Okay, so I've been slowing making my way through The Aeneid (I'm about to start book three, fwiw), but wanted something fun and easy to read tonight instead. (I technically should have been doing my math homework, but, you know...) So I picked up the third 39 Clues book and finished it in about an hour. I seriously love this series! If you're not reading it, what are you waiting for? I just wish I had the fourth one handy, but it's not even released until June 2. Sigh. :))
Anyway, quick spoilers below, so don't read any further if you're going to read the book at some point!
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This book picks up with Amy, Dan and Nellie at the Venice airport, where Nellie boards the plane safely but Amy and Dan's tickets get hijacked by the Kabras. Luckily for them, Alastair Oh turns up and safely gets the siblings to Japan, where they're accosted by the Holts and nearly get killed. Nellie, meanwhile, has struck a deal with the Kabras, who meet back up with Alastair, Amy and Dan, and join forces to find the third clue.
I'm not sure where the authors are going with the Ian/Amy relationship, but I think it could be potentially interesting. Amy definitely has a crush on Ian, and if his POVs were to be believed, he's starting to develop feelings for her as well, but Natalie could be a problem because she is definitely in this for the spoils of the quest and doesn't really care who she has to hurt to get there. (It amuses me that Ian and Natalie are the same age as Amy and Dan - 14 and 11, respectively - and yet they act so much older it's easy to forget this.)
There's a subplot starting that's kind of intriguing as well, this one involving Alastair Oh and his uncle Bae, who raised him after he apparently hired a hit on Alastair's father, who was the head of the Ekaterina branch, which is made doubly exciting via the epilogue, where it appears that Bae is in contact with Mr. McIntyre, who I'm still wondering about as well. Whose side is he on? And can we PLEASE find out something new re: the Man in Black? Argh, series. I hate waiting. :-P
Anyway, the clue has been obtained, Amy and Dan have sent the Kabras the wrong direction, and are now on their way to Egypt. Ooh, adventure, how I love thee. <3
Still to come: The Aeneid
Post number forty-two is for Gordan Korman's One False Note, which is the second 39 Clues book. I won't get into too many spoilers, but will post a spoiler space just in case.
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This book picks up with Dan, Amy and Nellie on a train to Austria (Vienna, to be precise), where they're accosted by the Holts, who want the clue they found at the end of the first book. However, Saladin, Grace's cat, has eaten it, so the Holts leave empty-handed. The chase continues through Vienna to Strasburg, where they hijack a clue from Alastair Oh, which takes them to Venice.
Here's where it gets dicey, as they have several run-ins with other family members (namely, Jonah Wizard and the Kabras) and nearly get killed multiple times, but it all works out, because they manage to nab the next clue and their newest place to be: Tokyo.
I have the third book handy but am not sure I'll read it just yet since the fourth one isn't out yet and I don't really want to wait to continue the adventure. :-P But this was a very nice continuation of the series, and I am so looking forward to what awaits the characters. <3
Next up: The Aeneid
Post number forty-one is for Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty, which is another of those books that's been on my to-read list for a few years. I don't know why I waited so long to read it, though, because I really enjoyed it and it has me intrigued and eager to read the second book (the third one is soon to be released), although I'm going to hold off on it for a while yet in order to get some other things read first.
Anyway, real quick spoilers follow, although I'm not going to go into major detail regarding the plot.
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Gemma is a girl growing up in the early nineteen hundreds in India. Her mother is killed via unexplained circumstances, and Gemma is taken to England, where she's enrolled in a finishing school. However, she has the power to have visions, and it turns out that she's magical, if you will, and can enter the realms - the world between the world we live in and the world of death.
Gemma makes friends with three girls at the school: Ann, her roommate who is a scholarship student and therefore "lower class"; Felicity, whose father is an Admiral in the British Navy and whose mother is a courtesan in Paris (this isn't public knowledge, mind); and Pippa, who is the most beautiful girl anyone has ever seen, but is fated to marry a much older man by her family, as Pippa is epileptic and they don't want this knowledge to get out. The girls each want something: Pippa wants to find true love, Ann wants to be beautiful, Felicity wants strong will and Gemma wants to understand herself and what's going on with her visions.
There's also a little sidestory of a potential romance for Gemma with Kartik, who is a member of a strange secret society that doesn't want Gemma to use her magical gifts, but the main plot is that of Circe, who wants to kill Gemma and take her power for herself.
What I was mainly left feeling at the end of the book, though, were these two thoughts: I hope Felicity doesn't turn into another Circe, and that her friendship with Gemma and Ann remains true, and I also hope there's a way for Gemma to be with Kartik, which, as of right now is impossible because Gemma, too, is higher class and Kartik is decidedly not. :-P
So, anyway, it's a nice start to the series, in my opinion, and I will definitely be checking out the second book.
Post number forty is for Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, which I believe is an autobiographical novel based on a review from School Library Journal but didn't originally know.
Anyway, quick spoilers follow, although I'll try to be vague. (As a sidenote, I can't believe the number of books I've already read this year! It looks likely that I'll meet my 50 book goal! Yay!)
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This book is about Anna, a (non-religious) Jewish girl from Berlin. Anna's father is a writer, and he's been writing articles against Hitler and his Nazi regime (it's prior to Hitler's election win in 1933). Knowing that Hitler is going to win the election, Anna's father leaves Berlin for Switzerland and his family - Anna, her mother and brother - follow him. They stay in a small town in Switzerland before moving to France, as Anna's father can't get any of his articles published in Switzerland because the country fears it will lose its neutrality if it prints anti-Nazi articles. So the family moves to Paris, where everyone except Anna's father has to learn an entirely new language and new customs.
It's very difficult for Anna's family in Paris, though, as her father can only find work writing for a small newspaper, so after nearly two years of Paris life, the family again relocates to England.
This book is basically about Anna's adjustments to life as a refugee, and the startling revelation that it doesn't actually matter where they are, as long as they are together. It's basically a happy ending in a period of time where there were very few; Anna and her family never really have to experience the anti-Semitism that's prevalent during this time period and, aside from monetary hardships, never really have to deal with all the other pre-Holocaust events that the other Jews in Europe had to deal with. In other words, her family is very lucky, and she manages to have a decent childhood even though she never really finds a "home". She tells her father that she doesn't think they'll ever fit in anywhere, but decides that it's okay to have a piece of themselves in lots of different places instead.
So all in all, this was a very nice story about a very charming narrator. I'm glad things worked out for Anna and her family.
Next up: A Great and Terrible Beauty, One False Note
Post number thirty-nine is for Laura Amy Schlitz's A Drowned Maiden's Hair, which was seriously fabulous. I highly, HIGHLY recommend this book.
Brief spoilers - mostly plot related - follow. Please don't read them if you're going to take my advice and check this book out for yourself.
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This story is about Maud, an orphan who's residing at the Barbary Asylum. She is adopted by Hyacinth Hawthorne and her sister Judith, who take her on a quick shopping trip and then to their home, where she meets their other sister Victoria and is told she's to be a "secret child" and that she has to stay hidden from any guests who may be at their home. She's told that she'll be told a "secret" as soon as they learn they can trust her. The sisters also have a servant, who Hyacinth has nicknamed "Muffet" (although we find out later her name is actually Anna), who is deaf and mute. (There's a sort of side story, although that's not really the word for it, where Maud teaches Anna to read some words.)
The secret turns out to be that Hyacinth pretends to be a Medium, and her and her sisters use this fraud to get money out of grieving folks. (The Hawthornes are in debt because Hyacinth spends very recklessly.) The main fraud is a certain Mrs. Lambert, whose daughter, Caroline, died by drowning some years back. Mrs. Lambert - having been deceived by several so-called "Mediums" in the past - has offered $5000 to anyone who can make her daughter materialize (this story takes place in 1909, so you can see that that's an exhorbitant amount of money). The reason they've adopted Maud is to have her help them with their seances - namely, pretending to be Caroline.
Maud is completely infatuated with Hyacinth although Hyacinth treats her very poorly. In fact, it's actually Victoria who seems to have the most genuine affection for Maud, and also Muffet, who cares for her deeply, although Maud doesn't realize this until nearly the end of the story, thinking Muffet only wants to be around Maud because she's teaching her to read.
Through a series of events, Maud comes to realize that no one but Muffet actually loves her at all: Hyacinth's supposed affection for her is a sham, just like the seances she holds. She's actually returned to the orphanage by Judith, and the lady who runs the orphanage assumes Maud has been deceitful and contrary. Judith says the following, though, which kind of struck me:
I'm not sure what it was exactly that makes me love this story so much. Maud is a wonderful character, and I liked seeing the story through her eyes. I also liked how everything turned out in the end - a happily ever after, for lack of a better term. But whatever it is, I'll definitely be buying this book at some point, and I highly urge you to do the same. <3
Post number thirty-eight is for Jean Bernard's Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau. This book was interesting because it's a journal from a Luxembourg priest, who was arrested by the Gestapo, most likely for speaking out against the Nazis treatment of the Jews, although he never actually found out why exactly he'd been arrested. He was imprisoned in Dachau from February 1941 to August 1942, and while things in Dachau were "better" while he was imprisoned, what he and his other comrades (who were also priests; all priests were housed together in Dachau) were subjected to were still terrible and dehumanizing, and he was lucky to survive.
Brief spoilers follow.
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One of things that really struck me throughout this book was Father Bernard's unending belief in God and his religion. I've seen mention of several people who survived the camps thinking that God had forsaken them and many more who stopped believing altogether. But the priests never stopped believing. When things got bad, they prayed even harder (silently and carefully, as the S.S. guards would beat them if they realized what they were doing), and many times their lives were made easier simply by being able to have "the host" (often smuggled by a German priest) or a worship service of some kind, although soon enough that, too, was forbidden. When Father Bernard was first imprisoned, the priests were given an easier time of it. They were forced to take a mid-day nap (although it was often interrupted) and were even given a wine break. There was a point in the book where they hadn't had a wine break in several days, so when they finally did, the S.S. made them drink all three days portions of the wine which amounted to a full bottle each and ended with them all quite drunk. :-P
Eventually, though, the German and Polish priests were separated, and the Luxembourgers were put with the Poles, and eventually put on work details, which tested their already waning strength to the max, as their work was considered "unimportant" and therefore didn't earn the extra ration of food. Father Bernard - and the priests that he became the best friends with - was eventually sent to the Infirmary where he nearly died from fluid retention but was saved on the sly by an orderly who gave him some sort of injection (possibly Mercury?). He and Batty, his close friend, had scraped together a half a loaf of bread to help get Bernard's name off the list of "invalids" that were going to be transported to another camp (this was before they started gassing people by the masses in the camps, but it still was more than likely a death sentence upon arrival). However, on the last possible day, he was released from Dachau and allowed to go back to Luxembourg, where he had to spend over a year regaining his health before he could preach again, and even after that never completely regained his health to the point he was prior to his imprisonment in the camp.
In the end, most of the priests he was friendly with died in Dachau, and some of the others he isn't sure whatever became of them. Anytime you read about someone's experience in the camps during WWII it's eye-opening and horrifying, and this story is no different. There's actually a movie based on this book called The Ninth Day which I want to check out at some point, too. But this story is another of those that sticks with you, and I'm betting I'll be thinking about it for a while to come.
Next up: A Drowned Maiden's Hair, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, A Great and Terrible Beauty.
Post number thirty-seven is for Barbara Gehrt's Don't Say A Word, which is another story during WWII, but this one is from the POV of a fairly affluent German girl whose father is a General in the Luftwaffe. This was an interesting look at a side of the war that not many people know - or even think - about: those Germans who didn't agree with Hitler's policies during the war, who weren't necessarily turning a blind eye to everything going on, but who were struggling to keep themselves safe as the Allied bombs started falling over Germany, and therefore more concerned with themselves and their loved ones than those who were - for lack of a better term - out of sight and out of mind.
Brief spoilers follow.
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Anna is the narrator in this story. Her father is a Luftwaffe (German Air Force) General, her mother a homemaker. She has an older brother, Hannes, and an aunt and uncle who live nearby with their three children. Her closest friend is Ruth, who is half-Jewish by her mother's first marriage. Ruth and her entire family end up committing suicide a few chapters into the book, and once that happens, Anna proceeds to lose several others close to her: Erik, her first love, is killed on the Russian front, her father is executed by the Nazis for "undermining the war effort", and Hannes dies of sepsis from an ear infection he gets while undergoing the German equivalent of basic training that goes untreated for too long of a time. Her home is also bombed by the Allies, and her mother and her end up living in the country near the Baltic Sea until liberation.
What I liked most about this book was that it was told from a POV of someone who actually lived through it. The author was writing about her own childhood (although she used different names), and speaking of things like having parents who disagreed - silently - with Hitler, to having a father who did something that the Gestapo arrested him for (it's never really revealed what he'd done) and later had him executed for, to living with the ever-present threat of being bombed each night. She literally loses nearly everything: her first love (who loved her back), her father, her brother and her home, but you can see how much she grew up and how eloquent she became with those loses.
This is a pretty hard book to get a hold of, unfortunately, because I think it's something that should be more widely read. If my "review" sounds interesting at all, see if your local library has it. It was translated from German originally to English, but is currently out-of-print according to Amazon, so your library - or eBay - may be the best place to get it. But it would be worth it, imo. It's a very VERY good story.
