M.L. Sparrow's Blog, page 3

Parkland

Parkland: Birth of a Movement, by Dave Cullen Blurb:The New York Times bestselling author of Columbine offers a deeply moving account of the extraordinary teenage survivors of the Parkland shooting who pushed back against the NRA and Congressional leaders and launched the singular grassroots March for Our Lives movement. Emma Gonzalez called BS. David Hogg called out Adult America. The uprising had begun. Cameron Kasky immediately recruited a colorful band of theatre kids and rising activists and brought them together in his living room to map out a movement. Four days after escaping Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, two dozen extraordinary kids announced the audacious March for Our Lives. A month later, it was the fourth largest protest in American history.My ReviewI picked this book up because I wanted to find out more about the issues, having obviously heard about these students and what they were doing in the wake of the tragic shooting. I’m from the UK, so gun laws and the fear many students in America feel has never touched my life, but it’s impossible not to know about the issues and the politics that are going on across the sea at the moment. I think what this group is doing is absolutely amazing and it makes me feel hopeful not only for change in politics in America, but also throughout the worlds as younger votes begin to get in on it and decide they want a change. Honestly, this book is both amazing, that these young adults have the courage to do this, and horrifying that they have to; it’s like a YA dystopian novel, where a bunch of teenagers save the world while the adults, who’s responsibility it really is to fix things, either stand by uselessly or oppose their efforts. It is awful that the world has come to this, but also gives us hope for future generations. Also, for more info there are lots of references to articles and other things in this book that I will be checking out to learn more. My favourite quotes from ‘Parkland’: ‘… what we see today is worse: unsurprised survivors who expected a shooter … There were no vacant stares from the Parkland survivors. This generation had grown up on lockdown drills…’ ‘There are strains of sadness woven into this story, but this is not an account of grief. These kids chose a story of hope.’ ‘Nothing ever changed, except the body count, which kept rising … ‘No way to prevent this,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.’ ‘We’re children. You guys are the adults. You need to take some action. … David Hogg called out Adult America for letting our kids die. The uprising had begun.’ ‘Please don’t pray for me. Your prayers mean nothing. Show me you care in the polls.’ ‘… all I hear is, ‘My right to own a gun outweighs your student’s right to live.’ ‘…protect kids, not gun; and children should die for your hobby…’ ‘… suburban kids feared violence inside their schools — once in a lifetime, but horrific — and the Chicago kids feared violence getting there.’ ‘It wasn’t a lack of caring, more a lack of hope.’ ‘Emma was galvanising a country like no man or woman, pope or president. And this well-wisher was just snatching it away. Adult reactions — maybe adults were the problem. I pictured Emma’s friends overhearing that. They were so sick of hearing that stuff. David Hogg said it one day: If adults had stepped up, they wouldn’t have to. And their friends would still be alive.’

A Dog's Journey

A Dog's Journey (A Dog's Purpose, Book 2), by W. Bruce CameronBlurb:Buddy is a good dog.After searching for his purpose through several eventful lives, Buddy is sure that he has found and fulfilled it. Yet as he watches curious baby Clarity get into dangerous mischief, he is certain that this little girl is very much in need of a dog of her own.When Buddy is reborn, he realises that he has a new destiny. He's overjoyed when he is adopted by Clarity, now a vibrant but troubled teenager. When they are suddenly separated, Buddy despairs―who will take care of his girl?My ReviewI love W. Bruce Cameron books. They’re all so charming and heartwarming and made me want to hug my rescue dog! Yes, the writing is simplistic, but since it’s written from the dogs point of view that’s fair enough and I didn’t think it hurt the story at all. Honestly, I didn’t even notice the writing style until I saw it mentioned in another review because I was just so sucked into the story. If possible, I have to say I loved it even more that the first book, A Dog’s Purpose. I feel like I connected more with CJ and the obvious love she had for her dogs more than I did with the human characters in book one, which may be because Bailey belonged to so many different people in that book, whereas in this one Molly, Max and Toby were all connected to CJ. I also loved how the author really understands dog, reading some lines I'd look at my dog, or think about the shelter dogs I volunteer with, and think 'yeah, that must be how they feel, or what they're thinking'. All in all, I loved this book and hope W. Bruce Cameron writes more. This is a must read for all dog lovers!My favourite quotes from 'A Dog's Journey': 'I didn't understand it, why people would come play with me and then not want to take me with them.' 'Sometimes things aren't practice, but you just do them because it's the right thing.' 'We both jump on her and I finally growled at Rocky for acting like he was as important to her as I was.''I didn't trust people who didn't like dogs.' 'You can usually tell that a man is good if he has a dog who loves him.'

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman Blurb:Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink ever weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled existence. Except, sometimes, everything...My ReviewI LOVED this book. The story line was simple which concerned me at first, but then I got sucked into Eleanor's character and how it develops and I couldn't stop reading. At first I found her a little irritating, although definitely amusing and a refreshing character since she's so different from most heroines you read about, but within a few chapters I was definitely in her corner and ready to fight people on her behalf! There's quite a lot of speculation as to whether Eleanor is supposed to be autistic; I'm not an expert by any way, but with my limited experience, I feel like she's not, she's just traumatised and trying to survive the best way she knows how and anyway, even if she is supposed to be autistic, there are different types and degrees of autism, it's not the same for everyone which I feel like it's important for people to know... I really enjoyed watching Eleanor and Raymond's relationship grown and mature and how her feelings for him changed throughout the book. It felt very real, as apposed to love at first sight. I also loved her relationship with her cat, Glen; it was so relatable. Animals really are a wonderful cure for loneliness and depression, though I'm more of a dog person myself! :-) The only part I had fault with was the end. I don't want to give anything away, because it's a bit of a twist and I definitely wasn't expecting it, but although I felt like it was very clever and I liked it in a way, I also felt like it needed more explanation and exploring. Still, definitely an awesome, funny, unique book that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone.My favourite quotes from 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine':'I'm confident that it is perfectly normal to talk to oneself occasionally. It's not as though I'm expecting a reply.' 'If he book has one failing, it's that there is insufficient mention of Pilot. You can't have too much dog in a book.' '...on some days, the very darkest days, knowing that the plant would die if I didn't water it was the only thing that forced me up out of bed.' 'If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn't spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.' 'Mummy's way was wrong, I knew that. But no one had ever shown me the right way to live a life, and although I'd tried my best over the years, I simply didn't know how to make things better.' '... there must be some people for whom difficult behaviour wasn't a reason to end their relationship with you.' 'When you're struggling to manage your own emotions, it becomes unbearable to have to witness other people's...'

Call Me By Your Name

Call Me By Your Name, by Andre Aciman Blurb:Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliff-side mansion on the Italian Riviera. Unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, at first each feigns indifference. But during the restless summer weeks that follow, unrelenting buried currents of obsession and fear, fascination and desire, intensify their passion as they test the charged ground between them. What grows from the depths of their spirits is a romance of scarcely six weeks' duration and an experience that marks them for a lifetime. For what the two discover on the Riviera and during a sultry evening in Rome is the one thing both already fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy.My ReviewHaving read some of the reviews on Goodreads while I was trying to order my own thoughts about this book, I realised that I'm in the minority by not liking this story... I had high hopes for this book, I wanted passion, longing, heartbreak, which I got in a way, but for me the writing style made all of that fall flat. It was all so long winded, like it was trying to impress. At times it was poetic and there are some really beautiful passages and scenes, but for me, being constantly in Elio's head got boring. I was waiting for dialogue, character development, anything... And it didn't really help that I never connected with Elio, in fact I found him rather annoying.All in all, I'm glad a lot of other people enjoyed this book, but for me it wasn't a hit. Nor was the movie for that matter... My favourite quotes from 'Call Me By Your Name':'We are not written for one instrument alone; I am not, neither are you.''Try again later meant, I haven't the courage now.''Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are.' 'All I had to do was list the works I'd read here and he'd know all the places I'd travelled to.''Smile, and the world smiles back.''You're speaking volumes, my friend, and tonight we're doing short poems only.''I will have been a terrible father if, one day, you'd want to speak to me and felt that the door was shut or not sufficiently open.''... we'll want to call it envy, because to call it regret would break our hearts.' 'Any moment now we were going to say goodbye. Suddenly part of my life was going to be taken away from me now and would never be given back.'

The Bride Test

The Bride Test (The Kiss Quotient, Book 2), by Helen HoangBlurb: Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride. As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working…but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection. With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love. My ReviewI absolutely LOVED The Kiss Quotient, so of course I had to pre-order this book and practically inhale it as soon as it appeared on my Kindle! Helen Hoang has now, officially been added to my list of favourite authors!A lot happens in this book, more than in The Kiss Quotient, and that was both an upside and a downside. Upside because for the most part it was so well handled that it didn't feel like you were getting bogged down with drama, yet it kept the story moving along and you were really invested in both Esme and Khai's plight. It was a downside however, in the fact that at the end, everything tied up too nicely, with the issue of Esme's daughter, which had been a big concern and secret throughout the book, being revealed to Khai and accepted in a sentence when I felt like there should have been more to it and it would have been nice to have a few scenes of them together... That, however, is the only issue I had with this story. I loved the characters, the writing and I also found it very interesting to compare how Khai's autism differs from Stella's in the first book - many people don't seem to realise that autism isn't just a checklist of things, it's different from person to person and varies in degrees and it was good to see this depicted in an adult book.I can't wait for the next book by this author - I'm desperately hoping for a book for Quan; he deserves his own story, he's such a sweetheart! My favourite quotes from 'The Bride Test': 'No one seemed to understand that it wasn't goodbye unless Andy said it back.''I'm not lonely. I like being alone.' 'It looked like they were going to do more of this thing where they both spoke their own languages and neither entirely understood the other,''He had a crying woman latched onto him like an octopus. He couldn't help recalling that the blue-ringed octopus was on go the most venomous animals in existence. Don't upset the octopus.' 'He was puzzle she never would have been able to solve if he hadn't shown her how.'

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The Tattooist of Auschwitz, by Heather MorrisBlurb:In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive. One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.My ReviewI'm going to keep this short because I hate writing and reviews, but it's even worse because this is a true story. Let me start by saying that it wasn't the story I didn't like, I don't think anyone can say Lale's story of survival isn't amazing and inspiring. However, personally I thought the writing was far too simple for this type of story. It read almost like a script, with most things happening through dialogue. Unfortunately, this meant that although there were lots of emotional moments, the writing didn't seem to reflect it...

Inferior

Inferior, by Angela Saini Blurb:From intelligence to emotion, for centuries science has told us that men and women are fundamentally different. But this is not the whole story. Shedding light on controversial research and investigating the ferocious gender wars in biology, psychology and anthropology, Angela Saini takes readers on an eye-opening journey to uncover how women are being rediscovered. She explores what these revelations mean for us as individuals and as a society, revealing an alternative view of science in which women are included, rather than excluded.My ReviewA very interesting book. Honestly, I feel like the conclusions it came to were pretty self-evident, but I liked learning about the science and the research done. I felt like the he said, she said style of it was a little annoying, but then I also liked that we were presented with one theory, they another that either discounted or added to it - it was all very orderly and easy to follow for someone who isn't a scientist! All in all, a good read that I think everyone should have a look at.

No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home, by Pen FarthingBlurb:When Pen Farthing brought two dogs home from his tour of Afghanistan, little did he know what he had begun. Twelve months later, he has left the Marines, after 20 years service, to run his charity full time. But he barely has a chance to miss life in action, as he is inundated with requests from marines and soldiers to give more rescued dogs the chance of a new life in the West. Whether it's little Helmand, Fubar or Beardog - or the unruly litter known as the Char Badmashis or Four Hooligans - Pen does his upmost to give these dogs the chance they deserve. It is a frustrating and sometimes dangerous process, and while some dogs make it out to safety, others, tragically, do not. But a look out the window to see his own Afghan hounds, Now Zad and Tali, with bright eyes and glossy coats tells him it's all worthwhile.My ReviewMuch like the first book, this is an uplifting true story that makes you believe in the goodness of some people and it really makes you wish there were more people like the author in the world. I found the writing style more jarring in this book than I did in the first one, perhaps because it felt like less was happening in this story. The writing was very simple, which is fair enough, but I felt like there was a lot that the editor could have cut out because it slowed the story down... Still, I enjoyed reading about the Afghan dogs and their journey to a better life and how the charity set up by the author set about helping other soldiers rescue the dogs they bonded with. I don't feel the need to read any more of his books, but I've already checked out the charity website and will be keeping up to date with what's going on.My favourite quotes from 'No Place Like Home':'And I had made the cardinal sin. I had given Nowzad a trust in humans that we had no right to give.' '... 99 percent of the time it is the human influence on the dog that has caused the problems: the dogs are not given the chance to prove otherwise. Woe betide us if we were ever as strict on some of the humans walking our streets as we were with our dog population.' 'As with all things military, unless it is a life-or-death situation, the lads will find a funny side to it.''They were the first to make the journey, but there is no way they are going to be the last.'

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, by Balli Kaur Jaswal Blurb:Every woman has a secret life . . . Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community. Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind. As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s "moral police." But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all. My ReviewIt was the cover that originally drew me to this book. When I started reading, I was under the impression that it would be an anthology of short stories, but I got so much more than that! Yes, there are short stories woven into it and the book is about Punjabi widows learning to express their desires and opening up to each other to write these stories, but then there was also the larger story which is about discovering who you are, embracing your culture but also being yourself and having your own values. And then there was also the murder mystery side of the story... I enjoyed learning more about the Punjabi and Sikh culture and I loved Nikki's character and how she learns to balance her family culture and with also having Western values. Really, all I can say is read this book. I missed my bus stop several times because I was so engrossed in this story! My favourite quotes from 'Erotic Stories for Punjabi Women': 'Nikki balked at the word 'allowed'. Why did Mindi need permission from anyone to take liberties with dating?' 'Gone were the days when Nikki's parents threatened to send her back to India when she misbehaved; now they exiled themselves.''... wouldn't it be nice to have Punjabi neighbours? But what was the point of moving to England then?' 'It would be easier to be a criminal fairly prosecuted by the law than an Indian daughter who wronged her family.''One minute he was saying, "follow your dreams, that's why we came to England" and the next he was dictating what I should do for a living. He assumed that my dreams were identical to his.''The eldest child is meant to pave the way. If I fail at anything, my siblings are doomed, according to my parents.''You loved your husband, your marriage. Good for you. I survived mine.''This interpretation of marriage sounds like an endless list of chores.''The last time I told the truth in this house, there was an epic argument and I moved out. I was called selfish for not wanting what everybody else wanted for me.'

Ross Poldark

Ross Poldark, (Poldark Series, Book One), by Winston Graham Blurb:In the first novel in Winston Graham’s hit series, a weary Ross Poldark returns to England from the American War of Independence (1783), looking forward to a joyful homecoming with his beloved Elizabeth. But instead he discovers his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth—believing Ross to be dead—is now engaged to his cousin. Ross has no choice but to start his life anew. Thus begins the Poldark series, a heartwarming, gripping saga set in the windswept landscape of Cornwall. With an unforgettable cast of characters that spans loves, lives, and generations, this extraordinary masterwork from Winston Graham is a story you will never forget.My ReviewI'll start by saying that I love the recent adaptation of this book, which is why I decided to read it. I did spend quite a bit of time comparing - personally I prefer the TV series - but still, they were different enough that I was able to appreciate them as two separate things and enjoy them both. The romance was definitely a lot better in the TV series, the recent one at least, but then I don't really feel like this was written as a romance, it's more about what it was like in Cornwall in the 1780's, the human spirit and social injustice. In many ways it is still relatable, which is sad if you think about it. I'll admit the age difference between Ross and Demelza was a little unsettling at first, especially since she's only 13 when we first meet her, however, nothing happens between them until she's older and actually the age difference is only ten years, which isn't much now and probably wouldn't have batted an eyebrow back then... Still, even after they're married he continued to call her 'child' which really put me off, despite the sweet moments between them.I'm not in a huge rush to read the rest of the series, since I already know what happens, but I'm sure I'll get around to it! My favourite quotes from 'Ross Poldark':'... he had no complaint against life or against his brother. He had lived one to the limit and ignored the other.' 'The book from which you take your teaching, Dr Halse, says that man shall not live by bread alone. These days you're asking men to live without even bread.' ' "... we will have you committed for contempt of court."Ross bowed slightly. "I can assure you, sir, that such a committal would be a reading of my inmost thoughts." '