Sarah's Key

Pages: 293          Genre:  Fiction based off the Vel' d'Hiv
The story is told for most of the book between two characters: The Girl and Julia.  It goes back and forth between the summer of 1942 and present day.  I really liked this book.  It was beautifully written and was very touching.  It talks about the Vel 'd'Hiv in Paris.  I had never heard of the Vel d'Hiv but it is incredibly sad.  The French police rounded up as many French Jews as they could find, put them into a stadium with hardly and food or water, then shipped them to concentration camps located outside of Paris before being shipped off to Auschwitz.  They arrested 13,152 victims and according to the book (now this part I don't know if it is fact or fiction) killed all the children that didn't manage to escape (very few did).  It is an incredibly heart wrenching story.  The book is told from The Girl's point of view in 1942, she locked her brother in a cupboard so he doesn't get taken by the police and spends her half of the story trying to get back to him.  Julia's story is set present day as she is getting ready to move into the apartment (which has been in her husband's family for years).  Julia is an American journalist who is living in Paris (for more than half her life) and she is researching the Vel d'Hiv for an article where she discovers The Girl's story, and how she can set about finding more information about it.

This really is a wonderful story and I would recommend it to anybody.  I am glad to have finally read a great book this summer.  It's the first good book I've read in awhile.  Enjoy!

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Genre:  Non-Fiction      Pages: 342
I have long enjoyed books on climbing and mountaineering (when written well) for some time.  My favorite two are Into Thin Air and Touching the Void.  They are amazingly written and are just good books overall.  I have also read some not good ones (my least favorite being High Crimes).  I suppose this is strange, as I am not big into mountaineering (although my Dad and Brother both are), and I have only been climbing once before.  It was fun, and I have several friends who LOVE to climb, it is something I never got into when younger, and assumed it is now to late for me to start.

The book goes back and forth describing what was going on in the canyon while he was trapped and detailing some of the "amazing" things he had done in the past.  When I first told a friend I was going to read this book she told me her mom said he is incredibly self-centered.  He is definitely full of himself, it's true, and he likes to tell about all of the "wonderful and amazing things" he has done.  He has a degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in piano performance (which is crazy... since in order to get either degree you should live in one department or the other).  After working as an engineer for only 5 years he decided to quit his job and move to Aspen to "follow his bliss". 

I think, overall, I enjoyed this book.  Being from both Wyoming and Washington he talked about mountains in both places.  However, as I am not a climber there were times where he got technical that I didn't precisely follow what was going on in the book.  He made a stupid mistake in not telling anybody where he was going, and the book did get pretty graphic in how he had to cut his arm off, there are even some pictures.  I tried showing one of the pictures to my husband, or describing to him what was happening, but he wasn't interested (/he was disturbed).  I was morbidly curious.  At any rate,  I would probably give this book a rating of 3/5.  It was okay, I don't think I'll try and sell it to get it out of my house, but I'm not sure if I would re-read it again. 

Best Friends Forever- Jennifer Weiner

A friend of mine (J) and I were discussing books and authors we both enjoy.  I had told her I liked Ms. Weiner's Good in Bed (about a woman who breaks up with her boyfriend, sleeps with him once she realizes he did understand her better than she originally thought, and ends up pregnant with his, while he doesn't seem to care...  Good in Bed is reference to the title of the column he writes for a magazine).  I didn't particularly enjoy the sequal to the book Certain Girls because she killed off one of my favorite characters for almost no reason (in my mind).  So, onto Best Friends Forever.

I thought this book was alright.  It is the story of two women who were best friends growing up, but then drift apart their senior year due to one of them being popular and the other one can't keep up.  Sound familiar?  There are several stories about this, nothing new.  Everybody can even probably picture some friends of theirs like this when they are in high school.  At any rate, the girl who was more popular and basically dumped her best friend shows up on the night of their ten year high school reunion asking for help.  The author is trying to go for a mystery in this book, tellling the story from three different perspectives:  the dumped friend (who was fat in high school but isn't anymore*), the man who was run over by a car (from the beautiful best friend who is popular), and the detective trying to solve what happened based off the evidence at the scene of the crime. 

Again, the story is fine.  It definitely isn't my favorite of hers; I probably wouldn't re-read it.  At the same time, I am also not upset I read it (as I have been by several of the other books I've read this year).  All in all, I'd give this book an "eh" rating.  If you have nothing else to read, and you like Jennifer Weiner books, read it.  It isn't bad, just not my favorite. 

*Most of the heroines in Jennifer Weiner books tend to be girls who are either overweight, or used to be overweight.