I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree-Book review # 9

I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman is such an excellent book and there are so many great this to say about, it I do not know where to begin.  I will start by saying that this is a true story told in the point of  view of 16-year-old Hannelore Wolf and her experiences in the nazi concentration camps during WW2.

     I will make this review shorter since I could probably recite this whole book and you wouldn't even have to read it. Buuuut since I DO want people to read it I will just give you the gist of the book and my thoughts on it. 

        Basically it begins with the main character Hannelore finding out that her father has died and her mother and two brothers are being deported to a labor camp. Hannelore, being in a school in Berlin decides to join her family in the labor camp. So she travels by train to her home and her family is taken away to a concentration camp and not long after, she get separated from her brothers Wolfgang and Selly. Both her mother and Hannelore have their heads shaved balled and numbers put on their arms. Eventually she gets separated from her mother and she is forced to do several jobs such as being a maid/cleaning girl for a German family. She gets moved from camp to camp, not knowing if her family is dead or alive. She watches helplessly as people are killed, starved to death or died of disease. The only good that came out of Hannelore being put in the camps is Dick Hillman, a POW she falls in love with. Dick and Hannelore would meet up in the middle of the night and talk and Dick would gift Hannelore with chocolate and bread. In the middle of all the hell around them, these two were still able to form a bond and fall in love. Eventually they both find out they have been put on Schindlers List and will be saved! I wont spoil anymore of the story for those of who you are interesting in reading it.

     

I highly recommend this book to everyone, especially if you like Holocaust survivor stories and love stories all in one. This book is sad as well as eye opening just like many of the other holocaust survivor stories. I first read this one in 10th grade so being the same age as Hannelore it really effected me in a significant way. The things she, and other Jewish victims had to go through was horrible and shouldn't be ignored. So if you have an opportunity or some extra time, please pick up this book I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman and you won't be disappointed. 

Just some news and updates

So as you can see it has been over a month since my last book review and this is mainly because I haven't had any time to read or write because of school, my honors society meetings and preparing for graduation so I thought I would give you a little update. The next book I am planning on reviewing is called I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman. This book is an amazing true story about a Schindler's List survivor during the Holocaust. This book is absolutely amazing, heartbreaking and inspiring and I can't wait to review it for you guys. 

I will try to keep up with my blog until the summer because I am going to be so busy with my Alpha Sigma Lambda meetings and I have community service events coming up where I am building houses for the homeless as a part of the honors society and I am getting ready to transfer school which has been stressful. So please bear with me for the next few weeks and I should have my new review out soon! 

Love you, Hate You, Miss You-Book Review #8

Love You, Hate You, Miss You by Elizabeth Scott is an amazing book that I read a few years ago and just have to review it. At the time I first read this book I was going through something similar to the main character and because of that, this book will always mean a lot to me.

Love You, Hate You, Miss You is about a girl named Amy who lost her best friend  Julia in a terrible car accident. Since Amy was also in the car she feels survivor's guilt, considering Amy was driving under the influence at the time. When Amy's psychologist tells her she could keep a diary to write down her thoughts, she decides to write letters to Julia instead. These letters are very raw and brutally honest as she writes about her life and how she feels like it no longer has any meaning. This book definitely describes the different stages someone goes through after losing a friends such as still loving them and missing them but also hating them for leaving you behind. 

Slowly Amy begins to reshape her life and meets a boy named Patrick who has experienced hardship and loss and begins to relate to Amy. The closer the two become the more Amy realizes she can move on from her loss and start her life again.

This book is beautiful but it was also kind of hard for me to read because I had lost one of my best friends a few years ago shortly before reading this book. I can definitely relate to the emotionlessness the narrator is feeling. I would 1000% recommend this book to everyone whether you have experienced a loss or not. It is beautifully written, emotional and makes you think a lot about life and death.  

Inception-Book review #7

"The most dangerous enemy is not the one who lingers behind you in the shadows, but the one who walks beside you as a friend. They shape the world around you with well-constructed lies, entombing you in the gossamer of their deceit. You'll never know their true faces, for they shed their masks in layers-meticulous and devious, like the skin of an every-changing snake." 

This is the first paragraph in Bianca Scardonis book Inception it is a part of a series called The Marked. I was first attracted to this book based simply on the first paragraph, it is so well written which is very important to me and it makes you want to read more. Inception is about 17-year-old Jemma who goes to live with her uncle after returning from a mental institution after seeing her father get killed by a vampire. She is told that vampires are obviously not real and she simply had a psychotic break after a "traumatic event" but Jemma is not entirely convinced. So now without parents, Jemma lives with her uncle in an old victorian house. Jemma attends a new school, meets friends (and enemies) and becomes fascinated with broding Trace, a boy at her school with his own secrets. After meeting a mysterious guy named Dominic who is really a vampire, or Revenant; Jemma gets thrown into a dangerous love triangle of the supernatural variety. Soon after stealing a mysterious book from her uncles office in search for answers, Jemma finds out she has a very important role in her new found world. Jemma's uncle finally tells her the truth about her destiny and what is expected of her she immediately becomes wary and denies her fate as a warrior to vanquish evil. 

I love this book mainly because it doesn't seem like the characters are flat or immature like you see in a lot of vampire romance novels and things alike. This book is original which is also rare in such novels and Scardonis does a great job being descriptive and sucking (no pun intended) people in. So if you enjoy with books with vampires, spells and fallen angels I highly recommend Bianca Scardonis book series The Marked. Although this review is only for Inception I highly recommend you read the others too. 

Wow has it really been five weeks?

Okay so it has obviously been a while since my last post and there are several reasons for this:

1. I have not read any books to review other than "Math In Society" which no one wants to read.

2. School has kept me pretty busy because it is math class so I have to try really hard and study all the time and I have even been trying to read ahead so I have an idea of what to expect next week.

3. The final reason why I haven't done any book reviews is because I have no new books to read! It takes me a while to find a book that I am interested in and I am very picky about a lot when it comes to books. 

Since I did promise a review on the other book I was reading then I will do that for you as soon as I finish up with this update. Also every other monday I have to go to an Alpha Sigma Lambda meeting at 2pm which takes even more time out of my day. Alpha Sigma Lambda is an honors society for adults at my school, and we have this cool lounge where there is free food, coffee, computers and a television that I am allowed to use anytime I want. So I might use my time in the lounge to read or write since I have a hard time doing it at home. 

Also, I am graduating in about 3 months which is pretty crazy. I ordered my cap and gown the other day and now I get to wear a special A.S.L sash and be recognized as an honor society student at graduation. It will look fantastic on my resume and I get a lot of scholarships for it too which I need. Hopefully everything is settled with financial aid about my schools next year, I still have to get in contact with my transfer adviser from my one school. I am really nervous about graduation and of course my anxiety is thinking of all the things that can go wrong. I will be that person who falls on stage on the way to the podium. I also have a fear that they won't call my name at all and I will just be sitting there like an idiot. Buutttt i'm sure these feelings are normal, right?