2017 Challenge - Book #12 - A Man Called Ove

Today I am going to review

A Man Called Ove

This is in the category:  A Book That Won An Award for Best Translation


This is a story of a man named Ove.  He is a grumpy 59 year old man that has always thrived on order and rules.  He likes a quiet life and likes to be left alone.  His life was turned upside down 6 months ago when his wife died.  He has decided to end his own life, but things keep getting in the way.

Soon - new neighbors move next door - a young couple and their two young girls who immediately take a liking to Ove.  Ove doesn't know what to make of this attention from his neighbors, and before long, he finds himself intertwined in many of his neighbors lives and realizes that there is still much to live for.

This is a wonderful story.  It is funny and endearing and sweet all at once.  Ove is hilarious as a little old man who just wants everyone to do their job and follow the rules.  He is always on the lookout for thieves and people who insist on driving their car in his neighborhood that doesn't allow cars.  He can't get rid of a stray cat who he names "Cat Annoyance".

Ove helps people but grumps about it.  But the main theme is that he can't help himself being a good person because that is who his wife saw him as.  He honors her memory by being the man she always saw him to be and in the end, all of his neighbors become his friends.

GREAT story.  Check it out.

Stars:  5

2017 Challenge - Book #11 - The Girl You Left Behind

Today I am going to review


The Girl You Left Behind

This was under the category:  A Book About Women In War

This is the story of Sophie Lefrevre during World War I.  The Germans have invaded France, and her husband has been taken off to fight.  She moves to a small town to help her sister and her sister's children and run their families hotel and restaurant.  The German Kommandant has taken a liking to Sophie and a painting she has kept in her house.  It is a painting her husband - an artist - did of her before he left.  She goes down a dangerous road with this Kommandant in the hopes she can save her husband, and it leads to her being sent away from her sister.

The other main character in this story is Liv Halston.  In Liv's house hangs this painting of Sophie.  She and her husband bought it while on their honeymoon.  Now that Liv's husband has past away, she has become attached to the one last thing that reminds her of her husband.  It has been several years since he has done, and a chance meeting of a new guy who brought life to Liv once again leads to trouble with the painting.

This book has its good parts, but the parts with Liv just drove me crazy.  The story of WWI and Sophie and her family and their struggles to survive while the Germans were stripping them of everything they own, was well told and intriguing.  The story of Liv just didn't make much sense.  She was extremely attached to this painting and when the family comes looking for it - because it was thought to be stolen by the Germans in 1919 - she has a fit and doesn't want to give it up.  She ends up having to sell her house and uses almost all of her money over a painting she bought for $300 10 years ago.

While I understood in the end a BIT where she was coming from, the reality of this is - if you have a painting in your house that was stolen by Germans from people who were held captive and you had a chance to give it back.....you give it back.  This part of the story just made me roll my eyes one too many times to make me recommend this book.  IT is a shame, really, because like I said - the parts about Sophie were really good.

Stars: 2 1/2

2017 Challenge - Book #10 - The Thirteenth Tale

10 books this month!  Go me.

Today's review is:  The Thirteenth Tale

This was under the category:  A Book With A Number In The Title

This is the story of a recluse author named Vida Winter.  She has been a beloved author her whole career, but now her life is near the end.  She is now ready to release the truth about her life story, which is a tragic past she has never told before.  She calls on Margaret who is a biographer, and someone that can write down her final story before she dies.  Margaret gets drawn into her story.  Vida relives the story of Isabelle and her brother Charlie, twins named Adeline and Emmaline, a ghost who lived on the property, a governess who tried to change the lives of this family forever, and a devastating fire that destroyed it all.

During Margaret's time with Miss Winter, she reveals secrets of her own family and wallows in grief at the loss of her own twin sister.  In the end, Margaret must come to terms with her grief to really understand Vidas story.

This book was good for awhile.  I loved trying to figure out how all of the characters in Vida's story fit together, and where she actually fit in the whole thing.  But Margaret started to become an annoying character, and that basically ruined the book for me.  The author made Margaret a very whiny character about a sibling she never knew.  All of the sudden she NEEDED her, and she MISSED her, and she wanted to be with her.  IT was just weird.  And kind of dumb.  I felt like it distracted from the base story - Vida's.  I don't really think Margaret's story should have been a part of this book - there was enough substance with Vida's to carry it through to the end.

Stars: 2

2017 Challenge - Book #9 - Mockingbird

Today's review is for Mockingbird

This was under the category:  A Book With A Character that Has A Disability

This is a story of a girl who has autism.  She doesn't know it - only is ever told she is "special".  She is in a regular classroom, but spends time daily with a teacher who teachers her the ways of the world.  How to look people in the eye, how to start a friendship, how to curb behaviors that others might not like.  Caitlyn lives with her father.  Her mother had died a few years ago from cancer, and her brother was killed in a school shooting a few months ago.  Her father has closed himself off to the world with grief, and Caitlyn doesn't understand what he is going through.  Caitlyn befriends a 1st grade boy and with him, learns what it is like to develop a friendship with someone who truly likes her for who she is.

This was a pretty good book.  It is written for middle grade, and it is short, so I finished it in a day's time.  I think it is a good introduction into the world of Autism for young students.  The only part I really didn't like is that they never really told Caitlyn she had Autsim.  She would literally say she didn't have it, and the adults would agree with her.  Instead of teaching her what was going on with her had a name and that it was okay to have Autism, they swept it under the rug.  I think that is the wrong message to send.

Stars:  3

2017 Challenge - Book #8 - Packing for Mars

Today's review is for

Packing for Mars

This was under the category: A Nonfiction Book About Science

This book is by a favorite author of mine (who wrote Stiff - you must read it).  Roach delves this time into the world of space travel.  She asks the tough questions like "What happens if you throw up with your space helmet on?"  "How do you survive a year without walking? Regular food?  Sex?"  "What is it like to hit the ground at 15Gs?"  She interviews several people from NASA and Wright Patterson to learn what it is really like to travel in space.

I liked this book.  Roach does get a little more technical than I would have liked, which made me skim a few parts, but for the most part, it was good.  She gets a chance to experience weightlessness, what it is like to have a BM in space, how they decided to package food for space travel, and much more.  Things you would never think of.  Like - they don't take carbonated beverages into space because astronauts cannot burp.  They have people who volunteered to lay 3 months FLAT in bed to test what would happen to astronauts muscles in space.  The astronauts are put through isolation chamber test for 3 months at a time.  Then their are psychoanalyzed - everything from how they set the table to how much food they left on their plates.  Every thing has to be considered because space travel is so dangerous. It cost billions of dollars to send people into space and sometimes it takes 6 years of prep to get them there.  They even analyze what happens to astronauts who can't take a bath for long periods of time since they really can't have water bathing on a ship in space.

I can say I learned a lot and have a lot more respect for the space program and what some of the greatest minds in the world come up with to keep space travel safe.  I recommend giving this book a try.  The humor and information you will know far outweigh the few sections that were a little more in depth than I felt they needed to be.

Stars:  4 1/2

2017 Challenge - Book #7 - Cinder

I read a few pretty quickly and am proud of myself!

Today I am reviewing

Cinder

This was in the category:  A Book With Royalty In It - Real or Imaginary

This is a story of a place called New Bejiing.  There are humans and androids that live together in this world.  A plague has ravaged the human population that has not been controlled or cured.  There are a people that live on the moon and they are called Lunars.  They are ruled by a ruthless queen who wants to take earth for her own.  She tries to persuade the prince to marry her to make peace.  But the prince knows better.

Meanwhile, the main character - Cinder - is a half human/half cyborg girl who lives with her stepmother and two step sisters (do you see where this is going).  Her adoptive father has died and left her in the care of her stepmother, who makes her work to earn her keep.  Cinder is a mechanic in the towns - fixing hover crafts and androids to feed her family.  One day the prince comes into the town market becuase he needs to fix his android.  He is taken by Cinder and her beauty and kindness, but Cinder knows they could never be together.  He can never know her secret that she isn't fully human and has no memory of her childhood.

Cinder befriends a doctor who is looking for a cure and offers to help him when her beloved step sister becomes ill with the plague.  The doctor finds that Cinder is immune to the plague, and needs her blood and DNA to try and figure out how to save the people and stop the disease.  In the process of analyzing Cinder's DNA, the doctor discovers and amazing secret that will change Cinder's life forever.

I really liked this book.  It is definitely a YA novel, and an easy read, but it is well written.  What I DIDN'T like is that it is a cliff hanger.  I didn't realize that this was a trilogy and that the story would not wrap up in the end.  Very frustrating because I don't have time right now to read a trilogy.  I am going to have to put it on my list, though, because I won't be able to stand it.

As you may have picked up - this is basically the story of Cinderella.  Not the first one I have read that has taken that original story and spun it into a different book.  What I liked about this though, is that it was original enough that for a while you could forget that you were reading basically the Cinderella story.  There is no happily ever after at the end of this book.  There is war, and plague, and defeat.   Cinder is a mechanic, and a good one.  Her best friend is an android.  She is skeptical of everyone around her and doesn't see kindness in everyone she meets.

Check it out.  I am hoping the rest of the series is as good as this one.

Stars: 4 1/2

2017 Challenge - Book #6 - Hatchet

Today's book review is for

Hatchet

It was under the category: A Book Set In Canada

This is a story of a 13 year old boy who is in a plane on his way to visit his dad.  His parents are recently divorced, and he is going to be spending the summer with his father in the oil fields of Canada.  He is on a small plane where it is just him and the pilot.  During the flight, the pilot has a heart attack and dies and the boy is left to figure out how to land the plane.  The plane runs out of gas, and crashes near a lake somewhere in the woods of Canada.  He has no idea where he is, and the only thing he has is his Hatchet his mother gave him as a going away present.  The plane has sunk in a lake and he is all alone.

He uses what skills he can to survive for 2 months in the woods alone.  He finds food, figures out how to make a spear, a bow and to hunt.  HE fights off wild animals as well as hoards of mosquitos.

When he is finally rescued, he is a changed person.  He was so angry about his parent's divorce, and he had self pity for himself and realized that in survival there is no time for such things.  It took all of his courage just to survive until he was rescued.

This was a pretty good book.  It is a Newberry award winner, and I can see why.  It is a quick read and definitely written for younger readers.  It was written pretty well, and at less than 200 pages, I was able to finish it in less than 2 days.

I would say check it out, so have your kids read it.  It had a good message.

Stars: 4