This book was amazing!!!! I loved it!!! This is the first mystery book I have read in a while, and I am very glad I read it!! The main reason I loved it so much is because all of the pieces of everything came together, like math. All of the clues added up into the final solution. Additionally, I loved the plot of the story. A young girl who lives at a boarding house is murdered. A detective and a midwife are trying to solve her murder. When I first picked up this book, I just thought it would be a simple murder mystery. They try to find the killer by looking at clues and stuff like that. It was nothing like that at all. The midwife recognized the girl as the sister of an old friend the night before the murder and that is how she got involved. The girl was actually very rich and had run away from a country home her father had sent her to. The detective and midwife question all of the servants and her groom (horse person) and family. In the middle of the book, you find out her father was setting up a marriage between the girl, Alicia, and a sixty year old lawyer. I found that absolutely repulsive and so did the midwife, Sarah. I also learned, toward the end of the book, that Alicia's father, Mr. VanDamm, had had a sexual relationship with his eldest daughter, Mina, and then Mina had Alicia. He also had a sexual relationship with Alicia, who had been pregnant at the time of her death. Sarah and the detective are trying to find the killer and the father of Alicia's baby during the whole book. They found in the second to last chapter. This book takes place in around 1900 and I got to learn the massive cultural difference from then and now. They have servants and butlers and maids and the marriage and sex ideas are very different from now. I think it is disgusting and so do most people now, but the culture was different back then and this may have not been as repulsive as it is now. The poor were not well respected at all. Sarah's mother is very wealthy and her maid gives Sarah a look when she wants to visit her mother because of her clothing. Overall, I loved this book and hope to read more from this author in the near future.
I just finished this book and it was pretty good! The plot was very interesting and kind of weird. David Henry gave his baby girl with down syndrome to a nurse to take the baby to an institution. The nurse, Caroline, ended up raising the baby as her own. David didn't tell his wife about giving the baby up, he told her she died. I have no idea what David thought this would solve. He should have told his wife from the beginning. Throughout the book, you see the girl, Phoebe, growing up the nurse and Phoebe's twin, Paul, growing with David and his wife, Norah. The book gets boring at several points because the author just seems to ramble and say stuff that doesn't seem to matter. Both children grow up not knowing the other is alive, but Caroline and David send each other letters to communicate: Caroline tells him about Phoebe and he sends her money to help with Phoebe. The title is what is because this talks a lot about photography and David's camera is called the memory keeper. A lot of learning takes place based on photographs. David is also a photographer. Reading this book, I also get to learn about how mental diseases are treated during the 1960s. Caroline finds it very hard to get Phoebe into school and doesn't have that much faith in her. She is very scared about Phoebe leaving their home, which every parent is, but especially scared because of her down syndrome. I think she should give Phoebe more freedom and trust that she raised her the right way. Paul is also very good because he really wants to help Phoebe and learn about her and take care of her. You also see the lack of trust in David and Paul's relationship because David doesn't rust Paul's musical talent to get him through life, but Paul still pursues music and has a great life. The lack of trust and fighting over Paul's future destroys their relationship. Some parts of this book were very easy to get through and exciting, but a lot of it was boring, but I still am glad I read the book
Here is the link to the review: http://www.cnn.com/books/reviews/9805/06/index.html
Stephanie Bowen says "Morrie speaks to every person because he is every person. He had led a simple yet meaniningful life that inspires you to live yours to the fullest. Perhaps his story is more powerful because you're not only taking in his wisdom, but you are experiencing his death." I personally loved this book and I completely agree with this statement. Morrie is a regular human being, who was very wise and helpful. He was also very optimistic, even through his terrible situation. He was a regular person. the only diffrence was that he has a very diffrent outlook on life then most people. He also had a similiar life style to most people,"simple yet meaningful" as the Bowen says it is, but he was opptimistic through everything. I also agree with what she said about the book being so powerful because you didn't only learn Morrie's wisdom, you also experienced his death. In addition to this statement, I think it makes it as powerful as it is because of the way he handles his body's deterioration and knowing that he was dying very quickly. Most people, when they heard they had ALS, the disease Morrie had, would have given up on life, but Morrie kept going. I think that is what the book so powerful and his optimism.
I just finished this book and absolutely loved it!!!! This is also my second memoir that I have finished in a row. I realized that I really like depressing memoirs. This book was one of the best I've ever read. After reading this book, I have a new outlook on life. Morrie is incredibly sick and dying very quickly, but he makes the best out of his illness and keeps moving forward and sharing his wisdom. Most people would give up on life once they found out they were going to die and had a specific amount of time left with the people they loved, but not Morrie. He is rapidly losing control over his body, but instead of giving up keeps on going. Mitch Albom reconnects with his beloved professor, Morrie, after sixteen years without seeing him. He was very close with Morrie during college, but afterwards began to only focus on his career and material things and lost touch with Morrie, but after seeing a special on TV about Morrie he finds his old profesor and begins to reconnect with him. Every Tuesday, Mitch flies over to Morrie's home and they talk about a specific topic like family, death and forgiveness. Mitch's values begin to change after he begins to talk with Morrie. As he sees Morrie's body deteriorating , he sees that Morrie's spirit is always there. This was a very touching and inspiring book and I'm very glad I read it!
I started this book a week ago. I had heard from people that it was good and I wanted to read a mystery. Also, I knew it became a successful movie. When I started reading, I realized that it was really hard to get into. A few things happen at the same time and it just switches to random things. For example, they talk about the curator case and Robert Langdon, the curator got killled and Robert Langdon is supposed to help figure it out, and then they switched to these random people. It was really confusing. I decided to abandon it. I also realized how long it was, and I knew that I would not finish it for a while.
I absoulutely love this book! I am incredibly close to finishing it! (I only have 50 pages left) This book is about a family that is living in poverty and they travel around the country to flee people who are after them. These people are not mentioned much but were mentioned a few times in the beginning. It is the story of a girl, Jennette, grwoing in poverty and traveling with her lazy, but artistic mother, her drunk father, her artistic sister, Lori, her tough little brother, Brian, and her cute, perfect little sister, Maureen. They usually have a very unsturdy home and not a lot to eat and not a lot of money. They lived in one nice house, but they decided they didn't like it anymore and left. At this point, they are living in a larger shack with no indoor plumbing and tons of holes in the ceiling. They have had, at several points, nothing to eat and having to look in the garbage at school for food. They struggle to find money too. Their dad usually spends most of their money on beer and cigarettes, while their mom lies around the house or paints. The dad sometimes does "odd jobs" as Jennette calls them, but does not have a steady one. He ruins important things in their lives like burning the Christmas tree and presents and taking all of the money out of the kids money stash. The mom has had jobs as a teacher, but this time just got too lazy to actually do the work. On the other hand, Lori, Brian, and Jennette are trying very hard to get money and are working and trying to make good lives for themselves. This book is a memoir and I have no idea how Jennette and her family survived living like this. I really don't think I would have been able to. It kills me that millions of people live like this now. This book took place in the 1960s and people still like live this. Some of the prices in this book really surprised me like an apartment for $75 a month and that she could get 4 gifts for her family for a dollar. I think that it has the title it has because these kids just want a steady home and the Glass Castle is the house their dad promised to build them, but never did. I love this book and I can't wait to finish it!
This book is still amazing! I have about 100 pages to go and am very excited to find out what happens in the end! Throughout the part I read, Gus and Michael begin to talk a lot about what has happened in their lives. They both really need to talk about Emily's death and Chris's jail experiences, but their spouses refuse to talk about what has happened. James is acting like nothing happened because that is how he was raised: in a bad situation, pretend like it never happened. Melanie is trying to keep her daughter's death off her mind as much as possible and refuses to talk about it. This is very understandable, but how can you keep something this important and upsetting to yourself for so long? Melanie also does not want to believe that her daughter was suicidal, so she assumes that Chris killed her. She treated him like a son before Emily's death and really cares about him. She is taking her anger out on Gus. She refuses to even speak to Gus because she "thinks" that Chris killed her daughter. Additionally, we learn that Chris never even knew that Emily was pregnant and Chris's lawyer, Jordan, is using this as one of the main defenses. This would most likely be the only reason Chris would actually kill Emily: he wouldn't want her to have the baby and then would have killed her, but he didn't even know. Jordan's investigator, Selena, also goes to Emily's school to talk to Emily's art teacher, Emily was a great artist, about Emily. She sees a painting of skulls, red and black that is labeled "Self portrait". This is a very good sign that Emily was suicidal and did kill herself that night and Chris didn't. He loved her more then anything and said he would have married her if she would have had the baby. Emily knew that he would do this (she wrote it in her journal), so that might have been the reason she killed herself.
