Breathing Room by Marsha Hayles ★★★★☆ Evvy Hoffmeister is thirteen years old when her family brings her to Loon Lake Sanatorium to get cured of tuberculosis (TB). Evvy is frightened by her new surroundings; the rules to abide are harsh and the nurses equally rigid. But Evvy soon falls into step with the other girls in her ward. There’s Sarah, quiet but thoughtful; Pearl, who adores Hollywood glamour; and Dina, whose harshness conceals a deep strength. Together, the girls brave the difficult daily routines. Set in 1940 at a time of political unrest throughout the U.S. and Europe, this thought-provoking novel sheds light on a much-feared worldwide illness. Hundreds of thousands of people died each year of TB, and many ill children were sent away to sanatoriums to hopefully recover. Although Breathing Room is a few years too young for me, I was intrigued by the story of a young TB patient. Although the book doesn't really get into the grittiest details of the disease, it remains realistic and sobering. The book is full of historical documents and photos detailing life during the TB epidemic. It also touches on World War II. I enjoyed Evvy's steady narration of daily life in the sanatorium, her quiet determination, and the friends she made there. Middle-school kids interested in history would love Breathing Room.
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Hollow City by Ransom Riggs (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #2) ★★★★☆ The extraordinary journey that began in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London the peculiar capital of the world. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. Hollow City has all of the appeal of its predecessor: vintage photography combined flawlessly with the story, terrifying monsters, and a hint of the fantastic. This is a book for lovers of fairy tales and dragonslayers who want a little more. I loved that Riggs picked up right where he left off - almost exactly where he left off. A lot of sequels pick up a few days or weeks after the first book, and then you have to backtrack and figure out what's happened in between. With Hollow City, I was immediately back in the story, no fumbling around figuring it out. Riggs also managed to combine superhero-esque powers, time travel, and creepy monsters brilliantly. The monsters are as scary and devilish as always, and they play a bigger role in this book than Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The peculiars' history and culture get a lot of attention in Hollow City, which was fascinating. The relationship between hollows, wights, and peculiars was explored a little more, too, and provided the book with plenty of suspense. We also get to see the children use their powers a bit more, too, and learn more about some of their backstories. The characters were all wonderful, even those who appeared only for a chapter or two, but especially the kids. They each have a distinct personality, and it was fun getting to know them. As always, Riggs left the biggest twist for the end, leaving readers hanging and begging for more. This book was a great addition to the series that pulled me in from the start and kept me hooked to the last page. I, for one, can't wait to get my hands on the next book. Hosted by The Bookish Owl // Original Post Challenge yourself to reading your way through the alphabet this year! (Skip to 1:27 in the video for information about the challenge). I will be participating in this challenge. Read the reviews I write for it here. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★☆☆ As a child, Kathy – now thirty-one years old – lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed – even comforted – by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now. Never Let Me Go is told in a disconnected sort of way, more a collection of anecdotes than a proper plot. The plot of the book left me sort of underwhelmed; it wasn't too dramatic, and the romance seemed forced. The characters were interesting and they all had their quirks, but they didn't really seem to go together - there wasn't any chemistry for the romance, even though it was a huge part of the plot. The plot, like I said, is rather disjointed and more a collection of short stories. It adds to the effect that Kathy is looking back on her life, but it overlooks a lot of the emotional impact of donations. We don't hear about the history of the donations and the donor children until the very last chapter, although we do get glimpses and a basic understanding throughout the book. The donor children were the most interesting part of the book. Both the children and the "normal" people's reaction to them providing an interesting look at humanity, but again we don't really get the full effect of it until the last chapter. Because of the vague way Ishiguro told the story, I wanted to keep reading and find out more. In some ways, I suppose Ishiguro was telling us about the donations the way Kathy and her friends were told; a little bit at a time so it was never too shocking. Looking back on it, there was a lot I enjoyed about Never Let Me Go, and it's definitely a book that will stay with me. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews ★★☆☆☆ Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives. There are numerous “cancer books” and a lot of them focus on the fighting cancer bit and how strong and inspiring that is. I really liked that Andrews didn’t do that. He didn’t turn Rachel into a martyr because of her illness. Actually, I’m hesitant to even call Me and Earl and the Dying Girl a cancer book, because it doesn’t focus on the cancer, which was actually pretty great. What the book does focus on is Greg’s stupid. There’s quite a lot of stupid. Some of it adds to Greg’s character, like his awkwardness and inability to have a conversation, but a lot of it, like his constant insistence that his book sucks, is just annoying. It’s like when people insist something they’ve made is awful just so people will say it isn’t. Andrews’ book isn’t bad, and it definitely had some good points. They just got weighed down by the bad. The characters were strong, although a wee bit overdone. A lot of them seemed off to me, actually, especially Greg. I laughed (a little too loudly) a few times, but it didn’t really impress me. For one thing, a lot of the humor is kind of offensive and the jokes that actually were funny were of the variety that makes you question your sense of humor. The short version: I loved Andrews’ point that shit happens and people die and it sucks but not everybody (actually, most people) don’t take a lesson away from that. But a lot of the humor fell flat with me and a good amount of the story grated on my nerves. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok ★★★★★ When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family’s future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition. Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles. I love this book. Everything about it rings true. Kwok tells harsh truths with a gentle voice; at first with the innocence of a child and then with the careful acceptance of an adult. Stereotypes and stigmas surrounding immigrants and their hardships are scrubbed away to reveal real people. Each character was colorful and interesting, and Kimberly herself was fully realized. I feel like I could run into her on the street. I especially loved that the romance doesn’t take anything away from Kim. Its purpose wasn’t to fix her, change her, or take away from her ambition, and it was done perfectly. The plot was a little slow in places, but they were few and far between. Everything else was so well done and captivating, I didn’t mind. I loved this book from beginning to end and I highly recommend it. Pawn by Aimee Carter (The Blackcoat Rebellion #1) (Available December 2013) ★★☆☆☆ You can be a VII - if you give up everything. For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country. If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister’s niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter. There’s only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed …and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that’s not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she’s only beginning to understand. The ideas behind Pawn are the same ones behind almost every dystopian book out there, and it hasn’t got much to make it stick out. The ranking system and government is neatly explained and pretty simple, which is a point in the book’s favor, but its plot circles around itself constantly. It’s very predictable, but it doesn’t entirely lack excitement. The Harts are the perfect dastardly villains, without a shred of good in some of them. Carter succeeded in making me hate them and keeping me guessing at their true intentions. However, most of the excitement leads to a standoff almost identical to one a chapter ago. Kitty’s reaction is always the same, and always centered around her love for her boyfriend and her fear of death; she doesn’t change at all through the course of the book. The premise of the book, while similar to a lot of others, wasn’t disappointing. The point of dystopia is to point out flaws in our own world by exaggerating them into a fictional one, and Carter hit the nail on the head there. The idea of false equality for everyone in society and the promise that hard work would lead to the life everyone deserves mirrors some of the ideas in our society, and that aspect of the book was fairly interesting. The symbolism of the ranking system wasn’t enough to earn the book more than two stars, however. There are a lot of books with similar ideas behind them (the most similar would be Starters by Lissa Price) that are much better written, and I’d be more likely to recommend one of those. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell ★★★★☆ Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives. Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke. When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories. By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself. What would he say … ? Warning! Do not read this book unless you are prepared for heavy doses of adorableness! Attachments is realistic fiction at its finest. Rowell is the master of witty banter, complicated characters, and turning the ordinary into a captivating narrative. She manages to juggle subplots without turning it into a soap opera, and keeping her pacing perfect. The book was a little bit predictable, but I didn’t mind in this instance. A few scenes read like fanfiction (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but the rest was literary bliss for a hopeless romantic. |
Once Upon a Time...As a longtime lover of stories and a believer in the power and magic of books, I've spent my life seeking out the best reads. This blog is dedicated to reviewing the books I read - good, bad, or magnificent - to help other readers find their next favorite books. Currently ReadingKing Zeno
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