Mom recommended this one to me. It's from the POV of a 5-year old boy. The only world that he knows is with his mom inside an 11x11 shed. Honestly, I don't want to say too much about this one because there is the potential for wayyyyy too many spoilers and I'd rather you read it and we talk about it later. The beginning is a little frustrating- I NEEDED to know why they were in this room and why they couldn't get out and who was holding them in. I promise it will all be worth it. It's incredibly engrossing though- you could probably get through it quite quickly.
Those of you who read this blog know that I LOVE Laurie R. King. So you may be asking who this Leigh Richards lady is? Well, duh, it's Laurie. Califia's Daughters is her one Science Fiction book and it's incredible in its own way. It's about a post-apocalyptic world where there is a tiny percentage of men in the population and so women have taken over and created this strong society. Dian and her sister Judith are the main characters in this book- Dian as the leader of a small village up in the mountains and Judith as the "seer" of the group. A group of strangers, including a few men, arrive at the village and turn it upside-down. Dian ends up journeying to the north to investigate and take on Queen Bess, a strong leader in the north who is slowly taking over. Again, I don't want to tell too much because of spoilers but it's very interesting. My one complaint is that the pacing is a little frustrating- sometimes it seems to drag on and the ending is a little unsatisfactory. I wish that there was a sequel because it would be great to know what the world was like at the end of the book and how things had changed and been affected because of the events of the story.
This book was wonderful- it's about 9 Hungarians (a group of people who are isolated by language, which is dissimilar to any other language in Europe) who had to leave Hungary in order to become great. It follows the lives of four physicists/mathematicians (Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, Johnny von Neumann and Eugene Wigner), two film directors (Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz), two photographers (Andre Kresetz and Robert Capa) and one author (Arthur Koestler). They are all famous in their own way- Capa was the photographer of D-Day and the first journalist killed in Vietnam; Curtiz won an Academy Award for Casablanca; Teller went up against Oppenheimer regarding the bomb and Slizard tried hard to keep Truman from dropping the bomb. The story follows their lives through their childhood in Hungary, their escape to other European countries (and America) to really become who they were, how they were affected by their Hungarian roots despite adopted other countries as their own and of course, how Hitler and his take-over of the Hungarian Jews affected each of them. I was impressed with the pacing of this book- when I was getting tired of reading about how man, the story switched over to another one. I loved watching how their paths crossed and how they supported each other at various times, bound together by their similar background and heritage. I had gotten so connected to each man that when I read about their deaths I wanted to cry. Side trivia note- the author was married at one point to both Peter Jennings and Richard Holbrooke.
I had read/heard several interviews with this author so when Mom gave me the book, I was interested in reading it. It's about a woman who decides to raise her children in the "Chinese" manner- no sleepovers, you will play an instrument, you cannot get anything lower than an A-, you will excel in everything, etc., etc., etc. Very high pressure and not much compassion, encouragement, etc. It was an interesting comparison to see how her older daughter and younger daughter reacted to the experience and how things worked out in the end. It definitely ignites debate about how to raise your children and if there is a balance in these things.
No comments:
Post a Comment