Shannan's Review of "Sarah's Quilt"

This is written by Nancy E. Turner and is the 2nd book after "These is My Words" (which we just did for book club and I loved it even more reading it the second time). There are 3 books in this series, and I just picked up the 3rd book, "The Star Garden" from the library today.

Anyway, I really enjoyed "Sarah's Quilt", but it wasn't as good as the first book. The format is the same, although the entire book only covers 1 year, so there is a lot more detail about what is going on and I didn't feel like I had to be conscious of the date of each entry. It also is more like reading a novel, not so much a diary because of all the details.

It did take me a while to get into it, but once I did, I didn't want to put it down. It takes place five years after "These is My Words" ends, and mostly deals with Sarah and her children and Savannah and Albert's children. And also with Sarah coping with Jack's death. There is a lot of tragedy that seems to happen during this year, and there didn't seem to be as many funny parts as the first book, but I still enjoyed it and I am looking forward to reading the next book.

If you are interested in the continuing story of Sarah, I would recommend this book.

Shannan's Thoughts on "The Last Lecture"

Here is my cut and pasted review from Goodreads.

I had been excited to read this book from all I had heard about it. I started and was touched about the author's cancer diagnosis, and as I kept reading, I was expecting to be more emotionally touched, or inspired, or something. I just didn't feel much of anything. I did feel sad for him and his family, and also impressed with the attitude he had towards it all. And I had figured that this book was for his children. Maybe that's why I didn't connect with it, because I didn't know him or his family. I went into it thinking I would be inspired, but it really didn't do anything for me.

Needless to say, I thought this book was just okay. I saw that you are reading it again, Erin. Do you like it? Did I miss something?

Meghan's Review of "Outliers"

This is a non-fiction book that delves into the hidden reasons people become successful in life. Malcolm Gladwell focuses on how not only does someone need to be talented or smart, but they also must have ample opportunity and luck to become successful. He uses a lot of real life examples, such as The Beatles, Bill Gates, Canadian hockey players, successful lawyers, and he talks about how each person got to be so successful at what they do because of when they were born, who their parents were, where they went to school, etc. He states that to be truly successful at something, you need to put in 10,000 hours (roughly 10 years) of practice. And to be able to get in those 10,000 hours, you have to have opportunity that allows you to do that. When the Beatles first got together, they played at a club for 8 hours a night for many, many nights. That's a lot of practice time. Because of that opportunity to play at the club, when they finally made it big, they had already put in their 10,000 hours. Same with Bill Gates. He went to school at a time right when computers were becoming popular, and the school he went to had the resources to buy a personal computer and he was able to use it as much as he wanted because of the school he went to. So when he was older and the computer industry became big, he already had his 10,000 hours of practice and already knew what he was doing with computers. I thought this book was fascinating, and I usually don't really like non-fiction books. But I love the concept that not only do you have to have talent but you have to know how to use it, use it frequently and then have ample opportunity to make you successful at what you have. It's a fast read and was very thought provoking. I'm planning on reading his other books "Blink" and "Tipping Point".

The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff

This story is about a young woman, Emma, who married just three weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland during WWII. Her husband, Jacob is involved with the resistance to the Nazi's and ends up disappearing in the middle of the night. She goes back to her parent's and ends up in the Jewish ghetto but then is smuggled out in the middle of the night by the resistance. She is taken to live with Jacob's catholic aunt and takes on a new identity as a gentile. Her situation becomes even more dangerous when she catches the eyes of Kommandant Richwalder, who is a high ranking Nazi official. He offer's her a job working for him and Emma is urged by the resistance to accept the job so that she can use her position to find information to help the resistance. Emma ends up having to compromise her safety and her marriage vows in order to help those that oppose the Nazi's.
While I enjoyed this book the story line didn't always feel believable to me. I think I wanted it to have a deeper message to it than it did. Because of this I would only give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Shannan's Review of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

I have wanted to read this book again for a long time. I know I read it in high school, but I couldn't remember much about it. I really enjoyed reading this again. The story is told from a little girl's perspective about her life and surroundings in Alabama in the late 1930s. The book synopsis says it is about a rape trial of a black man who is accused of assaulting a white woman. But that was only a part of the book. The whole story does deal with prejudicial issues, but not just those between black and white. I loved the character of the girl's father, Atticus Finch, who reminds his children to try and put themselves in others' shoes before making judgements on their behavior.

The only hard thing about this book was the racial language. It was written in 1960 or so, so the way people talk about black people is a lot different than today. But I would recommend reading this book. I could see why this book is so popular and considered one of the best books of the 20th century.

"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"

I know, another review from me. But for some reason, I have had some good books to read lately that are fairly quick. And I have found a friend, Melissa, who loves to read and she has been suggesting books to me and then we have been discussing them. It has been really fun! And, I got "laid off" last week from my job, so I feel like I have some extra time.

This book was a recommendation from Melissa. It is written by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It is a book set right after World War II. A writer, Juliet, in London is contacted by a man who lives on one of the Channel Islands, Guernsey. He finds a book with her name and address in it and writes to her to ask about the author of the book. The story follows their letters and the stories of life on Guernsey during the German occupation. It was a really interesting story. The book is written all as letters, so that was a little hard to get used to. And you are just kind of thrown in at first and have to figure out who all the people are and what their relationships are with one another. It was also hard to keep track of all the characters. But now that I can remember them all, I would love to go back and re-read it. It wasn't a really fast read, but very enjoyable. I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.