2017 Challenge - Book #58 - Christ in Concrete

Today's review is for a book called:  Christ in Concrete

It was under the category: A Book About an Immigrant/Refuge to the US

This book takes place in the 1920s.  Although it is written as a fictional story, it is based on events that happened to the author as a boy.  The main character is a 12 year old boy whose father dies in a horrific building collapse and is entombed in concrete on Good Friday.  The father has a brother, Luigi, who promises to help the family, but he goes to work and is injured to the point that he can no longer work.  The 12 year old boy, Paul, has to go to work as a bricklayer to support his mother and his siblings.  He has to leave school and work construction - not the life he had envisioned.  Because Paul is so young, he gets paid very little as a bricklayer.  He soon overworks himself trying to make enough money, and has to leave a job.

Soon he finds a better paying brick-layer job and then later beings working on skyscrapers.  He talks about working above "the toy world below".  A close friend of his, and mentor falls to his death while working at one of the job sites and Paul decides at this point he no longer believes in God.  With the death of his father and then of a close friend, he finds no reason for faith.  His mother is upset with his decision, and Paul tries to make it up to her.

This book is labeled a classic, and I tried to like it.  I liked the idea of it, and a lot of the story.  I had a hard time with the writing.  I keep coming back to these books - written in the late 1800s and early 1900s and think I can make it work, but I can't.  I struggled with this one, even though it wasn't even 250 pages.

My grandparents were Italian immigrants.  They came here and worked in the mines and in the mills of Pennsylvania.  There lives were hard, so it did ring true to me how hard immigrants who come to America have it.  Some make it - like my grandparents - and some don't.  All work was dangerous, low pay, and unforgiving.  So I was drawn to this story because of my own background.  However - that darn writing style.

Anyway - if you aren't a big baby like I am, and enjoy the writing style of the early 20th century - don't pass up this book.

Stars: 3

2017 Challenge- Book #57 - The 500 Years of Resistance

Today's review is for a little book called

The 500 Years of Resistance

This was under the category:  A Book About an Indigenous Culture

This book was about the Indigenous people's resistance to the Europeans coming to America.  It covers the time from Christopher Columbus to the year 2006.  It is a graphic novel depicting the Native Americans fighting back against the white settlers who took their land.

Not much to say about this short 80 page graphic novel.  The author - who is Native American - glosses over 500 years of Indigenous people history.  He moved so fast from one event to the other, it was hard to make sense of the book.  I think if he would have broken it up into several graphic novels, it would have held more weight for me.  I didn't get much out of it, or learn much about the history he was trying to depict, because there just wasn't enough detail.

Stars:  2

2017 Challenge - Book #56 - One Plus One

Today's review is for

One Plus One

This was under the category:  First book you see in the bookstore

This is the story of a family in crisis.  The main character, Jess's husband left her, her step-son has been abandoned by both his father and his mother and left in Jess' care and he is constantly getting beat up by the neighborhood bullies because of the way he dresses; her 10 year old daughter is a math prodigy who doesn't fit in anywhere.  Jess cleans houses and works at a bar just to get by, and she is barely doing that. 

Then a chance for her daughter to go to a prestigious school comes along, and Jess wants to make it possible for her daughter to attend.  Her daughter gets a chance to go to a math Olympiad where she can win $5000 which would pay for her daughter's tuition.  Only problem is - the Olympiad is in Scotland and they don't have anyway to get there.  Along comes Ed who owes Jess a favor.  Ed, a wealthy businessman needs to escape his own problems, so he agrees to drive Jess, her two kids, and their dog to the Olympiad.  What happens on the trip changes all of their lives.

This was a great book.  I love Jojo Moyes - she is a great writer.  The story was well written and very sweet.  She developed the characters well.  It is a thick book, but the story was so good, that it only took me a few days to read it.

Grab this book.  Even though it has a lot of pages, it is an easy and enjoyable read.

Stars: 5

2017 Challenge - Book #55 - Ready Player One

Today's review is for

Ready Player One

This was under the category: A Book That is Becoming a Movie This Year

**Side note - when I picked this, it WAS becoming a movie in 2017.  Now it is being moved to 2018

This is the dystopian future story that takes place in the year 2044.  The world is in terrible shape.  Most people are very very poor and live in "stacks" which are mobile homes one on top of the other.  The main character - Wade - doesn't live with his parents.  He was taken in by an aunt after his parents left him.  The aunt could care less about him - sees him as just another mouth to feed.  To escape his reality, Wade does what most people do these days - escape into a computer world called the Oasis.  He even attends school there.  This world has 1000s of planets and lets people be anonymous and anyone they wish to be.

When the developer of the Oasis dies, he leaves his entire fortune to a winner of a game he has designed.  The first person to finish the game in the Oasis, wins billions of dollars.  The trick is - the developer was fascinated with the 1980s, so the player has to be knowledgeable of everything and anything in that decade.  It takes 5 years for someone to finally break through the first clue of the puzzle the developer has set up, and then it is a race to the finish line.

This was a pretty decent book.  My husband really liked it, so he encouraged me to read it.  AND, since it is being made into a movie, I decided to give it a shot.  I like the idea of the book, and I liked the characters.  The flaw I found was - everything works out for Wade.  His character in the Oasis always escapes problems, gets enough money, becomes invincible.  There really wasn't a challenge, per say, for Wade because he could do anything he wanted inside the Oasis.  It just seemed to be a bit of a far stretch.  Other than that - good read.  If you are a fan of the 1980s, I say you should give it a try.

Stars:  4

2017 Challenge - Book #54 - Promise Not To Tell

Today's book is called: Promised Not To Tell

This was under the category: A Book With a Protagonist That Has Your Occupation


This is the story of Kate Cypher (who is a nurse....like me).  She has returned to her childhood home when she gets a call from folks who live near her mother saying her mom is sinking into Alzheimers and can no longer care for herself.  Her mother set her house on fire, and so Kate is not faced with the task of putting her mom in a nursing home.  On the night she arrives, a little girl is murdered, and it mirrors a murder that happened to one of Kate's friends when she was a child.  The killer of Kate's friend, Del, was never found, but now the police are searching for either a copy cat murderer or Del's killer.  Kate becomes wrapped up in finding out who killed the little girl figuring it will lead her to Del's killer.

This was a pretty good book.  It is a really quick, short book.  The story flips back and forth between 1971 - the year Del was killed, and 2002 - the year the other girl is killed.  Kate is remembering her friendship with Del and the guilt that she has thinking it was her fault that Del was killed.

I encourage you to read this book - it was well written and wrapped up nicely in the end.  Check it out!

Stars: 4

2017 Challenge - Book #53 - Choosing To See

Today's book review is Choosing to See

This is in the category:  A Book You Saw Someone Reading in Public

This is a book about the life of the author, Mary Beth Chapman.  She is the wife of Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman.  They adopted 3 girls from China and one of the girls was tragically killed when she was just 5 years old.  She wrote the book about 2 years after Maria's death to help her through the grieving process.

I was hoping to like this book more than I did.  We adopted our Cainan from Hunan in 2007, and I followed Mary Beth Chapman's journey and blog during that time.  I kept following for awhile after her daughter Maria was killed, but then life got in the way, and I lost track of her.  I saw someone reading this book on the subway in Boston one day, and I thought I would see what it was about.

It had its good parts.  It talked about the accident and how their family was working through it.  But it was an overly religious book, and not well written.  I have read other books that were religious, but this one was just......not good.  It was over the top and just made me roll my eyes constantly.  So - I don't recommend it.

Stars: 2

2017 Challenge - Book #52 - Born a Crime

Today's review is for

Born a Crime

It was under the category: A Book Written By a Celebrity

Trevor Noah grew up in South African during the end of apartheid.  He was the son of a black mother and a white father, which - at that time - was a crime.  His parents never were married, and he lived with his mother, but his father was always in his life.

Trevor talks a lot about how it was growing up in a house with a strict mother who wanted him to have everything she didn't.  Trevor was a mischievous young boy and young man who even spent a week in jail for petty crime.  But he got out and made something of himself and he says he owes that all to his mother.

This was a good book.  Mat and I watch Trevor Noah nightly on Comedy Central.  Now that I know his history and how he grew up poorer than poor in South Africa and what it was like to be half black and half white in a world that didn't know what to make of him.  Today he identifies himself as a black man, but when he tried to enforce that identity as a young man, it backfired.

I encourage you to read this book.  Unlike most celebrity books I have read where the people had pretty decent childhoods and lives, this one was devastating to read.  The stories are truly unbelievable.

Stars:  4 1/2