Mockingjay

Mockingjay

By: Suzanne Collins

Copyright: 2010

Scholastic Press

3 Bookmarks out of 5

ONCE AGAIN, I WOULD LIKE TO REMIND MY READERS THAT THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS TO THE PLOT OF THE BOOK. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE LAST BOOK OF THE HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY.

I am particularly excited about being done this trilogy finally because I don't usually get caught up in pop culture fads. I ignored Twilight for everything that it's worth because it seemed shallow, superficial, and contained a horrible role model for young girls everywhere. I decided to read the Hunger Games because, like any human, I suppose, curiosity got the better of me. After finishing the 3rd book, it seems appropriate that I can review the characters in a holistic sense since the plot has been resolved.

I realize why this book is so popular to teenage girls and even women who have not gotten over the fawning over boys stage of their lives. Katniss is a 17-year-old girl who has two amazing men who have unrequited love for her. The first one is Gale, her friend from childhood whom she realizes that she is madly in love with. The second boy is Peeta, the person who shared her hardships in the 74th Hunger Games and helped keep her alive. Both of these boys continue to stay with her despite the fact that BOTH of them know she is kissing them behind the respective boy's back. And, despite knowing all of this, they do not ONCE fight each other when standing in the same room. Instead, they resolve to help each other. In the real world, I'm convinced that one of the guys would have ended up in prison because the other one was beat to a bloody pulp. In the same regard, I find it highly disgusting that Katniss uses BOTH boys throughout all the books because she can't, or doesn't want to, make a decision about which boy she really wants to be with. All of this boils down to a horrible love story that drags down the entire series. Gale's love is so hard to believe because if he wanted to protect Katniss, he should have offered himself in Peeta's place in the Games. Peeta's love is so hard to buy into because he loves a girl whom he barely spoke to for five years and it only came up as a possible strategy to win the Games.

All that aside, however, Suzanne Collins manages to pull together a great dynamic of messed-up characters. I'm a true and honest sucker for any book/TV/movie which have characters who have been tortured and near death together and then watch them interact. In the cafeteria when Peeta, Gale, Katniss, Johanna, Finnick, and Annie are all sitting around while Johanna makes the off-handed comment of hearing Peeta's tortured screams and Finnick jokes about how he shouldn't have re-started Peeta's heart, I ate it up. This feels like real people who are brought together by circumstances out of their control but they can barely figure out how to function as real humans anymore. Peeta's transformation is the best in the entire trilogy because he is a character that is so innocent throughout all the books. That innocence is stripped away from him and Collins makes the reader believe it.

The plot of the story resolved as well as anyone could possibly hope it to resolve. It gave the reader peace of mind and I was halfway happy with how it ended. Although, in my own opinion, I'm surprised that Collins decides to have Katniss marry anyone in the epilogue. Throughout the entire book she swears to never marry and to never have children and I found the turn around in character a very odd way to end the trilogy for readers. Just like the epilogue in Harry Potter, the epilogue in Mockingjay gives the readers an unnecessary look into the future. My advice to any reader is to stop with the last sentence of the last chapter because it gives a much more dramatic ending rather than the last sentence of the epilogue which seems halfhearted and fizzes out.

I've also decided how I would re-write the trilogy into one book to save time and effort. This is merely opinion and not really based in fact at all. But if you decide to read it, hey, maybe you will think it's good as well. The only book should have been Hunger Games. Gale goes in instead of Peeta. Katniss and Gale win with the same berry trick. They go back to District 12, not having won over the government in any real sense, but in their own sense and end up together. This way the plot is resolved, they end up together, but the country still has a tyrannical government. This book seems a lot more appropriate to real life, where everyone has their small victories but there are just some things over which you have no control. I would have enjoyed that book a lot as well. All that being said though, the Hunger Games is an enjoyable trilogy that doesn't require much thought but will prove to be highly entertaining as you do read it.

Catching Fire

Catching Fire
By: Suzanne Collins
Copyright: 2008
Scholastic Press

3 Bookmarks out of 5

So, here I am with my review of the 2nd book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I downloaded it to my nook, which my bookshelf is probably happy about because there is precious little space left on it. All things considered, I mainly was sucked into reading it because I bought all three and, well, I finished the first one. Without further ado, I will go into what I thought of it. This may be a short review. THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN PLOT SPOILERS. PLEASE DO NOT READ ANYMORE IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE INFORMED ABOUT ANYTHING IN THE BOOK. NO, SERIOUSLY. I MEAN IT.

Okay, so Catching Fire picks up where the first book left off. What happens to Katniss and Peeta after the Hunger Games? How does life move on? The first part of the book was great as demonstrating how life changed vastly for everyone who was directly connected to Katniss' life. I loved the way Suzanne Collins shows the rift between Gale and Katniss and how life in District 12 is changing now that the Capitol is cracking down on rebels. This felt like a real trilogy in that sense. It was not the same plot, and the characters actually showed some maturation and development. I love how Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch have this unspoken bond that no one else will understand and it is a bond that cannot be broken. As a reader, I eat this stuff up. I mean, my best friends and I have been through some stuff together, but our lives have never really been on the line.

Then, much to my dismay, Catching Fire pulled at Hangover: Part 2 on all of us. It began to feel like the same story-line as the first book. During the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games, President Snow decides to further punish Panem by picking tributes from the existing pool of victors. It doesn't take the reader long to realize that Peeta and Katniss are going back into the arena. Then the book begins the long, arduous process of making sure the reader sits through every single event that happens every year at the Games yet again. The interviews. The training. The tube up to the arena. Please. I read this in the last book. It was called The Hunger Games. I really wanted to read more about what state Panem was in instead of reading about Peeta and Katniss argue over who was going to live this time.

I will say this, though - I had 2 reasons for not throwing my nook down in utter frustration of the similar plots of the two books. The first reason is the fact that I don't want to break my nook. The second reason is that Suzanne Collins put just enough of a twist on the arena to keep my attention. I won't ruin that for any of you who are still reading this review because it is honestly a high point of the book which literally made me go, "OH CRAP" out loud. After the plot did a deja-vu turn, I didn't think that Catching Fire would capture that much of an emotional reaction out of me. Hats off to Suzanne Collins for making 100 pages of mundane story pass by and then suck me right back in.

All that being said, Catching Fire turns out to be exactly what I should have expected it to be - it's the 2nd book of the trilogy. Suzanne Collins uses this book to set up the last book. There is a lot that probably could have been left out and a lot that, in my own opinion, could have been done differently to give the book its own stand-alone flavor rather than piggy-backing off the first book. The present tense is still one of the main pulls of the book and I am excited to see how the plot resolves. If readers push through this book, I'm hoping they will have an ample return in the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy. That review is still to come.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
By: Suzanne Collins
Copyright: 2008
Scholastic Press

4 Bookmarks out of 5

I know. I know. The title of this blog is 'obscure.' And, to be honest, usually I can't afford to buy new books which is why I started this blog. I knew there were other people out there like me who love to read but can't exactly go to Barnes and Noble every week to buy a $15 paperback or a $25 hardback. But, I do own a nook. And nookbooks are usually $8-$10 depending on which ones you buy. The Hunger Games was $7.99 and I knew that I wanted to download it. It's pretty popular right now and I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. I also knew that it's a young adult book and I wanted to go back to the days where I could get lost in a made-up place. I am also a sucker for science-fiction anything. (The Barnes and Noble gift cards for Christmas certainly helped out a great deal.)

I guess I should start by giving a little background. The book takes place in North America in the far distant future where a tyrannical government rules over the country of Panem. There are 12 Districts in the country, from which the main character Katniss comes from District 12. Right off the bat I knew that I would like the people from District 12 because it is centered in what was known as Appalachia. Now, my family is from Appalachia and I know I'm a little biased, but you can't beat the rough and tough people who are from this region. This is probably the only reason I bought into the rough and tough exterior of Katniss and her hunting friend Gale. You'd have to know the history of the region and the people to buy into it. Other than that, the main character is just one more example of the main heroine stripping down her femininity to be masculine and hunt for the survival of her family. After the first few pages getting to know Katniss, my immediate though it was "Here we go again. It's a main character who doesn't play by the rules and gets by with a tough exterior." It was beginning to sound like a lot of television shows that are popular.

But, let's stop and think about the intended audience of this book. I'm a 22-year-old college graduate. This book was not intended for me to be the audience. Suzanne Collins wrote this book and it was marketed as a young adult book. This book's intended audience is 12 to 18 years old. You have to have a character who is 'different' than her surroundings because at that age - let's face it - you feel like you're so alone and that no one understands you besides maybe your best friend. And, let's face it, if the book had me as the main character it would have been pretty boring. If I made it to the Hunger Games (which is a giant battle to the death) it would have been really boring because I would have been killed from the get-go and the story would have lost its main character. That's why the main character Katniss has to be different. And if you go in with that mindset, the rest of the story isn't that hard to digest.

Now, let's talk about the Hunger Games themselves. This isn't a new idea in the world of science-fiction. There seems to be a theme going around in science-fiction that all futuristic governments have some sort of battle to the death. Did anybody see Gamer with Gerard Butler? Same basic concept except that Gerard Butler's character is a criminal and that's why the public justifies seeing normal people murdered for the entire country to see. Suzanne Collins puts just enough of a twist on this concept that you sort of buy into it. These people fighting are children, no older than 18. They have never committed a crime. It strikes you as wrong to take the innocence of these children away.

Probably the strongest part of this novel is the fact that Suzanne Collins writes it in the present tense. It pulls the reader along and creates this sense of actually being there with Katniss and Peeta in the Games themselves. It makes the reader feel like he or she can't put down the book because it feels like the book is being written as you read it. If Collins had written this book in the past tense, it wouldn't have created such a connected feeling with the reader. It would feel as if everything was already planned out and then the reader could just stop whenever he or she felt like because nothing was going to happen that wasn't already written. The present tense just pulled me in and kept me going so much that I finish this book in less than a day.

All in all, I understand why so many people have grown to love this book. It has a plot that pulls the reader in and makes sure the reader reads it until the end. But I can also see why so many people dislike this book. Some parts of it feel fake and the writing is not highly sophisticated. This is not a difficult read by any means. But I stress the importance of keeping in mind the audience that the book was intended to be written. If you go in with that mindset, then I find it hard not to enjoy this book and I look forward to the next two books in the trilogy.

Hiroshima Diary

Hiroshima Diary: The Unparalleled Eyewitness Account of the Dawn of Nuclear War
By: Michihiko Hachiya, M.D.
Copyright: 1955
Tess Press

4 Bookmarks out of 5

I came across the Hiroshima Diary while browsing the used bookstore near where I went to undergrad and where I now currently work. I spent a lot of my high school and college days submerged in European history. I spent so long dappling in the European and Western historical world because it is a culture that is obviously familiar to me. I didn't have to re-learn a lot of things in order for the historical records to make sense. However, since graduating college, I have been craving other historical works from different parts of the world. I avoided Eastern history for so long because I long regarded it as boring, but I recently have developed a huge liking to learning about this part of the world. Mostly, it is so different from the world I am currently in and am fascinated by it.

This book is a chronicle of a Japanese physician who survived the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. To be honest, it never occurred to me much as I learned about the bombing of Hiroshima in school that anyone could survive an atom bombing. Hachiya tells his own personal story of what happened from almost two months after the bombing. It follows his day to day failures and victories. Hachiya knows little of what is happening outside of Hiroshima, such as the bombing of Nagasaki and the surrender of Japan. All these stories he learns through hear-say since communication outside the city is completely cut off after the bombing. That's probably what makes this book such a captivating read - Hachiya never meant for his journal to be published and was only keeping it for his own records. It is only 10 years after the fact that it is translated for the world to read.

That being said, this book can be very repetitive at times. While Hachiya is learning first-hand about radiation sickness and how to cope with it, he is only journaling so that he can have a record to look back on. The reader will find that Hachiya takes great care to document the health of many patients that are in the hospital and that many of the patients have the same symptoms. Hachiya also takes at length about various medical terms. Although I am no scientist myself, Hachiya never goes into lengthy detail and this is one aspect of the book that should not prevent a reader from finishing it with ease. When there is something that needs to be elaborated on, there is a footnote to accompany it.

The translator of the journal, Warner Wells, M.D. should be congratulated on the fact that he understands that the average American reader will not understand aspects of Japanese culture. When Hachiya mentions something specific to Chinese culture, Wells makes sure there is a footnote to explain to the reader what exactly it means. When something could not be directly translated into English, Wells also puts a footnote explaining what it means so that the reader understands the meaning of the word.

The only downfall of this journal is the fact that it follows every single day from the pikadon on. While it's hard to believe that this is a fault - I also find it very difficult to believe that Hachiya had time on the day of the bombing to sit down and journal. In fact, I think it was probably several days before he could think about writing. So, it's possible that Hachiya left out important details simply because it took probably a few days to write down everything that happened. Furthermore, the book contains quotes from people directly from conversations that were said. I find it hard to believe that Hachiya documented people's words in such detail. I wonder if Wells translated it like this on purpose to make the book easier to read. Either way, I wish I could read Japanese so that I could read Hachiya's journal in its original language.

All in all, I found this book to be fascinating. I know that the United States was at war against Japan at the time, but my heart goes out to all those people who suffered so much from the first atom bombing. No one knew then what the damage could be on a large scale, and Hachiya had to find out the hard way. I've never read an eyewitness account like this before and it made history open up to me in a new and very raw way. This is a simple read and doesn't take much concentration and I would recommend it to anyone. It opened my eyes the same way that All Quiet on the Western Front made me think differently about Germany during WWI.

Things I've Been Silent About

Things I've Been Silent About: Memories
By: Azar Nafisi
Copyright: 2008
Random House, New York

3 Bookmarks out of 5


I read this book after spotting it at a book sale at St. Mary's College of Maryland. I was visiting my sister along with our best friend and we stumbled upon a book sale at the school store. As a bibliophile, I can never pass a book sale without at least browsing the selections they have. I saw this book and was immediately intrigued. I find Middle Eastern culture fascinating and specifically I love to hear what really happens in Iran instead of the propaganda the government feeds the media. My twin bought it for me as birthday present and I finally got around to reading it about a month later.


At first, I was extremely excited. Azar starts off by explaining her childhood relationship with her parents. As with any human being, your parental relationship has a lot to do with your perception on life and helps craft you into the human being you became. I didn't realize the entire book would be about Azar's relationship with her parents. For 314 pages, Azar tells the reader of how Iran changed from the 1950s to the 1990s. Once she relates major events, she immediately goes back to how she relates to her parents. This is understandable to a certain extent since both her parents were involved in politics within Tehran. However, her descriptions quickly begin to seem more like complaints about her parents. I wanted to read about Azar's life in Tehran, not her apologizing for her parents behavior and how she wished her parents had been different. Every child could probably list many complaints against their parents, but in this memoir it is done to a ridiculous extent.

Furthermore, while I am no expert at grammar, Azar goes from past tense to present tense with too much ease. In some parts it is present-day-Azar remembering what happened and in other parts it is Azar reliving the moment as it happened. If one tense could not be used throughout, I feel as if the transition between the two could have been better. Each chapter could have started with a present tense memory and the rest of the chapter relates back to the memory at the beginning of the chapter. For those of you who become confused at tense changes, beware of this book.

Things I've Been Silent About was also devoid of emotion. The back cover of the book talks of falling in love with Tehran. Besides some moments when Azar says, "I fell in love with him" or "I was infatuated with him," I cannot believe that Azar loved anyone. She could have done a much better job relating her emotions to her readers. On that same note, I also feel as if Azar spoke too much of Iranian politics. I would have much rather the book been about how her life was the same - or how it changed - as the different political movements swept through Iran. Instead, the reader often becomes lost in a political world that he or she may not be familiar with. Yes, Azar does give the reader some references in the back of the book, but it is all too easy for the reader to be lost with whom she is talking about.

One of the coolest things about this book, though, is how Azar shares personal family photographs with the readers. By giving me pictures of herself, her mother, her father, her brother, and her husband, it made the book come alive. This is not the story of a made up person, but rather all these events happened to real people and actions had real consequences. It was nice to have an image in mind as to who was who, instead of trying to create images in my head about how these real people looked like. The pictures also do a nice job of solidifying events that Azar sometimes skims over, such as weddings and the affairs of her father.

All in all, this is a book that gives the reader a glance into Iran. As a woman, I found this book eye-opening but also annoying. Azar spends too much time being annoyed at her mother and not enough time reflecting on how her own actions may have further estranged their relationship. There is too much talk of politics and not enough personal touches. It took me awhile to finish reading this book because of the fast/slow pace of it. There were some parts when I could not put it down, but there were also parts when I couldn't wait to get through them. I'm not an expert in books on Tehran and Iran, but I'm sure that better books exist out there.

Half Broke Horses

Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
By: Jeannette Walls
Copyright: 2009
Scribner Publishing

4 Bookmarks out of 5

I don't know why, but I feel a need to justify the fact that this book is, indeed, 'hipster'. Jeannette Walls took off in 2005 with The Glass Castle - a book which kept my sister and our two suite-mates company in the bathroom our freshman year of college. Hey, it's college. If we were going to read in the bathroom, it might as well be memorable. I recall Franz Kafka in there too. Anyway, the memoir has been published in more languages than I knew existed and is critically acclaimed. Half Broke Horses is Jeannette Walls' follow up to her first book.

That being said - this book is not a memoir. It's exactly what the cover says - a novel. It draws you in to life in Texas and Arizona at the beginning of the 20th century. In this aspect, it's fascinating to see how slow modernization was to come to the small towns of America. Lily Casey, the story's main character, really embodies the last of the wild west generation - a generation who carried their own pistols and settled disputes with neighbors themselves and told the police to keep out of it. Half Broke Horses follows her story - from just before World War I to just after World War II - and how Lily Casey tries to take on Chicago but always comes back to Arizona and the ranching way of life. That's really the book's best angle - it shows a snapshot of an Arizona that many people failed to realize existed not too long ago.

That being said, I think that the book falls flat in the character of Lily in the fact that she never really allows herself to feel anything. Whenever times were rough, she got through it by 'toughing it out'. She toughed it out because that's what she had to do. But Lily only cries once in the book, although I know if I went through half the events Lily went through I would have cried every day and thrown in the towel long before she did. I also found it very disconcerting that Lily never is able to trust a man after her first husband. Seriously? Not every man is the same, which Lily all but says except for coming straight out to say it. Although, at the end of the book, she does hint at affection toward her husband Jim Smith. All the bad stuff aside, I think of Lily Casey as a woman who was going to do what she wanted and wasn't going to take no for an answer - a good role model for all girls these days. You know - besides the fact that Lily thinks the only occupations for women are nurses, secretaries, and teachers and teaching seems to be the best one out of all three because you can be your own boss. (Although Lily is surely rolling in her grave thinking of what the education system today looks like. A long way from the one-room schoolhouse.)

The book also only gets 4 bookmarks because at the end - once again - Jeannette Walls finds a way to turn the book back around to her. Maybe it's because her first memoir was such a big smash that she wanted to remind readers that Lily was her grandmother - but I found it just sad and a call for attention. Although the end of the book lagged and Lily was entirely too concerned who Rosemary was going to marry, I could deal with it because I think that is a concern all mothers have. But the epilogue was entirely unnecessary and took away from Lily's life, in my own opinion.

All in all - this is a good read. I wouldn't rush to buy it off the shelves - but it's great if you are interested in the end of the wild west and the modernization of America. Which, by the way, I think is a totally cool topic. But as a story, don't expect heartfelt soliloquies from the characters at any given point.

In The Garden of Beasts

 

In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

By: Erik Larson

Copyright: 2011

Crown, New York

5 Bookmarks out of 5

Okay, okay, okay. I know that Erik Larson has taken off in recent years as the premier writer of narrative nonfiction. But, I do have to say that the reason that Erik Larson is a hipster to me is because I have hunted down his first two books as well, The Naked Consumer and Lethal Passage. I jumped on board the Erik Larson train before it was cool. It's really fascinating to me how Erik Larson's first two books are more journalistic while his last four, including In The Garden of Beasts reads more like a book.

That being said, this is indeed a work of nonfiction. Erik Larson is meticulous when it comes to making sure that he documents everything. He can back up his words with where he researched his facts. In that aspect, In The Garden of Beasts is even more depressing than normal because the story follows Ambassador Dodd and his family in Berlin from 1933-1937. As a reader who knows that World War II is right around the corner, it becomes disheartening to watch Ambassador Dodd try to warn to entire world what is happening in Berlin and to have the entire world turn its back on him.

In many regards, if you've ever wondered how the world missed the Hitler memo in the 1930s, this book does an excellent job of reminding you of the political climate of that time. America desperately wanted to avoid entangling itself in European affairs again and Europe desperately wanted to avoid another continental war. In the conundrum of international affairs of the time, Hitler rises to power and manages to crush any and all opposition to him. By the time America, Europe, and even Germany itself realizes what Hitler means, it is entirely too late to stop him.

 

This book is also haunting in the fact that in a modern, 20th-century city - Berlin - a government managed to systematically deny citizenship to the Jewish people and managed to legally murder all those who stood against the government. It's all too easy to see how this scenario can replay even in the world today. Any people suffering from an economic downturn who sees enemies everywhere could just as easily turn to one strong man (or woman) to save the day. The German people willingly gave up their rights as citizens because they hoped Hitler wouldn't last in power or that each right they gave up would be the last right taken away from them.

Despite the political climate of the book, the most intriguing part is Martha Dodd and her love affairs with many inside Germany - and even outside of it. The story of her and Boris - a Soviet agent - is truly mesmerizing and captivated me. Did Boris really love her, or was he just using her the entire time to make her sympathetic to communism? As a reader, you'll have to make your own conclusions. Martha was a feminist fighting for female freedom in a time when women were house-makers and rarely expressed their own opinions. 

I think this book is very exceptional - a read that is filled with information and put together so you become addicted to reading it. Of course, I am very biased in the fact that it is no secret that I love Erik Larson's books. But, hey, this is my blog and my opinion, right? So this book definitely deserves 5 bookmarks.

The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices
By: Xinran
Copyright: 2002
Pantheon Books, New York

4 Bookmarks out of 5

I have to say, I didn't intend for my first two books reviewed to be about Asian culture. But you also can't help it when a book falls into your lap! I first saw this book in a used bookstore near the University where I work. My boyfriend made note of it and bought it for me as a birthday present. It stood out to me in two ways - my friend is currently teaching English in China so I am extremely interested in Chinese culture. The second reason is that my twin sister has piqued my interest in women's studies. This book has definitely opened my eye to what it means to be a Chinese woman.

The book is a series of anecdotes of different women during different times in China. The book deals with women who are young teenagers all the way to women of old age. What makes this book so fascinating is the fact that, as far as I know, these are real stories of real women. Don't be fooled - there are not a lot of happy stories in here. There are no Hollywood happy endings to be found. These are stories which will strike a chord with you from the very first story of a girl who kept a fly as a pet and stayed in a hospital to avoid her pedophile father to the last story the the primitive women of Shouting Hill.

Happiness is a central theme throughout this book and it will seem strange to the reader that the only women who describe themselves as 'happy' are the women of Shouting Hill - who are sold to buy new wives for their tribe and who must tend to a man's every need. The rest of the women in the book only seem try their luck at happiness and find that fate is not terribly kind to them.

The reason I would rank this book only 4 out of 5 bookmarks is the fact that Xinran explains so little about her own life. Yes, in the book we know she has a son, PanPan, and we also know her childhood growing up during the Cultural Revolution. But what about Xinran's husband? What is her own married life like? Was this a subject that she chose not to talk about or was it a topic she was barred from writing about? It seems odd to me as a reader to be told stories that will make your heart cry and to have the author seem so unenthusiastic about telling her own life at the same time.

I also find it so hard to believe that there was not one story included that had an ending where the woman was able to attain what she desired. I wanted so badly for all these women to marry the men they loved or be with the women they loved, but none of the stories cover that too well. I know that somewhere in modern Chinese history there has to be a woman who was able to be with the person whom she desired.

But, Xinran is a journalist. I think she wanted to make a point in this book that Chinese women have to deal with all these hardships behind closed doors. In that aspect, Xinran proclaims a rallying cry for all women, Chinese and European and African alike, to take a look at their lives. If you cannot be free to change your own fate, then you must be able to be honest and open with yourself.

This is a quick read but a book with so many difficult topics to cover. Don't read this book without a box of tissues nearby to wipe your tears. It also will help to have a good friend to call up after to talk about your own experiences in life so far.