SPOILERS!!!! don't read the review if you want the whole book experience!!!!!!~~!

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
First Reads Giveaway book...expected in mail any time now...Will post review when I get thru reading it.



Received today, 26 August 2008...will start reading today! The only thing I think I am dreading about the book is the fate of the brother left in the locked closet. The rest I can steel myself against, LOL.



This is, I believe, the one of the BEST book I have read in a very long time!!! And I normally avoid books with the Holocaust as even a remote topic. Just because I get disgusted with how despicable we can be to each other.



But this book? I loved it. The author has a smooth, fluid, comfortable way of expressing the emotions and plot lines of this story. There are books that are favorites of mine that are not so smoothly told.



The heartbreaking, heartwrenching stories of both Julia and Sarah are so eloquently related to us that it is just too easy to put ourselves in their place. Sarah's worry about her little brother Michel, left locked in the cupboard for safety while she and her parents are rounded up by the French police in compliance to the wishes of the Nazi occupiers. Her despair at watching her parents being ripped away from her, the conditions of Vel d'Hiv and the move to Beaune-la-Rolande and escape from the camp with a girl named Rachel. The immediate aftermath of the escape is despairing and leads to a lifetime of guilt and withdrawing on Sarah's part.



Julia is stuck in a very dysfunctional marriage to a Frenchman who is rarely faithful and "there for her." She has a wonderful, bright daughter in Zoe, but rather distant from her in-laws, who always call her "The American". Her husband plans on remodeling his grandmother's apartment after Mame' is placed in a nursing home because of Alzheimer's. She is then given a story to research for the magazine she works. She is to do a "companion" piece for the commemoration of the tragedy of Vel d'Hiv. During her research, she learns that the apartment was part of one of the families story, linking that family to her in-laws'. She is told repeatedly by her father in law and her husband to drop the story, don't dig any deeper. She ignore's their advice and follows what her conscience tells her is right.



She finds that not many Parisians, let alone French citizens, are aware of this part of their past, nor are interested in learning about it. She finds it disturbing and commits to researching more.



To say anymore would be to give away too much more of the story. Let's just say that the story is a haunting one. And enlightens the reader to a period of history that is rarely, if ever taught.



Favorite passages:



p.68-69 (too long to type out here, takes up so much of the pages.



p.88

So maybe that's how it worked. That's how all this had happened. Hating people so much that you wanted to kill them. Hating them because they wore a yellow star. It made her shiver. She felt as if all the evil, all the hatred in the world was concentrated right here, stocked up all around her, in the policemen's hard faces, in their indifference, their disdain. And outside the camp, did everybody hate Jew's too? Is this what her life was going to be about from now on?



p195-197 (The letter to Alain from Genevieve) especially the following passage:

Yes, the war is over, at last over, but for your father and me, nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same. Peace has a bitter taste. And the future is foreboding. The events that have taken place have changed the face of the world. And of France. France is still recovering from her darkest years. Will she ever recover, I wonder? This is no longer the France I knew when I was a little girl. This is another France that I don't recognize. I am old now, and I know my days are numbered. But Sarah, Gaspard, and Nicolas are still young. They will have to live in this new France. I pity them, and I fear what lies ahead.



This last passage I find eerily similar to my feelings of the world today. And I fear that my son, who is now 23, will never be assured that our "leaders" have enough sense to not blow the world up just on a whim.



Okay, pessimism aside, READ THIS BOOK! Supposedly, the movie rights have been acquired. I hope so and they movie producers do it justice. I will definitely buy the DVD!


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Email funny from Uncle Sam and Aunt Sue

Subject: Fwd: 1st GRADERS






A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It's hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

1. Don't change horses until they stop running.

2. Strike while the bug is close.

3. It's always darkest before Daylight Saving Time.

4. Never underestimate the power of termites.

5. You can lead a horse to water but How?

6.Don't bite the hand that looks dirty.

7. No news is impossible

8. A miss is as good as a Mr.

9. You can't teach an old dog new Math

10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll stink in the morning.

11. Love all, trust Me.

12. The pen is mightier than the pigs.

13. An idle mind is the best way to relax.

14. Where there's smoke there's pollution.

15. Happy the bride who gets all the presents.

16. A penny saved is not much.

17. Two's company, three's the Musketeers.

18. Don't put off till tomorrow what you put on to go to bed.

19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and You have to blow your nose.

20. There are none so blind as Stevie Wonder.

21. Children should be seen and not spanked or grounded.

22. If at first you don't succeed get new batteries.

23. You get out of something only what you See in the picture on the box

24. When the blind lead the blind get out of the way.

25. A bird in the hand is going to poop on you.

And the WINNER and last one!

26. Better late than Pregnant

Lost blogs

I somehow or another have lost my entire list of friends and relatives blogroll. I'm starting from scratch and am trying to "repopulate" it. If you should check in and were there and now are not, please put a comment on any post with your blog address and help me put you back where I need you, please....
Michelle

Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

My review

First Reads Giveaway book from GoodReads...expected in mail any time now...Will post review when I get thru reading it.



Received today, 26 August 2008...will start reading today! The only thing I think I am dreading about the book is the fate of the brother left in the locked closet. The rest I can steel myself against, LOL.


View all my reviews.

Update:::: India Edghill: The Ivory Gate (Samson and Delilah)

Handy thing, Feedjit, I was able to trace back a search on this very thing and got my own update! Love it!

So here it is:

Samson and Delilah by India Edghill
Hardcover

$24.95
Item released on May 01, 2009

Coming later in 2008 is India's next novel, THE IVORY GATE.

A retelling of the story of Samson and Delilah, THE IVORY GATE completes what turned in to an loosely-knit trilogy: THE IVORY GATE, QUEENMAKER, and WISDOM'S DAUGHTER.

Read and excerpt here:
http://indiaedghill.com/ivory_gate_ex.html




I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doomed, Again, by the Space-Time Continuum

TV Review 'Primeval'
Doomed, Again, by the Space-Time Continuum



ITV/Impossible Pictures
Juliet Aubrey and Douglas Henshall in "Primeval," a new BBC America science-fiction series that has its debut on Saturday.



By GINIA BELLAFANTE
Published: August 7, 2008

Over the past few years BBC America has emerged second only to the Sci-Fi Channel as the television outlet most committed to covering all the inconveniences that time travel can produce. It has brought us "Life on Mars," a revised "Doctor Who," and its spinoff, "Torchwood," as if to say, "And you thought airport security lines were a big drag!" British science-fiction television allows for plenty of American cultural imperiousness. The camp factor churned out is fairly high, and with "Primeval," a new series starting Saturday on BBC America, it climbs up Big Ben and right on over the top of the London Eye.

"Primeval" imagines an England threatened by creatures hundreds of millions of years old that look an awful lot like overgrown leftovers from a dinner at Red Lobster. How do they make it to the present day? Well, they're not taking Virgin Atlantic. They are careering through tears in the space-time continuum, and then ravaging their way through the London Underground and suburban housing developments and eating people in public swimming pools. (I wish for once that a space-time hole could deliver someone nice, this time from the future; someone who could show everybody how to eat a whole lemon meringue pie and still lose six pounds by the next day.)

The holes go by the name of anomalies here, and they look vaguely like shattering ice sculptures. Rip through the space-time rift, and you will find yourself at a wedding at Leonard's of Great Neck.

There are good guys and there are bad guys, and they are all fairly easy to pinpoint with the sound off. Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) is an evolutionary zoologist who, with his team of acolytes and Indiana Jones outfits, is battling the looming national crisis and trying to figure out what his scientist wife (Juliet Aubrey) is doing back from what he thought was the dead. She's been gone eight years, and when he greets her again — thank you, tear in the space-time continuum — they both behave as if one or the other merely spent too much time going out for a bagel. Don't expect any of the racy sex from "Torchwood."

But do expect other varieties of derivative silliness. Working against Cutter's interest are bureaucratic cronies in the Home Office who most of all want to avert a public-relations disaster by keeping the good people of Britain in the dark about all the paleontological terror. James Lester (Ben Miller) wants to throw an innocent woman in prison for the killing of a man chewed up and spit out by a prehistoric shark. The sense of Lester's evil is largely conveyed by his lantern jaw and further depicted by lines like this: "The correct decision is often painful. That's the burden of government."

Maybe "Primeval" wants to serve as an exploration of the People's Right to Know. Or maybe it wants to give rise to its own theme parks.

But it definitely won't make you forget about "Lost."

PRIMEVAL

BBC America, Saturday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8 Central time.

Created by Tim Haines and Adrian Hodges; Mr. Haines, executive producer; Mr. Hodges, lead writer; directed by Cilla Ware; Cameron McAllister, producer. An Impossible Pictures production for ITV/ProSieben/M6.
WITH: Douglas Henshall (Professor Nick Cutter), James Murray (Stephen Hart), Andrew-Lee Potts (Connor Temple), Lucy Brown (Claudia Brown), Hannah Spearritt (Abby Maitland), Juliet Aubrey (Helen Cutter), Ben Miller (James Lester) and Mark Wakeling (Tom Ryan).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/08/arts/television/08prim.html

Quote

Love this quote from Einstein:




"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein


~~~~

Persian Mirrors by Elaine Sciolino

Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran by Elaine Sciolino

My review

Ooh, want to read this one, I remember how this period of time affected some of my schoolmates. They, when asked where they were from, would sometimes reply "Persia" rather than Iran due to the fear of reprecussions from classmates. Finding out what was REALLY happening in Iran at the time is intriguing.


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Sherrilyn Kenyon: Acheron

Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon

My review Spoilers below, don't read if you don't wanna know!!!!!!

rating: 5 of 5 stars
So far just barely started the book and I can tell I'm going to love it. I've enjoyed virtually all of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter/Dream Hunter, etc. books. They are in the romance section, but to me they are just good stories.



This one, as warned by the author, may be a little bit difficult for those who've suffered childhood abuse. And so far I've found this to be a true enough warning, though I didn't suffer that kind of abuse myself.



Look forward to the rest of this HUUUUUGGGGE book.



Sunday August 10, 2008



I finished this book in the wee hours of the morning...This was one great, huge (700+pages) book. But worth every last page.



You get Acheron's entire past and how he got so involved with Artemis and how horribly his family treated him. The one person in his human family that cared for him was his sister Ryssa (and later her baby son).



Kenyon does manage to leave a whole new path open of unanswered questions. Due to Acheron no longer being bound to Artemis, and Artemis refusing to allow any more Dark Hunters to go free, Soteria leaves us with a glimpse of there being other ways to get around the issue. And Nick and Artemis winding up together??? That should be interesting.



Here is my question, does the whole Greek pantheon feed on each other or just Apollo and Artemis? (And thus Archeron and Soteria and the Dark Hunters) If not, why just them? And why is Artemis so needy? What is making her react the way she does? If I remember correctly Cupid and Psyche get along with others just fine... Zeus has always been a butt, and a few other gods as well, but what makes Apollo and Artemis the way they are...



And was Acheron just hallucinating when locked in Artemis' little room when he heard Ryssa's voice? Or will she reappear later.. kind a hope so , hope she and her son are able to be brought back...I really liked them, but am not counting on it. Even as reincarnated beings...



And will Acheron and Soteria have kids? Time will tell...But I did like how how Acheron found out he had more friends, and real friends, than he thought...



the story of Jaden is supposed to come soon. That should be interesting.


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Jane Yolen: Briar Rose

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is listed as a young adult book...I disagree, it is for everyone from their teens upwards. A most excellent telling of a young girls revelations about her grandmother's past.

The details of her grandmothers experiences during the Holocaust are harrowing and a bit devastating. Definitely a book that should be put on the must read list for high school, during the same period of reading Anne Frank.

Cannot recommend this book, and it's author enough. I have been a fan of Jane Yolen for longer than I can remember. I don't even remember what the first book of hers is that I read, LOL.

But Briar Rose is a deep, thought provoking story that needs to be read.


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Raphael Patai: The Hebrew Goddess

The Hebrew Goddess 3rd Enlarged Edition by Raphael Patai

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This has been recommended from several sources, most notably, Patricia Monaghan, and the members of the yahoo group Jewitch.



Birthday gift from my sister, August 2008. Yeaaaaaa!
Thanks, sis!!!!


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Also arriving soon

Boudicca (from Kelli)



Oya (6") coming this fall



And from Kelli's most talented wonderfully creative daughter, Lady Rhanna, comes these adorable pillows.

My newest additions!

Isn't she just beautiful!!! My newest addition to my dancinggoddessdoll.com family. Kelli made this as a special order for me. I wanted to commemorate the most blissful moment in my life for my 43rd birthday. She custom made an Ajysit doll for me...a blue swaddled baby to represent my son John, shell-headband to represent my name, a green necklace to represent my birthstone of Peridot, and a green dress as it is one of my favorite colors. The hair has a story too, with strands of brown, blond and red throughout and a streak of gray right over the right temple. I am enamored with her and she hasn't even arrived yet, Kelli said she mailed it yesterday and I should get it anytime. I cannot wait!!!







She arrived today (7 August 2008). And I'm in love!

Here she is in all her glory (well, as well as a picture of mine can give her.)





And this is my other present to myself: A Pompasita Bottle by antb (Antonia). I saw this on her esty site Ant's Pottery and I nearly died laughing. I knew then and there I had to have it. Humor being in short supply here, anything that makes me laugh is welcome, and I'm sure that it will continue to bring a chuckle or giggle or two as time goes by. She has a couple of other pieces I have my eye on, but will have to wait a good while for.

The Seventh Unicorn by Kelly Jones

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Was a pretty good read, a wee, tiny bit slow to get into it, but once you are...
Very much a tale regarding the origins of the well known medeival tapestries. Interesting viewpoint, and not entirely without merit.
It does flip back and forth between the past and the present, and the ties between them.



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