Wonder

Wonder by R.J. Palacio is a rare gem. It's going on my list of favorite books for its message and its simplicity. What a simple book, and yet so profound. It's about a boy who has a genetic disorder that affects how his face looks. The story itself is great. The writing is wonderful. It's juvenile fiction, which makes it even more beautiful. It's a hard task to write a book that appeals to children and also adults. It'd also make a great book for book clubs (youth or adult).

I will be reading this book aloud to my children very soon. While your kids could certainly read it on their own, it's a great read-a-loud. The chapters are super short, most a page or two. And there is usually something in every chapter that would make for great discussion with kids. I'd say this book is for 2nd graders and up. Themes of the book are bullying, popularity, and kindness to those on the social fringe.

One thing I love about this book is how the children treat their parents. So many books and television shows these days show negative interactions. Kids lying to their parents. Not telling them hard things that happen to them. Ignoring the parents advice. Kids being sulky and rude and sassy to their parents. This book is fantastic because it's just the opposite. The kids in this book treat their parents with respect and honor them. They talk to them and even confess wrongs to them. I am thankful that my kids get to see a good example.

I think everyone should read this book!

Angela's Ashes

Since I really enjoyed the book The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein, I decided to try Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. It got great reviews and it has a similar story and feel to The Invisible Wall. It's a memoir about an impoverished Irish boy growing up Catholic in the 1930s and 1940s. His father struggled with alcoholism and his mother struggled to feed her children while trying to stave off the grief of losing many of her children to consumption.

It started out really well. Then it got to the middle of the book where it got slow and McCourt gave so many details and stories that didn't help move along his life and were repetitive. I enjoyed the voice that he wrote from - it was interesting and artistic; I decided to press on until I could press on no longer. I gave up about 3/4 of the way through. I put the book down for a month then decided last night to pick it back up again to see if I could finish it and found that I couldn't. The stories of his life were interesting enough, but too many and similar to keep me interested.

The Kindness of Strangers

Yikes. I have a lot to say about this book. I'll boil it down to this:

• Shockingly sad. The story is about a little boy who gets abused and molested. If you don't like reading about this kind of thing, stay away from this book.

• Graphic. This kind of goes along with sad, but the subject is just graphic at times. There are some books with this theme of abuse and it's not as graphic, so it's easier to read. This is NOT that book. If you can't handle graphic details, don't read it.

• Window. The book is an interesting window into the life of a child who is abused. Although this book is fiction (thankfully), you feel like it is real. The actions, thoughts, and words given by the social workers, the abusers, and the little boy himself make you feel like you are reading a memoir. Some people's lives really are this tragic and reading this book has made me gain more perspective with abuse. It was good for me to see how others interact with such horror. Some people chose indignation. Others chose to try to redeem.

• Though provoking. How would I react if a case of abuse were discovered in my backyard (figuratively)? Would I know signs of abuse in a child? How can I protect my children?

• Ending. I didn't love it. I didn't even like it. The whole book was a messy, up and down way to a happily ever after (which thankfully the book does have and quite frankly needed after such horror). However, Kittle wraps up the happily ever after too quickly and too neatly and too nicely. I felt like the book should have been finished a chapter earlier.

The Forgotten Garden

There are many things I love about Kate Morton's book, The Forgotten Garden. Besides a great story, the narration in this book is wonderful. It is an omniscient narrator who goes between three different main characters in three different time periods: the early 1900s, 1970s, and then 2005. Although the narrator is omniscient, information is disclosed in a great way. The reader gets the information as the characters in the book. This book threads the past and present beautifully and effortlessly. Many books I've read that go between time periods and characters are confusing. Or take a while to catch on; not so with The Forgotten Garden. Morton uncomplicatedly tells a beautiful story about a four year old little girl who gets left on a ship dock. There are journal entries, notes, and interviews that make the telling of this story east to follow and believable.

I would highly recommend this book.

Falling Together

I have read one of Marisa de los Santos other books, Love Walked In and enjoyed it okay. And even though I haven't had much success liking more than one book by the same author, I decided to try Falling Together. It's about three college friends who stopped seeing each other after graduation. Six years later, two of the friends get an email asking for help from the other one. Falling Together is the unfolding story of why one friend may need help and the possible romantic attraction of the other two to one another.

It's a beach read...quick, easy, interesting, not complicated. And after the heaviness of One Thousand White Women and the intelligence of Rules of Civility, I needed an easy read.

The story is interesting and the characters are fine, but the book as a whole is forgettable. I had to push through the first quarter of the book because it's a bit confusing. The back and forth of time periods and the introduction of new characters in different time periods made me think too much. But once I stuck it out, I was rewarded with an easy read.

I'd recommend this book if you want an easy to read page turner with little substance.

Purple Hibiscus

I started Purple Hibiscus and got about a quarter of a way through. It was one dimensional and almost boring. The writing was blah. The story line was blah. It had a tiny bit of potential to get more interesting, but the writing was so bad, the book didn't keep my interest. I put this book down and don't recommend it at all.

Rules of Civility

If I had the time and it was that kind of a blog, I'd write a paper on this book. It's that good. Rules of Civility is the first novel by Amor Towles and most of it is set in the late 1930s and early 1940s in New York. It's a coming of age sort of story of socialites. It is now one of my favorite books.

It's witty in an I'm-not-trying-to-be way. The enchanting story was flawlessly written. It has beautifully constructed sentences which all in all made it a highly sophisticated book.

It's multi-layered. What I mean by this is that the book is very smart. I feel like I want to read it again with a dictionary. But it didn't make me feel like an idiot. I think the book is written perfectly for the time period and since I was born in 1979, I don't know the time period well. It was like getting to know someone. And reading it again will be like moving the relationship from acquaintance to friend.

This novel is interesting because it gets funnier, better, and smarter the smarter (and perhaps older) the reader is. Kind of like the show "Gilmore Girls". The show was funny and smart to the average person. But more so if you actually got the cultural references and jokes.

As I was reading, I wondered who this author was that could craft a book so beautifully and yet so readable? Yeah...he went to Yale and Stanford.

One Thousand White Women

Back in 1854, the Cheyenne people attempted to make a peace treaty with the U.S. government - 1000 white women for 1000 horses. True story. The government said no. However, in One Thousand White Women, the government says yes.

There are so many adjectives to describe this book: captivating, haunting, thought-invoking, terribly sad. Even though it's fiction, it's an interesting commentary on our society as it relates to race, politics, morals, and mental illness.

The book is set up largely as journal entries, minus the beginning and ending. It has some pretty graphic scenes, but they are necessary so it make it easier to swallow. This book is not for the faint at heart.

I loved the characters. Hated the characters. Pitied the characters. Was angry with them. Shocked at them. Cried with them. And with all those emotions, I ended the book feeling like I knew them well, which only makes the ending that much more devastating.

The ending makes the book. Things don't end how you think they will. How you want them to. And yet the ending makes the book real and makes you forget that this is a work of fiction. When you remember it is, you're so very grateful.

I highly recommend this book for those who are up for a heavy read. It's well written and is very different than any other book I've read.