SuZanne’s Comments (group member since Aug 31, 2013)

SuZanne’s comments from the Reading Warriors group.

This is book three of the series. I did not have book 2 so I skipped to 3 and it is very easy to read Shadow of the Wind, Book One, and skip to Book Three and completely understand and follow it. It is a good storyline but probably this book is better in its original language, Spanish, as in places the translation was very cheesey.

This book will be one that the American School high school students will read this coming summer, so I decided to read it too. Its main character is a slacker in his late teens in the USA, so it took me a few chapters to warm up to him. Still the book is well written and has a good message about starting over for all readers not just teens. I re-read the first chapter and found it solid; Zusak tells a good tale without much embellishment so most teen readers will find it engaging and easy to read.

The goodreads review says, "With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work." And so it is. Of the several intricately drawn realistic characters, the one I found most vivid was a creative teen girl, who never really stands a chance of breaking out of the cycle of poverty. No one gets to fulfill their dreams, yet there are some triumphant moments and it is a worthy read.

I read all four graphic novels and just finished Volume Four. This is an excellent culmination of Persepolis. One good quote from it is "When we are afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear as always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression (p302)."

This is an excellent book that really needs to be part of every high school history curriculum in the Americas. It is full of little-known facts about the Mexican-American War yet is written in an easy-to-read style, never boring or bogged down in facts but stimulating and thought-provoking because of them. As the afterword says, "Far more is gained than lost --ultimately--in a closer examination of history, in considering all the possible influences, in tracing and documenting clearly all the threads of the intricate tapestry, and not withholding facts because they are embarrassing or shameful, or would expose either nation in an unfavorable light."

When I Was Puerto Rican is a poetic memoir of one woman's childhood in Puerto Rico. I grew up in Montana so I could relate to her love of nature and enjoyed how she listened to the natural world as well as the multiple voices of her ever-growing eleven sibling family. The poems/songs written in Spanish were some of my favorite passages; these often connected to Esmeralda's experiences with nature or musing on life and spiced up my reading pleasure. Reading this novel simultaneously kindled my interest in Puerto Rico and caused my dismay as I read once again about the machismo of Latin men.

The main character and author Esmeralda Santiago is uprooted from her homeland and transported by and with her mother to New York City where we see the colorful world of Brooklyn through her eyes as she struggles to understand her often fierce mother, learn English and make her way in an utterly different and often condescending culture.

I very much enjoyed this book. It is honest and poetic and the narration rings true.

There is a quite good book review/description of the storyline in goodreads, so look there if you want to know more.

I picked up this little book on one of my travels around Mexico and I am so glad I did. It is a little book of poetry with each poem written in both Spanish and English. I treasure it and keep it on my nightstand.

Good reads did not have it in its list of books, so I had to add it; thus, the real cover is not shown which is beautiful too.

Thank you to everyone who posted comments about his/her summer reading book. I enjoyed reading what you have to say about each book. Happy reading!

A fun cast of characters, a story of border crossing that breaks through the stereotypes, and a fiesty girl protagonist make this an engaging read that I strongly recommend.

Sold's narrator is the voice of a thirteen year old Nepalese young girl "sold" into the sex slave industry and carried to Calcutta. An excellent inside view of the underbelly of a horrid global problem. I especially enjoyed the catchy chapter titles over very short, one to three page, chapters and vivid descriptions of Nepalese village life and realistic characters.

I honestly can rate this book only a 3. Yes, the characters are vivid, if weird and unusual. Yes, Salinger writes like no one else with an almost conversational tone in some of his first person characters. Some of these stories are like a slice of life, where the written words on the page end but without a climax or even solid conclusion. The written words just stop as if we had reflected on something or watched something in life or in a movie and then moved on. Strangeness abounds.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is alright if you like this genre. I just could not relate to any of the characters but i stuck it out and finished the book in a three days. Ironically, the last chapter, which is probably considered anti-climatic, was the most visual for me and I could see the characters in the scenes. It will probably become a film and, for once, the film may be better than the book. Some of my goodreads friends rated it much higher than I, so just read the other reviews and decide for yourself if you want to read it. I hope you get hooked as I never really did.
My plot summary: a typical yuppie finds life more interesting with the rats, misfits and paranormal in the sewers beneath London than he does at his corporate gig and with his hen-pecking, affluent girl friend. You can see where this is going a mile a way and it does ultimately go there.

Virginia wrote: "E"
What does "E" mean?

Climbing the Stairs is a predictable yet worthy read. Why predictable? Because early in the book the reader can see where it is going and more or less how it will end. Why worthy? Because this book is told from a young woman's point of view as she struggles with family and social traditions in India in this coming of age novel. Descriptions of Indian clothing, food, customs and celebrations give us peeks inside the Hindi culture.

I would not have selected this book on my own but it is one of the summer reading books students at ASFG may select for their English language reading. As I plan to read all their English language choices for summer 2014, I read this book. I am glad I read this book as it gave me more information about the the George W. Bush war on Iraq and his false start of the Afghani War, USA military, the CIA involvement in Afghanistan and more. This book has tons of notes and an extensive bibliography in the back; in other words, it is well researched; yet Krakauer writes in an engaging way, telling parallel stories of the two wars and the life of Pat Tillman. I previously knew little of Tillman except via the headlines of print and broadcast news and this book gave me a much deeper and broader and honest portrayal of this individual "hero.". A worthy read. Also, I am curious to know how many ASFG seniors will actually read it to completion as it was a bit of a slow-go initially for me. Still it wasn't long before I was captivated and completed it.

Rain of Gold is a keeper. It was on the book shelf in my English classroom for three years; then one day another teacher, a well-read history teacher walked into my room, saw the book, and started raving about it. So I read it and it more than met my expectations. The two stories of two Mexican families as they make their separate journeys from Mexico to the USA is an epic, a journey across borders and decades through sorrow, suffering and sadness as their families and lives intersect in sometimes frustrating yet honest, beautiful ways. Rain of Gold connects us to family and our deepest desires and longings. I read it at a time when I myself was struggling and it was the perfect book for me at that time. Villasenor kept me craving more each day I read it. In the last third of the book, I found Villasenior a bit "sappy" or even melodramatic, but still it is an engaging read and I strongly recommend it.

This is a good teen read. Saenz writes lean and keen, so he packs a lot into lean sentences. Kind of a Hemingway of teen novels. I enjoyed it very much and Saenz's development of the main character, a fifteen year old Mexican-American boy, kept me interested. If I was rating this book in only the teen lit category I would give it a 4 versus a 3. But I compare it to great works like Shantaram and Fool's Crow I cannot rate it higher than 3. If you enjoy teen lit, this is one of the better ones.

A good read. It took me about 150 or more pages to get into this book, which was plenty of time since it is over 800 pages long. It has only a minimum of the scare-the-everything-out-of-you Stephen King stuff in it and that is close to the end. It is one of the ASFG summer books of choice by students which I am working my way through. My goal is to read every English book the students are reading for the summer reading program as the seniors will have to write book reviews the first few weeks of my English classes. Enjoy a different kind of Stephen King book. It could be cut to 600 pages and be a better book; still it is worth reading as is.

This a a fun junk reading book, a crime thriller. Definitely worth reading if you like crime stories. The main character is a bit of sleazy cop but with so-called good intentions; his relationship with his kinda sassy teenage daughter is fun to read and imagine. Connelly knows how to develop a full menu of characters so the reading is not on stuck on just the main character, who may not be alwaysthat appealing or intriguing. Yet, once I finished this book I wanted to read another, of which there are many, with this main character.