Peeking Between the Pages

...escape into the pages of a good book

2009 Book Reviews

Book Review: 10 Days Anne Frank by David Colbert

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10 Days Anne Frank~What a powerful book! To be honest I’ve read a few books on Anne Frank~The Diary of Anne Frank and Anne Frank Remembered~and they are all powerful stories. Most people know the story of Anne Frank but if you don’t you really should pick up one of these three novels and learn a bit about this really amazing girl.

Anne Frank was a young girl of eleven when the first stirrings of war began. Her parents are whispering a lot and her father seems nervous. He’s usually the calm one, the one in control. Anne is becoming scared that something is wrong. She knows that her father is worried because The Netherlands have surrendered to the German army and there are German soldiers out in the streets, but to her Nazis are just the bad guys she hears about when listening to the radio up until now. Mr. Frank regrets not sending his girls, Anne and Margot, to England where they would have been safe.

The year is now 1942, Anne is about to be thirteen years old. She’s living in a world where she has to go to a new school that is designed to keep the Jewish children away from all the others. She doesn’t see her old friends anymore~the one’s that aren’t Jewish. She must also wear a star on all her clothes now distinguishing her as a Jew. They were pretty much forbidden to do anything that might put them in contact with non-Jews.

It’s still 1942 and the Frank family is now going into hiding in the Secret Annex. This is a hidden space in the building where Mr. Frank has his business. They’ve got the ammenities like bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms but the one thing they don’t have is freedom. During the day they must be very quiet so that the workers don’t hear them and they can’t leave~it would jeopardize their safety in the annex.
Eventually in 1944, The Franks and the others hiding with them are found. They are first taken to Westerbork, a work camp. They are known as ‘Criminal Jews’ because they had gone into hiding instead of surrendering in the beginning of the war meaning they receive less food and are not permitted to stay together as a family. Later they are transported in horrible conditions on a train to Auschwitz. Anne never sees her father again.

The conditions are horrible, the work is hard. Auschwitz was built to kill people as quickly and efficiently as possible~up to 2000 at a time. By 1945 Anne is very ill as is her sister Margot. A typhus epidemic has been spreading throughout the camp. Anne hasn’t seen her mother for a while; she presumes she is already dead. With the Allied forces only weeks away from liberating the camp, both Anne and her sister pass away. Anne Frank was fifteen years old.

The reading level for this book is geared towards 9-12 year olds but reads just fine for an adult audience as well. This story is told to us as the events of these 10 Days being the days that not only changed Anne’s world, but ours as well. I’ve read quite a few novels now on the Holocaust and I’m always just as horrified and heartbroken each time I read something else~the pain for the Jewish people who endured this doesn’t go away. I am so sorry that these atrocities happened to them and again reading more of Anne’s story just drives that home again. With this book you really get more of a view of how Anne felt about what was going on around her. Later, her father who did survive, will be given Anne’s diary. Finally he will feel strong enough to read it and know that he has to get Anne’s story published~just as she would have wanted.

Finally, to end this post I’d like to share the description on the back cover…

‘A Wrenching Decision
~to flee Germany,

A Chilling Letter
~that sent her family into Hiding,

The gift of her one true confidante-
~her Diary

A Sickening Betrayal
~to the Nazis,

~and a tragedy in the concentration camps

~just before Liberation.

These days and five others shook Anne’s world—and yours.’

May we never forget the horrors suffered by these brave people and may we never have to see something like this happen again.
Another review of this novel is over at Diary of an Eccentric. Both Anna and The Girl give us their views on this heartbreaking story.
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Book Review: Grayrider by Bruce Skye

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Grayrider by Bruce Skye is the first in the Deathsong Chronicles and was really an enjoyable read for me. It’s mythical fantasy with magic and medieval fighting, kings and sorceresses—totally my idea of a good story to completely sweep me up in another world.

We are taken to the land of Boadhagh and there we first meet Gabriel who is actually Grayrider, an exiled king. He’s come to warn King Airell of impending danger from the Ansgarian army. This is the same army that murdered his family and he is full of rage and revenge towards them and their ruler, the evil sorceress Morrigan. King Airell hasn’t enough men to fight though and this is where Grayrider comes in to the picture with his fire snorting horse, Windfire and his green glowing sword, Deathsong.

At this point also we are introduced to Princess Deirdre, King Airell’s daughter. She had left home because she didn’t want to be Queen after her father’s death. Instead she wanted to explore her magical abilities. She was eventually approached by the evil sorceress Morrigan and became and apprentice to her not knowing who this woman really was or how evil. When Deirdre discovers that this powerful sorceress is actually Morrigan she knows she must leave and reach her father to warn him of the attack.

Gabriel and Deirdre join forces to defeat Morrigan. They head up to the Pass to join up with Kalen, leader of Airell’s army. From here the story really takes off and becomes a fast paced trip through the planning of the battles and the actual fighting. Along the way Deirdre is casting spells left and right to affect the weather or to protect soldiers. She saves Gabriel’s life more than once by placing a protective shield around him. All the while, she is gaining confidence in her magical abilities. The story culminates in an plot twisting finale that I wasn’t expecting but thoroughly enjoyed.

What I really liked was the classy and effortless romance that Bruce Skye weaved throughout this novel between Gabriel and Deirdre. It’s so well done that it was a pleasure to read it and more than once it brought a smile to my lips. One such piece that made me smile was this little romantic scene…

  • ‘”Kiss me Gabriel.” If the circumstances had been different, she would have laughed at his shocked expression. Deirdre put her arms around his neck. “Kiss me.” He obeyed. The kiss was tentative and hesitant. “Do it again. Do it as if you mean it. Do it as if you want to be involved with me.” “I do not know if—” “Gabriel, you fear being in love. That does not mean you are not. So confront it and kiss me.” He did so. It was far more passionate this time. He held her tightly to him. She swayed a moment afterward when he released her, the kiss was so intense. “You did well,” she said, breathlessly. “You did very well indeed.” “The fear is lessening. You are right.” “Good. Then kiss me until it goes away completely.” He did and the candle was nearly spent before he left to return the pitcher and mugs to the pub.”

Gabriel is such an honest and endearing man that you can just picture him in the scene above feeling hesitant. He is one of those men in a book that you cheer for because he is honorable and respectful and sweet on top of it all. I was rooting for him and Deirdre all the way. The author completely draws you into this story and this romance. I excitedly turned each page quickly in an effort to find out what was going to happen next and wasn’t disappointed.

I will be anxiously watching for the next installment in the Deathsong Chronicles which will be called Hard-Favour’d Rage and then the third being, A Dragon’s Wrath with a fourth in the works also called Fortune’s Fool. I can’t wait to swept back into this fantastical world.

Many thanks to Bruce Skye for this wonderful fantasy story and to Dorothy Thompson at Pump Up Your Book Promotion for sending me this great book. You can visit Bruce Skye’s website here. Please join me tomorrow when Bruce will stop by with a guest post here at Peeking Between the Pages.


Visit Pump Up Your Book Promotion here.

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Book Review: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

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Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay is another one of my favorite reads of this year. It is a powerful story that led my emotions on a roller coaster ride. The author completely draws you into this story; so much so that you can feel the story come alive in your mind—you can feel the pain and horrors that the Jewish people went through and you weep tears for them. The story alternates between Sarah back in 1942 and Julia Jarmond in 2002. The way their stories will come together is truly fascinating.

The story starts with ten year old Sarah waking up to pounding on her apartment door. It is the French police. They order her and her mother to get dressed and come with them. In the meantime Sarah’s little brother hides in this secret cupboard in their bedroom. Sarah locks him in and promises she’ll be back as soon as the police release them. This never happens and we don’t find out anything about Sarah’s brother until the end of the story.

Sarah and her parents are taken in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup that night and taken to the velodrome where they are kept in horrific conditions for days without food or drink with thousands and thousands of other Jewish people. Many die there. Later they are taken away again, this time for the death camps. Sarah manages to escape though and her journey to survive is terrifying. Her only thought is to get back to her brother like she promised.

The other viewpoint in the novel is Julia Jarmond, a journalist living in Paris. She’s given the assignment of writing about the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup for the sixtieth anniversary of it’s occurrence. Julia is horrified by what she learns as she had never known that this even happened before being assigned this story. It seems that the roundup of the Jews is never spoken about. Julia pushes on though and does more research. What she ends up finding she could never have imagined–Sarah’s story has such a deep connection with her husband’s family. Julia finds herself really caring about Sarah’s story and needing to find some closure in it for herself.

This novel is very emotional and really not an easy read. There is a lot of disturbing material to get through. Is it a good read and one worth reading–absolutely! It’s also an important book as how many people are out there who didn’t know about this roundup of Jewish people in 1942? I’ve read books on the Holocaust but have never heard of this happening. I was horrified and heartbroken. The story is very well written and never confusing even with jumping into the past and present.

I participated in a chat for this novel and more of my thoughts can be seen in a few of the posts I did here, here and here. To end, I’d like to leave off with a quote that is extremely important. This is a book I won’t soon forget, if ever.
  • ‘Zakhor, Al Tichkah. Remember. Never forget. In Hebrew.’ (pg 288, taken from ARC copy, final published copy may be different)
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Book Review: The Only True Genius in the Family by Jennie Nash

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The Only True Genius in the Family by Jennie Nash to me felt like a real story with real people. It’s all about relationships with yourself and your family. I felt like this was such an honest story with real emotions and it hooked me in wanting to see how it would come to an end. I was sorry to see this novel end. I still would have liked to know more about how the family continued on healing and living.

The novel is centered on Claire who is a photographer that takes pictures of food for cookbooks and such yet doesn’t really see herself as an artist because of this. Her daughter Bailey is a wonderful painter—a young star about to rise. There is also Harrison and though he’s not a main character I still felt he plays a big role as he’s a huge part of keeping his family together.

The novel starts with the suicide of Claire’s father who was a famous photographer—he was considered a genius. He made beautiful pictures that made people stop and stare, as in this passage which has stuck with me because the author has so vividly painted it in my mind…it is a famous photo Claire’s father took of a buffalo in a thunderstorm…
  • ‘The animal was walking straight toward the viewer through a night that was murky, misty, hazy, wet. It looked like an apparition, like a giant creature coming out of the gloom with not entirely benign intentions. Its shoulders were enormous. Its fur was matted and wet. It looked like something that would be stalking this earth for another few millennia.’ (This passage is taken from an ARC copy and may be different in the final published copy)

For me, this book is very much about the intricacies of relationships. Claire and her father, Claire and her husband Harrison, Claire and her daughter Bailey and even Claire with herself.

It all starts with Claire never having had a close relationship with her father. He left the family when Claire was young and he wasn’t the type of man who could show his emotions well as Claire grew up. Therefore, she grew up not feeling loved by him and actually belittled by him because he felt his genius had skipped her generation and fallen upon her daughter Bailey instead. Bailey is beautiful and outgoing and you get the strong feeling of maybe jealousy on the part of Claire that Bailey has had everything she’s ever wanted including the love of her father. With her husband, while they have a good and comfortable relationship she wonders if he’ll ever actually be able to get inside her skin—or would they remain distanced in that way. Claire’s relationship with Bailey is such a rocky one. Sure Claire makes mistakes—some serious ones where Bailey is concerned—but at times Bailey could be so harsh towards her mother that it hurt me. I wonder if some of Claire’s father’s attitudes had rubbed off on Bailey since she had spent so much time with him.

Ultimately, after spending time getting her father’s things arranged after his death, Claire finds out things about him that she never knew before. These things bring her to an important understanding about her father and towards her father. She knows that they had more in common with each other than she had ever dared to hope and I think this brings her comfort and more of a plan of where to go with her future.

Jennie Nash’s writing is beautiful-it was like a bouquet of words to me. The sentences and thoughts just flow one into another. Photography is a huge part of this book as are descriptions and this is something that I really enjoyed. I love when an author can take words and make them into something I can feel in my soul when I read them. Another passage I want to share is, of course, about food. Here Claire is reading a menu that is posted on a cafe window…

  • ‘…almond biscotti dipped in Valrhona dark chocolate, mango sorbet with coconut crisps, creme brulee with fresh raspberry coulis. I imagined exactly the way each of them looked—the precise way that the almonds in the biscotti winked as if they were knowing eyes, the way the coconut stuck out of the crisps like wisps of wayward hair, the way the coulis pooled around the creme brulee as if the dessert were a little island in a sea of summer.’ (This passage is taken from an ARC copy and may be different in the final published copy)

Her words truly brought about such vivid scenes in my mind. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys photography mixed in with a real life kind of story that touches your heart along the way. This book reminded me of the importance of capturing memories in film and telling the people you love that you love them before it’s too late.

Thank you Jennie for the opportunity to review this wonderful book. I truly enjoyed it. You can visit Jennie’s website here and make sure to come back tomorrow to Peeking Between the Pages for a guest post from Jennie. Jennie’s book is available to purchase today, February 3 and can be ordered here in the US and here in Canada.

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Book Review: Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina Lopez

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Hungry Woman in Paris is the debut novel from Josefina Lopez who is best known for her critically acclaimed screenplay Real Women Have Curves.

This novel follows Los Angeles journalist Canela who is depressed after losing her cousin and best friend Luna to suicide. She is sick and tired of her job that censors everything she wants to say, she is tired of her interferring family, she is frustrated with the politics of her country and she doesn’t want to get married either to top off the list.

Thus begins her journey to Paris. She breaks off her engagement to her fiance Armando who is every woman’s dream just not hers. While being completely depressed and trying to fight off La Cala Flaca who is a figment of her imagination but nevertheless shows up whenever Canela has had life throw at her something that she just can’t handle, she finds the tickets to Paris that were supposed to be for her honeymoon. She decides to use them and get away from it all.

She meets up with her friend Rosemary when she gets there and they spend the week together in the honeymoon suite enjoying themselves. After the week though Canela just can’t see herself going back to LA-she hates everything there. Instead she picks up the phone, calls Rosemary, and ends up at her tiny apartment. Eventually Rosemary leaves to go back to the States as her mother is ill and Canela stays on in her apartment. However Canela doesn’t have much time left that she can legally stay in Paris. Lucky for her she learns that she can stay a year in Paris if she enrolls in and pays fully for the course at this world-class cooking school, Le Coq Rouge. So, this is exactly what she does.

This book is called Hungry Woman in Paris for more reasons than the cooking. There are *sex scenes, plenty of *sexual innuendo and bad language throughout. It is definitely not a book for the faint hearted but if you can handle material such as this it is a good read. It’s not my favorite but it did hold my attention and keep me reading. There is also plenty of digs at the politics of the US which fairly float over my head since I’m a Canadian. The parts I enjoyed the most were the parts taking place at the cooking school with the hussle and bussle of the classes and the food talk.

If you can look beyond the above, the character of Canela herself is likeable. She’s like a lost soul trying to find herself and we’ve all been there at one point or another. She has issues with her mother, her life, her job; she doesn’t know what will make it better anymore or what will bring the passion back to her life. The book is told in kind of a continuous thought pattern and at times it’s hard to follow. Several times throughout the novel though I found myself laughing out loud. I have to say also that the cover of this novel really caught my attention. I thought it was beautiful. So, to sum things up, by staying in Paris and enrolling in the cooking school, Canela ends up finding what she needs to start putting the pieces of her life back together.

Many thanks to Miriam at Hachette Books for sending me this advanced reader’s copy. This book will be released on March 9, 2009.

Other bloggy friend opinions can be found over at Mo’s from Un-Mainstream Mom Reads

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Book Review: Coraline by Neil Gaiman

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Coraline by Neil Gaiman had been making the rounds on the blogs and I was really curious about it. So, finally I picked it up at the library and gave it a read.

The book starts with Coraline and her parents moving into an older apartment complete with a lot of odd neighbors. Coraline is bored. She’s not in school and her parents are always too busy to do anything with her.

So of course Coraline wants to find something to do or something to explore. Now in her apartment there is this closed door that when opened is covered in bricks. Behind that door ends up being another world that is eerily the same as her old one with some strange differences like toys that are alive and dancing rats. Not to mention that she has another mother and father who look just like hers except for the black button eyes.

However, here she has all the attention she could want along with lots of good food and nicer clothes. Things are ok until she decides that she’d still rather be back at her real home with her real parents. This does not go over well with the ‘other mother’. She wants to keep Coraline all to herself. They end up in a battle of wills for Coraline to get back her freedom to live in her real world.

You know this book is classed for a younger audience, ages 9-12 I believe. Well I’m here to say that it scared the pants off me. I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite book but it was ok for me. It did however creep me out. The rats that are alive and there is all this fog outside and at one point Coraline gets locked in a closet. Sheesh, if I was her age I would have died of fear. I enjoyed how Coraline was portrayed in the book as a young, brave girl and not the kind to go hide under the bed screaming (hmmmm, maybe like I would have). One thing that has stayed with me long after reading the book (I finished it the other day) is the black button eyes on the ‘other mother’. That picture is still vivid in my mind and truthfully I still find it scary.

Here are some of my bloggy friend’s reviews on this novel:
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