy.  By the end, it is very hard not to feel strongly about some of the characters and I know I certainly choked up at the culmination of the story.

I find Shreve to be such a versatile author.  Like Jodi Picoult, she takes on complex issues and creates a story from the perspective of different characters.  In this way, both authors are able to build arguments and sympathies for the various aspects of a controversial issue, highlighting the difficulty for resolution.  The reader has to be active and thinking to balance each perspective with the other and to decide which side rings most true.  Often, each one does.