I always wondered how come there is no body writing a book about all those terrible events that happened and still happening ... for the world to know...moreI always wondered how come there is no body writing a book about all those terrible events that happened and still happening ... for the world to know and to remember. I know there have been many articles, blog post and ... but not a book like this and here you go, this is one ... I hope there will be more and more books like this ... to tell and re-tell all the things that people have been experiencing .... Great job Amir and Khalil!
Liked the way it ended with mehdi and Yasmin's baby born ... Hope ! At the end there is a note about the meaning of Yasmin , name of a flower and also the name of the Tunisian revolution. (less)
**spoiler alert** Beautiful. Loved the narrator's voice. Simpler and happier than the real story the novel is based on ...
I listened to the audiobook...more**spoiler alert** Beautiful. Loved the narrator's voice. Simpler and happier than the real story the novel is based on ...
I listened to the audiobook version on the way to work, and found myself missing my daughter while listening to the early parts of the book as the relation between the mother and the son was so nicely described. The happy ending is a little too much expanded but at the same time it was giving me a nice sense of relief to see how they finally settled in the outside world and to see them safe and free. Like to read "Alice in Wonderland" now, one of Jack's 5 books with pictures. :)
Liked:
Jack was addressing all of the items in the room such as carpet, table, plant and ... as "she" or "he" instead of IT.
Ma broke down only after she found her kid free and safe and it happened after the interview when the interviewer criticized her of the choices she had made regarding her son while in captivity. Nigh night sleep tight don't let the bugs bite
I have read couple of chapters (listened to!) so far and mesmorized by the story. :) I hope it stays like this. The audio book is read by Jim Dale and...moreI have read couple of chapters (listened to!) so far and mesmorized by the story. :) I hope it stays like this. The audio book is read by Jim Dale and he is very good. While I was listening to him reading this story I felt like he sounds a lot like Dambeldor and Run sometimes ... and then remembered that he was the reader of the Harry Potter audio book as well! :)(less)
Liked the idea (tasting the deep emotions and feelings of people by tasting the food they make). The story is a little slow ...! I listened to the aud...moreLiked the idea (tasting the deep emotions and feelings of people by tasting the food they make). The story is a little slow ...! I listened to the audio book read by the author herself. (less)
**spoiler alert** Sweet and uplifting with a touch of magic. Loved the way grandpa and Julia gradually made peace with their pasts and got over it eac...more**spoiler alert** Sweet and uplifting with a touch of magic. Loved the way grandpa and Julia gradually made peace with their pasts and got over it each on their own way.
Sawyer: Were you ever home sick? Julia: I was always homesick, I just didn't know where home is!
Liked the way Julia was always kept her windows opened when baking a cake so that the scent of it would reach out to her daughter ...(less)
The familiarity of the characters feels really good ... specially when you are so pre-occupied and find it hard to focus on getting to know new charac...moreThe familiarity of the characters feels really good ... specially when you are so pre-occupied and find it hard to focus on getting to know new characters in a book! and as always I love the great sense of humor in the narrator's tone. :) I listened to the audio book version of the book read by Johanna Parker. She is very good and it feels like you are listening to Sookies herself telling you her story.(less)
"I walk out the back door, to the terrible sound a Mae Mobley crying again. I start down the driveway, crying too, knowing how much I’m...moreBeautiful! :)
"I walk out the back door, to the terrible sound a Mae Mobley crying again. I start down the driveway, crying too, knowing how much I’m on miss Mae Mobley, praying her mama can show her more love. But at the same time feeling, in a way, that I’m free, like Minny. Freer than Miss Leefolt, who so locked up in her own head she don’t even recognize herself when she read it. And freer than Miss Hilly. That woman gone spend the rest a her life trying to convince people she didn’t eat that pie. I think about Yule May setting in jail. Cause Miss Hilly, she in her own jail, but with a lifelong term."
Side note for me: was mentioned several times in the book that this was supposed to be the other side of the story (from the black's point of view) to the "gone with the wind". in "gone with the wind" all the maids seemed to be happy, loyal and enjoying their faith ...
Enjoying it so much ... reminds me of "the white mountains" a little bit. "I guess it was the first day of school, we were five, you had a red plaid dr...moreEnjoying it so much ... reminds me of "the white mountains" a little bit. "I guess it was the first day of school, we were five, you had a red plaid dress and your hair was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up" "your father? why?" "he said, see that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother but she ran off with a coal miner" "what? no your making that up" "no, true story and I said, 'coal miner? why would she want a coal miner when she could have you?' and he said, because when he sings even the birds stop to listen." "its true, they do...I mean they did" "so that day in the music assembly when the teacher asked who knew the valley song, and your hand shot straight up in the air and she put you on a stool, so you could sing it for us all....and I swear every bird outside that window fell silent" "oh… please" "no it happened, and as soon as that song ended, I knew just like your mother I was a goner and then I spend the next eleven years trying to make up the nerve to talk to you" (less)
**spoiler alert** Things that I really liked: The real name of little bee was not revealed until the very end of the book and its meaning was so releva...more**spoiler alert** Things that I really liked: The real name of little bee was not revealed until the very end of the book and its meaning was so relevant to the whole story. Little bee kept saying throughout the book how she found it difficult to explain the stuff to girls back home (mostly things she saw or experienced in England), at the end of the book when she saw white blonde Charlie playing happily with black Nigerian kids at the beach, she described it as "Beautiful" and felt that finally here was something she didn't need to explain to the girls back home since they would also find it beautiful. Little bee was always feeling unsafe and imagining how she could kill herself in different situations if the men suddenly came, (sometimes she was imagining herself in funny situations like in a party with the queen of England). At the very end of the book, when “the men” finally got her, she felt calm and peaceful and that was because she found herself as a small price for her story and similar stories to be told and re-told.
One might think that the story was too much of a coincidence … but then I think all of the horrible stories in real life are somehow odd and unique in their own way!
Liked: “We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.”
"Little bee told me that her big sister was a very pretty girl. She was the kind of girl the men said could make them forget their troubles. She was the kind of girl the women said was trouble. Little bee wondered which it was going to be?"
"Tea is the taste of my land: it is bitter and warm, strong, and sharp with memory. It tastes of longing. It tastes of the distance between where you are and where you come from. Also it vanishes — the taste of it vanishes from your tongue while your lips are still hot from the cup. It disappears, like plantations stretching up into the mist. I have heard that your country drinks more tea than any other. How sad that must make you — like children who long for absent mothers. I am sorry."
"What is “yours” real name? He whispered. I smiled, "My name is Udo", Udo means peace. ... Peace is a time when people can tell each other their real names. ... The soldiers were walking across the sand toward us now. They were walking slowly, with their rifles in their hands pointing down at the sand, … “
"If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man." (Nigerian proverb) (less)
loved that part where Oscar Wild meets with a crying child whose cat has been drawn by her crule father and makes up that s...more**spoiler alert** Sweet. :)
loved that part where Oscar Wild meets with a crying child whose cat has been drawn by her crule father and makes up that story about his talent of knwoing which life of the 9 the cats are living and for a while was writing letters to the little girl telling her how happy her cat is living her 6th life somewhere in PAris. :)
Loved the story of the group and how reading helped them pass through a difficult phase of their life. (less)
- Love it when the book is narrated in the first person point of view and the reader of the audio book has the right accent and tone. Heather O'neil i...more- Love it when the book is narrated in the first person point of view and the reader of the audio book has the right accent and tone. Heather O'neil is great.
- Dublin/Glenskehy/irland/Undercover/Lexi scaping from her life and starting new over and over
- Starts like Rebecca, by Cassie dreaming of going back to the whiteorn house and looking at her/Lexi's image in the mirror laughing ...
- "This is Lexie Madison’s story, not mine. I’d love to tell you one without getting into the other, but it doesn’t work that way. I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pulled the stitches tight and I could unpick them any time I wanted. Now I think it always ran deeper than that and farther, underground; out of sight and way beyond my control."
- "I listened to the static echoing in my ear and thought of those herds of horses you get in the vast wild spaces of America and Australia, the ones running free, fighting off bobcats or dingoes and living lean on what they find, gold and tangled in the fierce sun. My friend Alan from when I was a kid, he worked on a ranch in Wyoming one summer, on a J1 visa. He watched guys breaking those horses. He told me that every now and then there was one that couldn’t be broken, one wild to the bone. Those horses fought the bridle and the fence till they were ripped up and streaming blood, till they smashed their legs or their necks to splinters, till they died of fighting to run."
- "I’m not the type to look back over my shoulder, or at least I try hard not to be. Gone is gone; pretending anything else is a waste of time. But now I think I always knew there would be consequences to Lexie Madison. You can’t make a person, a human being with a first kiss and a sense of humor and a favorite sandwich, and then expect her to dissolve back into scribbled notes and whiskeyed coffee when she no longer suits your purposes. I think I always knew she would come back to find me, someday. It took her four years. She picked her moment carefully. When she came knocking, it was an early morning in April, a few months after the end of my time in Murder, and I was at the firing range. "(less)
Easy read, light and sweet with a nice touch of magic. Perfect to be read on a vacation. Liked the magical part about Cloie: books apearing by her sid...moreEasy read, light and sweet with a nice touch of magic. Perfect to be read on a vacation. Liked the magical part about Cloie: books apearing by her side on their own according to her emotions and needs at different stages of her life. Same as the other two books I read from her, the main character had some self issues at first but then found ways to deal with them/solve them and imrpoved at the end. :) I was thinking that it's getting too predictable ... well, the relationships were kind of predictable but the ending of that lady in the closet came as a surprise to me. Overall, light, sweet and easy! (less)
**spoiler alert** She is so talented in describing relations and feelings. I could relate to the old retired first generation male character as well a...more**spoiler alert** She is so talented in describing relations and feelings. I could relate to the old retired first generation male character as well and as easy as the young 2nd generation mother and the lonely housewifes in the stories, this is because of Lahiri's power of writing. My least favorite one was the story of the couple going to a friend's wedding ... all the other ones I really liked. And I like the title too.
the ending of the story "Hell-Heaven": "It wasn't Deborah my mother confessed all these to, it was me years later once my heart too was broken by a man I was to marry."(less)
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