Rescue

I began this book early Christmas Eve morning.  I woke up and just oculdn't sleep and I was mad about this because I had worked so hard to get everything done ahead of time -- and sleeping in would have been ever so nice.  But I started this book and was completely sucked in.  It was good, but I rolled my eyes a couple of times at certain events -- highly unlikely, especially considering that the novel is set in a small Vermont community.  I read it throughout the day, between popping in a pork loin roast and making beds and lighting candles -- you know, the traditional Christmas Eve drib drab that needs to be accomplished.  I was exactly 95 percent finished with the book (kindle) when Jame popped in to surprise us all.  I finished it after I went to bed.  I recommend it!

Shantaram

LISA: This was one hell of a long book at almost 1,000 pages, but I enjoyed every one of them. I did get a little crazed at the fact that weeks were passing and I was still reading the SAME book -- but it held my interest the entire time. What is so interesting is that it is based (loosely, but if you do some research on the author you realize he might just have to say that because everything he does in it is illegal!) on his own life, which is downright crazy. I would highly recommend it if you want to delve into a book that will bring you to another world (India) and give you insight on a different culture of people.

HALLIE: I absolutely loved loved loved this book. It was incredible being able to live the story of this man, forced to leave behind his complete first life and begin a new one in a new country while still learning to deal with the kind of person he is himself. There were some parts where I did get semi stuck and think wow this book is LONG but overall I loved every minute of it and would reccommend this to any person who enjoys reading about a culture that can't truly be understood until you live it. He was a great writer adn it actually made me want to go visit India!

Outliers

I loved this book -- it really has some interesting information about what success is and how it is achieved.  Being in the right place at the right time (luck, fate?) time of birth ... really have much more to do with it than outright determination.  Which makes sense.  I recommend this book to everyone.  You will totally enjoy it.

I read this over a year ago and the part that really stuck with me was the hockey players. SO much plays into what becomes of our lives and although we all have choices along the way...this was a great book to make you think!!

Freedom

LISA: I really liked this book, though it was just about characters. There is no story, really, and from time to time Franzen gets on a soap box about various and sundry things. I must say he has me a little freaked out about population! It is about a family, though they are never actually really a family in the story. More individual characters tied together by blood. But they have little interaction with each other. It's hard to explain, but I would definitely recommend it.

HALLIE: I went from strongly disliking the "autobiographer" of this book to really enjoying it and back and forth for the entire story! As said above there really is no storyline and it jumps around but it has this way of keeping you sucked in and wanting to continue to see what happens. And yet then there are some passages where it was all I could do to keep myself reading. I wanted to throw my kindle against the wall at some of the actions of the main female character, Patty. I wanted to slap her son Joey at most points in the book and then he ends up being an actual decent guy! Overall every character, story, and thought in the book is a contradiction and you go can't decide between wanting the book to last forever or finishing as soon as possible! And it's very long already!

Oh yea, I also feel very strongly about only having two kids now and that's just because at some point i'd like to have kids! haha, the population scare is strong in it!

Guns Will Keep Us Together

 

Hmmmm, I am not really sure why I downloaded this book -- I mean the name and the cover should have tipped me off~!  But it actually turned out to be quite cute -- it is about a family of assassins and the lead character Dakota finds out he has a son and then he falls in love for the first time (with another assassin of course!)  Oh, and he is supposed to kill the woman he loves.  Typical book fare!!!

Night

Maddie needed (needs!) to read this book for her Holocaust class, but I attended the class with her on Friday and was intrigued enough by the discussion of the book to read it myself.  It is a quick read -- and there is no new information if you know quite a bit about the Holocaust (unlike the book Sarah's Key, where I learned new information altogether).  But I am not entirely sure if I have read a text on a survivor's account of what happened to him.  Have I?  I really don't know.  But Elie was torn from his life when he was 15 and placed into a concentration camp with his father.  His mother and younger sister were in the wrong line and were gassed immediately.  It did highlight many of the same questions that I have always had ... they had a clue, they really did.  But they chose NOT to do anything but wait and see.  They put their faith in God.  When they actually went into the camps, it was well into the game, and some of the people who had been in the camp for a year or longer were HORRIFIED to see them come in.  Their response was IT IS 1944 and YOU ARE HERE?  They were SO ANGRY that despite their friends and family disappearing altogether and never being heard from again, that they still waited to get carted away themselves.


The other thing that struck me was how random it all was.  It was all about surviving -- and while their humanity was stripped away altogether, the will to live was pretty darn strong.  Children would look away while their fathers were beaten and then steal the crust of bread from them.  It was pretty horrible and it's amazing to think that this man could continue to live amongst humankind knowing what he does and seeing what he has seen.  It can't have been easy.  As the Russians are getting closer and closer and beginning to liberate the prison camps, the Nazi's take the prisoners and send them on death marches.  They make them run, without food or water, for days.  When someone falls, they are shot.  When they die, they are left behind.  That is the point, after all.  What is SO sad is that at the second to last camp, Eli has some kind of foot problem, and he is in the infirmary having it fixed.  There was definitely some compassion amongst the brutality, and while it was dangerous to be in the infirmary (why would they try to keep a Jew alive, when really all they cared about was killing them?) Elie trusts the doctor.  When the Russians are about to "invade," he has to make a choice.  He is told that all patients in the infirmary will be left behind (and then ultimately saved).  But he can't believe that ... how could he?  His father would have been allowed to stay with him too.  But he stands up on his injured foot, and runs for days and days and days.  This does his father in -- and at the final camp, his father dies.  Not too long after, Elie is liberated. (And then later he finds out that if they had stayed, then ...) but that was what it was all about -- just pure dumb luck, timing, getting out of the gas chamber line before the SS saw you -- crazy. 

My only complaint is that the book ends when he is freed -- but I have so many more questions about him.  How did he survive knowing what he did?  I mean, he is still alive and lectures, etc. but still.

Tomasen: An amazing read and yet such a small book. Both of my kids have now read this in school...truly moving.

Compromising Positions

So I was playing around in the Kindle section at Amazon, and noticed there was free content ... so I checked it out. This book was actually free, so I figured, what the heck. At first I was a little put off by the cliche-type commentary, obviously not a polished writer. And yet, and yet! I couldn't put the dumb book down. It was a cute little love story and I thoroughly ate it up.

And it was free!

HALLIE: I agree with Lisa, very cute little love story! I loved this book and wished it had been longer!