The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Genre: historical fiction, Africa, Congo
FTC Disclosure: bought from local second-hand store
Published: 1998
Pages: 543
Content: PG-13 for violence and adult themes

One Line Review: Makes you wish you could really find a way to save the world from us, people.

Kingsolver really knows her stuff. She has written a beautiful and moving story that intertwines the lives of an American family in the heart of the Congo during their fight for independence from Belgium. Little did they know that they're father/husband would literally go insane and they would be left to fend for themselves in a harsh world.

Kingsolver tells the story from the perspective of the four daughters, mainly, and a three or four chapters from the mother's perspective. She gives a very distinct voice for all of the women and it's amazing to read how she does it.

It was also a really hard book to get through because there is so much tragedy told so beautifully. This was another eye-opener for me. One doesn't hear a whole lot about all the 'pies' the United States and other European countries get their big fingers into. Why in the world does the U.S. feel like they have to plan uprising coups when it comes to other countries. Let's keep those fingers out and really let people experience democracy instead of trying to keep 'our' interests in line instead. It's really sickening. And I'm sure it continues on to this day like we're the king of the world and must make sure everyone else keeps to their station so we can keep our high one. Grrr. It just gets me so mad. That's why I loved this book. It tells the truth but in a way all can understand if they really try to.

Quotes: "I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite feature the two of them living under the same house."

"I've heard foreign visitors complain that the Congolese are greedy, naive, and inefficient. They have no idea. The Congolese are skilled at survival and perceptive beyond belief, or else dead at an early age. Those are the choices."

"The United States has now become the husband of Zaire's economy, and not a very nice one. Exploitive and condescending, in the name of steering her clear of the moral decline inevitable to her nature."

"Poor Africa. No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign theivery and foreign goodwill."

Rating: 5/5

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

Genre: southern fiction
FTC Disclosure: bought used from Amazon.com
Published: 1987
Pages: 416
Content: PG-13 for violence, language, and adult themes
  
While I enjoyed the movie better, the book is still a beautiful tale of women finding out who they are.

I fell in love with the town of Whistle Stop. It's the kind of town you just wish you'd been apart of.

We follow Evelyn in the present time as she meets Ninny Threadgoode who begins to tell her about Idgie and Ruth and their times in Whistle Stop. Evelyn, throughout the story, makes her own journey like Idgie and Ruth to find herself by taking her own life into her hands, to make her own fate instead of others deciding for her.

The novel jumps around a lot from the POV of different people in Whistle Stop through newspaper articles as well as third person narrative as well as Ninny's narrative. Sometimes it got a bit confusing since there were so many characters to follow.

There are also plenty of themes running through the book: lesbianism, sexism and women's rights, racism, etc. I didn't agree with everything Flagg had to say, but I enjoyed the journey of listening to it anyway.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Hourglass by Claudia Gray

Genre: Young adult, vampire, romance
FTC Disclosure: library
Published: 2010
Pages: 339
Content: PG-13 for violence and mayhem!
Reading Challenges: 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge

This was another great sequel in the Evernight series! And another horrifying cliffhanger!

Bianca and Lucas are on the run after the ransacking and burning of the Evernight Academy. They are stuck with Lucas's Black Cross gang. How do they hide who Bianca really is and what Lucas may be turning into?

Then there is the ever present wraiths trying to reclaim Bianca and Balthazar's insane sister Charity causing mayhem as well!

It's fast-paced with the story moving along smoothly and plenty of fighting and loving in between and a crazy cliffhanger to boot.

I really like this vampire series. I feel it's a cut above the rest and really enjoy Bianca and Lucas's relationship. The author portrays them on more equal footing and relationship that took it's time to grow instead of crazy and debilitating lust that people think is love...no reference to other vampire novels...

Can't wait for the next one!

Rating: 4/5

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley

Genre: young adult
FTC Disclosure: borrowed from library
Published: 2009
Pages: 373
Content: PG-13 for language and thematic elements
Reading Challenges: 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge

This was an amazing book on overcoming life's adversities! It was a touching and thought-provoking story.

Terra Rose Cooper was born with a port-wine stain birthmark along her entire cheek and spends her days trying to cover it up with heavy make-up and long hair...she also spends her time avoiding her verbally and emotionally abusive father. She thinks she's so lucky, though, to have found her boyfriend Erik, that he somehow thinks she's worth his time...though, he doesn't have a clue who she really is or what she really needs.

Taking a trip to Seattle with her mother they literally run into Jacob and his mother. And Terra and her mother's lives change forever.

Jacob was born with a cleft lip and has a scar to show for it...they soon find strength in each other's struggles. Jacob's mother also helps Terra's mother find her voice and her own strength as well.

It's a beautiful story, one that can inspire anyone who reads it and especially with the teen books out these days I feel this is a great one for young teens.

It was a little slow at the beginning and it was really hard to read about her jerk of a father and how they weren't dealing with it, but that has nothing to do with the awesome writing and the way Headley eventually wraps you up into the lives of Terra, Jacob and their mothers and how they all learn and grow and find their own beauty within.

Here are some quotes I found amazing:

"[beauty] it seeps into you. It doesn't make you forget yourself; it connects you with everything and fills you with awe that you share the same space with something that glorious...and then suddenly...you have this epiphany that there's more to the world than just you and what you want or even who you are."

"I didn't have the language to communicate...to this little girl--or to communicate that beauty--the real everlasting beauty--lives not on our faces, but in our attitude and our actions. It lives in what we do for ourselves and for others."

"Let the glossy spreads have their heart-stopping, head-turning kind of beauty. Give me the heart-filling beauty inside. Flawed, we're truly interesting, truly memorable, and yes, truly beautiful."

Rating: 5/5

Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Genre: non-fiction, politics
FTC Disclosure: bought from Costco
Published: 2009
Pages: 436
Content: R for language/excessive use of the f-word
Reading Challenges: A to Z Challenge (Author H)


One Line Summary: The ins and outs, ups and downs of the historic 2008 presidential election.

I loved this book! It was so insightful and it's one of those non-fiction books that reads like a novel. It was so intriguing to find out the inner workings of the McCainworld, Hillarlyland, and the Obamans. It made me very glad that I've never had any desire for public office. Politics is a brutal world and you have to have pretty thick skin to go anywhere within it.

McCain was an interesting person to learn more about...I learned he has quite the mouth on him (maybe due to his military time), and some anger issues...but that could be a result of being tortured and held hostage for a bit...I also came to feel a bit of sympathy for Sarah Palin. The choice to have her as McCain's running mate was a rash decision that really destroyed Palin. His campaign people pretty much left her out to dry once they found out more about her and the press attacked her relentlessly.

I also became really glad that John Edwards didn't make too much of a splash this time around. Not the most upstanding guy in politics or Rudy Guiliani, for that matter....

It was great to see how Obama's campaign people pulled it all together to get the win. There were a lot of bumps and bruises on the way, especially with Hillary and Bill Clinton. It was all out war between him and them. I was glad to see some of the reparation that happened after Obama became president and she accepted her post as Secretary of State.

This was a fast-paced, informative book and I loved every minute of it. It's amazing to get insight into this historic presidential race. Pick it up and give it a read, you won't be sorry!

Rating: 4.5/5

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer & Annie Barrows

Genre: historical fiction, romance, epistolary
FTC Disclosure: Bought from Amazon.com
Published: 2008
Pages: 274
Content: PG for adult themes and war imagery.
Reading Challenge: A to Z Challenge (Title G)

Summary: January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….

As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.

Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

Thoughts: First thought....it was beautiful, fun, romantic, sad, hopeful, and captivating. This is my second epistolary novel and I love them. The authors weaved a beautiful story all from letters. Letters convey such a different emotion...it feels so personal, like these people actually exist and we're sneaking in on their personal lives by reading their letters. It was like coming across some old letters of my grandmother's in the upstairs attic (don't have an attic, but you get the point!).

We learn all about Guernsey island during the German occupation of World War II. I'm sure I learned at some point that some part of England was occupied, but if I did it never stuck...I had no idea that these islands had been taken by Germany. It was a new experience for me to learn how some of our allies fared during the War. What makes it even more poignant is we learn about these experiences from people that we come to love and care about in the novel. So when they laugh, we laugh; when they cry, we cry.

If you haven't read this one, do! Pick it up! You won't be sorry!

Rating: 5/5!!!