Night by Elie Wiesel

Night by Elie Wiesel

There is not a lot I can say about this book. It's a holocaust survivor story from a man who was 16 when he was liberated from the camps.

It's horrific. It's terrifying. It's simply stated.

The fact that any man, woman or child had to endure such atrocities is beyond comprehension and probably explains more than anything why the book was written.

It's required reading in many high schools now and I highly recommend it. It seems more pertinent in today's world than ever. Where there is so much hatred toward groups of people, it's so very frightening to see what can happen.

This story differs somewhat from others I have read in that Wiesel expresses more hopeful thinking toward the beginning of his town's eventual evacuation of Jews. If it was reality or his youthful opinion, at each step of narrowing down their world, from complete freedom to living in ghettos, he talks about the Jews thinking things weren't so bad. They had heard and had been warned, but in the beginning they more or less accepted the German invasion and their moves as signs of protection.

There are a few places in the story where Wiesel and his family or father can make some choices. It's particularly heartbreaking when the realization hits of how differently things could have turned out if only the other choice had been made.

The book ends with Wiesel's liberation, leaving me with questions about the females of his family, if his mother or sisters made it through the camps or if he ever heard of their fate.

Eat Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I finished this book over a week ago and I just couldn't bring myself to review it. I loved the book, much more than I ever anticipated I would, but I don't know how to share it.

Gilbert shares a year of her life and whatever background necessary to understand it. The year is spend in Italy, India and Indonesia. The months in Italy are about pleasure, her love of all things Italian and especially the language and food. In India she lives in an Ashram searching for her inner peace. Indonesia, Bali in particular, she "studies" with a medicine man and falls in love.

That's the simple version.

My reluctance to ever start this book was that it just didn't sound interesting. Not only that, but I was a little worried about it being preachy as well.

Not to worry.

The book is completely and totally about Gilbert and her experience. And Gilbert writes in a totally entertaining manner.

What I came away with instead was a desire to travel and immerse myself in another culture. She writes so easily and humorously about her experiences, I wanted to be there, or at least in the country of my own desire having my own experiences.

Each section of her book has it's own personality. "Eat" is about letting herself follow her nose and enjoy everything around her, each and every experience. "Pray" becomes more somber as Gilbert faces her own demons and tries to get herself out of her own way to overcome her life's obstacles. I have to say there were many times in this part of the book I simply wanted to shake her. But I also wanted to experience real mediation and what it could bring to me. "Pray" was so much more informational than "Eat" and I loved the education she gave me. "Love" I have to describe as the afterglow. Gilbert had come a long ways personally when she arrived in Bali and her story was more relaxed. Different from "Eat" in that she didn't seem to be pursuing pleasure as much as just letting her life and her learning be pleasurable.

This book is truly a vicarious pleasure. It left me wanting more in my own life, particularly spiritually. My only peeve about the book? The chapter breaks.

This is going to sound silly and petty but....

Each chapter has a big black dot at the beginning of it, representing a bead. There is a particular symbolism to this and I understand the meaning, it's explained at the beginning of the book. However, where the chapters are particularly short there may be as many as 3 of these "beads" on a page and they jump around.

Seriously.

Maybe it's my astigmatism, or not. But those "beads" flashed at me, black & white and jumped all over the pages. I had to physically cover them with my hand to continue reading.

And that is my only complaint.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

The entire time I spent reading this book one thought kept floating throughout my brain: "Harry Potter goes to College." Although this "college" is hidden away by magic, like Hogwarts, it's more comparable to the real world.

The story's hero, Quentin, is lured to Brakesbill College where only the brightest and most talented are schooled. He is tested and passes the entrance exams with flying colors and thus begins his post high school secondary education. The program is a five year program which Quentin and 2 others are advanced to complete in 4 years.

You may wonder what a magician does after he graduates and is returned to the "real" world. Their secondary education wasn't in the usual studies but their studies do allow them to have or be anything they want. Life is boring and dismal and drugs, alcohol and sex are their main interests. I found this very interesting and also very probable.

Throughout the story there are references to Fillory, a mystical land of which several children's books were written years ago. Quention loved the books of Fillory and has read them so often he knows them backwards and forwards. He and his close Brakebills friends discover that Fillory is real and they set out to have their own adventures in the land they only dreamed of as children. However, the "adventure" in Fillory turns out disastrous and lives are lost.

I am at a loss to say if I would recommend "The Magicians" or not. I thought the author did a good job of looking beyond the magic and evolving the characters as they faced a world that no longer seemed to belong to them. He looks at the question of self worth and self importance from several angles and perspectives. He's made the ability to do magic not only appealing but terrifying as well, if only in terms of questioning what to do with and how to use such a power.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I don't believe I have reviewed the mystery/crime genre before and I don't really know how to go about it. The emotions evoked by this genre are entirely different than romance, historical, biographical or other genres. There is no crying and no social appall at the actions of the villains. There are villains, of course, but the emotion is of a sharper sort. There is seldom a middle ground, a place where you contemplate if the villain is ignorant and/or misguided, or whether you yourself could conceivably be in the same place if not for the grace of God. No, the villains in this type of a novel are simply evil.

Stieg Larsson created a fascinating tale around the disappearance of a young woman in 1966. It is the first of a series of which he wrote three novels. He had considered these novels his "retirement" fund planning on writing ten. Unfortunately, for us as well as himself, he died prior to completing the series.

Blomkvist is an investigative journalist and has recently been found guilty of libel. His desire is to distance himself from his magazine to allow it to recover as he prepares for his jail time. It's during this period of time he is hired to solve the murder of Harriett Vanger nearly 40 years earlier.

Larsson introduces his audience to a wonderfully entertaining cast of characters. They are complex and well developed. They are people I came to care about or to dislike, making me happy or on edge each time the story came back around to them.

This is not a story that reveals itself too easily. As the mystery comes unravelled I experienced my "Oh-My-God!!" moments but I also had the satisfaction of an occasional "I knew it!" moment, too. If you are a fan of a well written mystery I think you will enjoy Larsson's book, and mourn that he had only written three.

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

"Certain Girls" by Jennifer Weiner

I recently referred to Jennifer Weiner as one of my favorite chic lit authors. I think I did her a disservice. Her novels are filled with themes and issues that are certainly of interest to women but they are nowhere as light as chic lit. I find them a bit meatier.

"Certain Girls" is a sequel to "Good in Bed" picking up Cannie's life several years later. She is now happily married and her daughter, Joy, is a young teen. Joy is aware that she was conceived out of wedlock and her father isn't the man she calls her Dad. After "Good in Bed" left off Cannie became a minor celebrity with publication of a novel that was a fictionalized autobiography, written in anger. Joy decides it's time to covertly read the novel her mother wrote years before and takes it as truth.

Certain Girls is written from both Cannie's and Joy's voices. It looks at adolescence from the confused perspective of a child struggling with too many questions, wondering if her mother truly didn't want her, why her birth father disappeared, who her mother really is - the woman in the novel? - and much more. She is a daring and brave young girl with too many misconceptions. It also looks at the bewilderment of a mother who couldn't love her daughter more as she is excluded from a life she wants desperately to protect.

Unlike chic lit, Jennifer Weiner doesn't tie up her novel with a pretty ribbon and give us the perfect ending to a perfect story. The ending is satisfying but as in real life, lacks happily ever after.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

"Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" by Beth Hoffman

I picked this up on audio at the library for listening to in my car. Unfortunately, I just don't travel alone in my car often enough... I had to bring it inside and listen while I crafted. It was a good choice.

CeeCee Honeycutt is a young girl with a mentally ill mother and a father who has quite successfully distanced himself from a bad situation through his sales job. Caring for her mother has fallen to her with all it's problems and embarrassments. When her mother dies in an unfortunately "accident" CeeCee's father chooses to send her off to Savannah to live with her great aunt. Poor CeeCee hating her dead mother for her illness and hating her father for not wanting her, bravely ventures forth into her new life.

The story reminds me of the writing of Fanny Flagg, full of wonderful quirky characters brought to life on each page and endearing themselves to us and CeeCee who eventually realizes the truth in her father's words, "Someday you'll thank me for this." Indeed, through the summer following her mother's death, CeeCee meets a charming variety of new friends who become her "family" and comes to trust that loving the present as well as the past is good.

CeeCee Honeycutt gets a thumbs up from me.

Super by Jim Lehrer

"Super" by Jim Lehrer

I am a listener of NPR and often attracted to the author interviews and book reviews. That is how I stumbled upon "Super." Listening to Jim Lehrer talk of the old time trains that were luxury land yachts seemed quite fascinating and I really wanted to read about them. The book itself though was less than fascinating.

The Super Chief train from Chicago to LA was considered the train of the stars. The story is based on an actual train and movie types that rode it in it's hey day. But the timing of the story is nearing the end of the train's hey day. The mystery presented in the story is short and quickly solved with little fan fare.

I am happy it was a short book and I invested only a little time. I think the story could have been richer but really fell short.