It started off pretty slow, but story continually became more intense and ended in a sadly beautiful way. Great character development and an insight into a war I knew nothing about. Down to earth writing style and loved the varied perspectives from such a wide array of personalities.
The latest Harper Lee book has had so much publicity and hype and I'm sorry to say that it is not warranted. I was really hoping that I would like it because I enjoyed her earlier book and the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird.
I don't want to give too much away in this review, but this book was missing the magic of the first book. The character of Atticus seemed completely different and not in a good way. Jean Louise (Scout) is now twenty-six and unfortunately was not someone that I could care deeply about. Very disappointing.
I mostly read this book for the enjoyment of finding a new take on Robin Hood. It's an excellent story with developed characters and rich plot. A must read for Robin Hood fans, historical fiction readers, and anyone who is just looking for a unique story.
I mostly read this book for the enjoyment of finding a new take on Robin Hood. It's an excellent story with developed characters and rich plot. A must read for Robin Hood fans, historical fiction readers, and anyone who is just looking for a unique story.
This was my first Sara Gruen book and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I have not read many books from this time period set in Scotland, so it was interesting to see how they were living their lives. I liked the characters (well, except for Ellis, but I loved that I disliked him so much). A slight mystical element rounded out a truly good story.
I love dual timeline novels, as long as they are well done. This one alternate betweens Jenni, who is a ghostwriter who prefers to dig into other people's lives rather than deal with her own past, and Klara, a Dutch woman who was interned in a camp on Java during WWII. Jenni is an interesting character, but I felt like she was more of a foil for Klara's amazing story of survival. Very powerful book, one that will linger in my mind for quite a while, I'm sure.
This was a good book. The narrator was very entertaining and the weird Watsons were fun to get to know. The characters had some depth, especially the Byron character, and I think if this book had been an adult novel the characters could really have been explored. It's a kids chapter book and so it's not as fleshed out as it could be, but was enjoyable nonetheless. I would have liked to see a bit more focus on the events towards the end of the novel, but I can see that the purpose of focusing on Byron in the beginning was to show his growth toward the end.
Set during World War II in France and Germany, this beautifully written novel tells story of a young blind French girl named Marie-Laure and a young German boy named Werner, whose paths cross only briefly in the story. For a time, we are caught up in the lives of these two sympathetic characters and the lives of those around them, caught up, like them, in the war itself.
While the subject of this historical fiction novel is captivating, with the narrator assuming the voice of Charles Linbergh's wife, Anne Morrow, the novel lacked going beyond what is commonly known of the family. I often found myself internally restructuring sentences because they were choppy or confusing. The novel is still worth the read and implored me to do research on my own on the infamous family.
This book was really good. The story was engaging and the characters were interesting and multi-dimensional. It was about a week ago that I finished this book, so really I don't remember what I was going to review. But it was good. The only problem I had was that something major happened towards the end of the book that I didn't feel was addressed enough or resolved completely.
