Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Sarah's Key was an alternating story between Sarah Starzynski--a ten-year-old Jewish girl growing up in Paris during the Vel' d' Hiv (which is short for Vélodrome d'Hive) roundup-- and a journalist named Julia Jarmound.

The story begins when French policemen come knocking on Sarah's door to take her family away to an indoor complex that held Jews in France during the Holocaust. She hides her little brother (Michel) in a hidden cupboard and promises with all her might that she'll go back and get him out. At the time Sarah is very naive and she believes that everything is going to be ok and she'll be able to go back and get Michel. Little did she know that that was not the situation and her family was being taken to Vel' de' Hiv (which is short for Vélodrome d'Hive) and it is located right outside of Paris and later to be sentenced to death in Auschwitz.

So you're probably wondering what Julia has do to with this story. Well, Julia is an American-born woman who moves to France and works a journalist and one day she's asked to write about the tragedy back in 1942. Now the Vel' de' Hiv roundup was a dark part of France's history and not many people wanted to be reminded of because it wasn't the Nazi's who were carrying out these horrible deeds but local, day-to-day French policemen so she really doesn't have any idea what the conflict was about going into this. So as she researches and investigates, she comes across Sarah's story and how it is linked to her own life. At the same time, she has her family issues going on like marriage complications, debating over whether or not to abort her second child and a family secret.

What I think Tatiana de Rosnay did really well was that she beautifully orchestrated a modern day "movie" plot to events in history and that's what made the story appealing to me.

Also to keep in mind, this book wasn't one of those "feel good" books. Most of the time the story switched from gloomy to moderate and then back down to gloomy but that's mostly because the Holocaust was a very unpleasant time. Overall, this book was phenomenal and I'd probably recommend it to females.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

I am half way finished with The Notebook and it's been a wonderful experience. The Notebook written by Nicholas Sparks, and it is a love story between Noah Calhoun and Allie Nelson.

Allie comes from a wealthy and elite family, who lives lavishly and her parents get upset when they hear that she is in love with farmer. They automatically feel that Noah is unsuitable for her and they refuse to accept that fact that she loved him.

The book takes off when Allie pays a visit to Noah and at this point she's engaged to another man named Lon who is a successful, well-known and rich lawyer. And the reason she goes back to visit Noah is because she "checking" to see how Noah was (because they have been apart for fourteen years). Allie never had the same fire with Lon as she did with Noah during the summer she spent with him and he was just so special to her that the more time she spends catching up with Noah on the time they were apart.

In this book there's quite of few things I could connect this to. I mean the most obvious one is the relationship between a rich and poor. The girl's family is rich while the boy is poor and there's a conflict between the two because the rich family doesn't want their daughter to be around some peasant boy with no status or recognition in life. These themes can be related to stories like Aladdin where the odds are against the couple because society says that they can't be together. A second connection I have is to my Global History class. The book takes place during World War Two and it mentions how Noah served in the war in Europe and our Global class is just learning about the war and it was just great that I was able to know the context behind the setting.

I also took note of Nicholas Sparks's writing style. Although I have only read one of his books, I actually went to go see Dear John--which was also written by Sparks-- in theaters two days ago. As I was watching the movie and reading the book, I could see some correlations between the two. Both story lines involved a love story, letters, time, being apart from one another, and a love that was created in a short period of time.

Can't Wait for my next book. It's called Sarah's Key and I'm hoping to finish more books over break:)

The Reader

Crank by Ellen Hopkins

I just finished Crank a couple of minutes ago and it was interesting but I didn't really love the topic. Crank is written by Ellen Hopkins and it is about a girl named Kristina Georgia Snow who struggles through her teen years to crank which is more commonly known as a drug called methamphetamine. Before crank, Kristina was a smart, quiet and a normal teen but when she takes a trip to visit her dad in New Mexico, she is introduced to boys, crank and "Bree" who begins to take over her life.
In the beginning of the book, I was really confused who Kristina was and who was. Later I realized that Kristina struggled with a dual personality conflict. Kristina is the quiet, perfect, reserved and obedient little angel that never breaks any rules and Bree is the complete opposite. She is fearless, aggressive, care-free, daring, wild, promiscuous and fun. Kristina was so contained and restrained from a free lifestyle that she allowed "Bree" to take over her because of her curiosity, desire to do what she wants when she wants, and desire to be unrestrained from rules and regulations. But of course, there's a price that must be paid and Kristina's life begins to go down the drain. She faces the irresistability of crank (and other drugs), the highs and lows of using drugs, the experimentation with sex which eventually leads to a rape, unhealthy relationships with her family and friends, excessively smoking, unplanned pregnancy, horrible relationships with her mother and peers, struggle to keep up with her grades and all the negative effects of using drugs.
The genre of this book is poetry and I was surprised to see how affective the book was. One part that stood out was when Kristina internally thinks to herself, "Who loved me more?/ Who loved me most" and I think this quote really summed up the reason people go looking for trouble and that's because they are lost and they look for love in the wrong places. I feel like this was a common theme for people; that they look for something to fill their happiness and that's why they involve themselves with alcohol, sex and drugs. Kristina's parents are divorced, her family is quite broken and she was probably in desperation of breaking the chains that stopped her from doing what a typical teen does (party, boyfriends, fun, feeling beautiful and sexy, wanted and more importantly loved).

Personally, I think all girls can relate to having a tough time growing up with their mothers because now their little girls are starting to have their own opinions and they are starting to become more independent and it's hard for them to let go of the child who is transforming into a young lady.

This book is definitely one that puts the reader in the position of a teenager and the book flies by because the pages are very short.