Hey, I'm new on here and this group looked good! I like the idea of reading 50 books in a year. I will start from today, 19th May. My first book is:
Tracy Chevalier: Burning Bright
Go for it! Off to a good start!
I really enjoyed
Burning Bright. I was gripped from the first page. I connected with the characters, the storyline was interesting and it was just a thoroughly good read. I did however, find the end quite abrupt. However, that does us open to let our imagination work.
I have just got
Girl with a Pearl Earring. I swapped it on
www.readitswapit.co.uk, so it is on my TBR list!
My second book in this challenge is:
Kate Morton:
The House At RivertonSo, 1 down, 49 to go!
Now I know I said my second book would be Kate Morton, but it is too heavy to carry round, so I picked up this smaller book. I'm reading
The House At Riverton on the side though.
Kim Edwards:
The Memory Keeper's DaughterI loved this book! It was truely amazing. Here is the blurb from Amazon:
Families have secrets they hide even from themselves... It should have been an ordinary birth, the start of an ordinary happy
family. But the night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night
that will haunt five lives for ever.
For though David's son is a healthy boy, his daughter has Down's syndrome.
And, in a shocking act of betrayal whose consequences only time will
reveal, he tells his wife their daughter died while secretly entrusting her
care to a nurse.
As grief quietly tears apart David's family, so a little girl must make her
own way in the world as best she can.
I found myself falling in love with the characters, thinking about them when I wasn't reading the book, and eager to know what was happening with the characters when reading about the other family. The descriptions were beautiful and the characters easy to connect with. I loved the ending too it was so touching. I read this book very quickly and easily. Even though I finished the book a couple of days ago I am still thinking about it. This book will stay with me a long time I think. I highly recommend this moving book.
10/10
2 out of 50 now
Message edited by its author, Jun 1, 2008, 2:51am.
I am now on 4/50, yipee!
This week I have read:
Kate Morton´s The House at Riverton. I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and easy to follow. I found myself falling in love with the characters and wishing to know what what happening in their lives. The ending came as a suprise, but I was happy with it. I liked how Morton dealt with issues such as WWI and shell shock, and looked into how the upper class lived in the turn of the century.
What would I change? I would cut out some of the current storyline which bore no relevance to the past. Some of the characters were a bit unnecessary too.
8/10
The other book I have read is David Holden´s Battle For The Mind. This is a Christian book and deals with coping with depression and anxiety. It teaches how to use God´s Word to battle the lies from Satan and how to be a positive person in the time of trouble. I found this book very helpful, especially as he used personal issues to help get his point across.
9/10
Now I'm 6/50
This week I've read:
I have just finished Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth. This is only the second of her novels that I have read, but like Nineteen Minutes, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Amazon synopsis:
The discovery of a dead infant in an Amish barn shakes Lancaster County to its core. But the police investigation leads to a more shocking disclosure: circumstantial evidence suggests that eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher, an unmarried Amish woman believed to be the newborn's mother, took the child's life. When Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, to defend Katie, two cultures collide and, for the first time in her high profile career, Ellie faces a system of justice very different from her own. Delving deep into the world of those who live 'plain', Ellie must find a way to reach Katie on her terms. As she unravels a tangled murder case, Ellie also looks deep within to confront her own fears and desires when a man from her past comes back into her life.
I was completely hooked by this book from the opening page. The story is full of love, court room drama, murder and faith. I have no idea if what Picoult writes about the Amish is correct, but it certainly opened my eyes a little bit. I had a go at guessing the end, which I got wrong, but on reflection I should have seen coming. However, that does not affect the story at all. I found myself loving the characters, sympathising with them, wishing I had some of that Amish peace and thinking about the story when I wasn't reading the book. In fact, I am still reflecting now. I was even getting angry at the prosecution in the court! I felt like I was there watching, I love a book where I feel like I'm involved. I loved the ending. There was excitment on virtually every page. I can only highly recommend this book.
9/10
The other book is:
Be Nice, by Anabel Donald. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
'Ever read Lord of the Files?' said Rohini. 'Of course. Set book, year ten. And...?' 'Same situation.' 'Different gender.' A plane crashes on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. On it are thirty English girls between the ages of eleven and eighteen, winners of a competition organised by a company selling feminine hygiene products. Each has had to write an essay on her aspirations, subsequently posted on her own website. Twenty-one of the girls survive and, when no rescue comes, are compelled to devise their own rules in order to stay alive. A brilliant reworking of Golding's classic novel, in Be Nice Anabel Donald takes us into the minds of her teenage characters as they play out a struggle that is as old as the human race and as new as the Internet.
I enjoyed this book. It only took me a day to read. The writing style was very simple as it is narrated by teenagers, and often the spelling was how 11 year olds would spell. There were some very funny lines in the book. Donald touches on issues such as death, the dynamics of teenage girls, sexuality and abandonment very well.
For a quick fun read I recommend this!
8/10
Next book: Ira Levin - The Stepford Wives
I have just finished
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and really enjoyed it.
14/50
Along with Rebecca, I have also finished
Empress Min by Anchee Min, and I loved it.
Amazon synopsis:
To rescue her family from poverty and avoid marrying her slope-shouldered cousin, seventeen-year-old Orchid competes to be one of the Emperor's wives. When she is chosen as a lower-ranking concubine she enters the erotically charged and ritualised Forbidden City. But beneath its immaculate facade lie whispers of murders and ghosts, and the thousands of concubines will stoop to any lengths to bear the Emperor's son. Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasuring a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch, drawing the attention of dangerous foes. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and that she will be its last Empress.
This is a historical fiction book set in China in the 1800s.
Like I said, I loved this book. Min's writing style was descriptive but flowed beautifully. At no point did I find myself bored. I loved the characters. I admired Orchid's determination and the way she stood up for herself, even though that went against all tradition. This book had love, death, tradition, passion and history running all the way through it. It had quite a sad ending but it was realistic. I loved her companions and the way they dedicated themselves to her and were loyal. Even now I am reflecting on the story, thinking about the difference she made, even when her life was at stake. What an amazing woman in my opinion. She is certainly one of my favourite characters from a book.
I have no idea if the history of this book is correct, but the way it was written was so gripping that I am now planning on going and researching this time of Chinese history.
I can't recommend this book enough. I can't think of anything bad to say about it. I didn't take me long to read at all because I enjoyed every word of it.
10/10
Now up to 15 books
Book number 16 has been read. Today I read
The Twits by
Roald Dahl. My review can be found in my library
href="http://www.TickerFactory.com/scrapbooking/wfKapsW/">
46. How to Become a Contagious Christian: Bill Hybels
47. Incomparable: Andrew Wilson
And I have completed the challenge, in 5 months.
50. Kansas in August by Patrick Gale
Congratulations on reaching your goal so quickly!! :)
--BJ
Congratulations!
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