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After reading a number of books in grade ten English I came to enjoy reading on my own time, reading on my own terms and gaining awareness on different issues. My recent choice was the novel and inspired movie, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. Danica had recommended it and knowing that I was heading to Vancouver for the weekend I considered that the book would help take my mind of the flight. In the end it didn’t but I can’t complain because the book was very insightful and a good read.
“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is a best seller about concentration camps in Germany during World War 2. It’s a very powerful novel that gives a unique view on how the war had affected the innocent people of Germany. John Boyne writes the book in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy whose father receives the promotion of commandant in a near by camp. The story, though fictional, is a beautiful tale of two boys who are meant to be enemies but instead form a friendship.
The Holocaust is a subject that could be considered risky to write about, especially through a Germans point of view. Though these were terrible and frightful times I can honestly say that I have never considered how the innocent people of Germany viewed the war. Reading the book made me realize that not all of them had the same values as Hitler and we tend to forget that, if ever we even think of it.
German children, as described in this book, were barricaded by propaganda and lies. Because they were sheltered from the truth, they grew up thinking that the actions of their families weren’t wrong. Growing up in Germany through that time may have created countless numbers of children who became insensitive to violence and corruption.
As I read the book I became increasingly angry and watching the movie only enhanced that feeling. How could humans display ideas and actions that were so inhuman? This book prompted many questions, some of which I can’t even answer. Where we draw the line for what is right or wrong? Why do we need to be better than others? How does a person cope with taking others lives? How do German children of that time feel today? And the list goes on. After I read the book and finished the movie I was telling my mom about one of the scenes that really stood out to me. When I told my mom that the commandants wife didn’t know about the activities taking place in the camp she was upset and told me it wasn’t true. She said they all knew what their husbands were doing to the Jews. Basically reading this book and seeing this movie made me less bias and more open to other sides, whereas my mom was instantly irritated that I even said it. I’d say the book has given me more knowledge and insight on the issue.

When Edie moves to a different college she finds herself falling madly for Dylan, the mysterious, handsome art boy.

Edie faces many challenges with Dylan. They always seem to be friends that snog and they can never move past that point. Dylan is an enclosed person and Edie doesn’t know much about his personal life, but she’s sure she’s fallen head over heels.
They are very sweet, almost cute in the way that they get into constant fights and battle about whether they like each other and why its not ok to kiss and blah blah. It’s sweet but its almost an immature relationship.

In all honesty young lovers probably love in a mind game kind of way. It’s as if we try not to let our guard down or we play hard to get. I think Young people enjoy a challenge in their relationship or with crushes. I don’t know about other people but I like someone who is unpredictable, it keeps interest.

I guess it’s where you grow up. In stable countries like Canada or Britain love doesn’t have to be rushed. We have time to pick at others brains and make people more crazy about us. In third world countries I don’t think they have time to play with others feelings, you have to tell them how you feel because it could be your last day. And it could be for any body but people like us who live in some of the most safe and best countries in the world, forget that we could die at any time. Where as war torn and poor countries may encounter death every day. It’s in those times that we start to express our feelings. The fear of death can make us not afraid. Isn’t it odd how that works. Because we’re afraid of death, we are not afraid to speak our true feelings. Of course not everyone is afraid to die but many of us fear we will leave Earth unfullfilled, maybe that’s why people in those countries say their feelings, they could be trying to get everything out in the open.

Not all people in those countries just let their feelings free but in a way I think that it could be a possibility that they speak of their love maybe more than we do. I have never been to any of these countries but when you think about it many of those people know they live a hard life. There is love every where, in every country, people are always falling in love. Maybe it just depends on who you are and what you believe but I do believe they are more likely not to take others for granted and not share how they feel about a person.

I enjoyed the book very much even though it’s so dramatized. Our society doesn’t know any better than to play mind games in our relationships. We don’t live in many day to day fatal experiences and we don’t face death every day and night. It’s as if we make hardships in our relationships to compensate for something. Little things that really don’t make any difference, we enlarge as though its the end of the world. Perhaps we do it because we know that we have more time to make up for our behaviors, like we take our lives and relationships for granted.

That was my deep feelings into the matter. But I did like the book a lot. I loved reading it because the characters were similar to my friends and I and it was just like a chapter in our lives. You find the guy you like. You like each other on and off and then one day your dreams come true and you finally have the label of boy friend and girl friend. It was a simple book all wrapped up in drama that was sort of refreshing. In a I’m glad people have time to worry about drama and not worry about locking their doors because you live in a terrible neighborhood kind of way. It was an escape from reality.

A story about two extremely competitive journalists whose columns challenge each other to try certain things that are out of each others comfort zone.
But the story takes a wild turn when Ronnie challenges Dylan to learn to knit, while the city of Cleveland watches. Dylan, knowing he can’t lose, takes up knitting. Taking private lessons from his sworn enemy they passion between them.

Ronnie is really confident and puts up a big wall between her and Dylan. She always looked sharped and was often known as the Ice Queen for being particularly snappy and often heartless. But under all that exterior, she was the most insecure and damaged woman. Like Ronnie, putting on a face is something that we have all done. If we’re embarrassed about our family, want to seem more tough and hard core, or to give off the impression we’re something better or more appealing to others. Many women at times feel like they should be less emotional and hard to get, thinking that guys will fall for them if they have to work hard for them. But it’s not only the women that have this issue, men do as well. Lots of guys want to hide their emotions and act like a lot of things don’t get to them.

I have hid my emotions and built walls between me and others so I can’t get hurt. Lots of times I have put on a face so I won’t get judged by others. I don’t necessarily like many people to know how I feel and I’m uncomfortable expressing my personal issues and emotions. In this book you can tell that Ronnie puts up a block so she won’t fall in love, which I do quite often. Why get into a relationship when I know it’s going to end and get all heart broken and sad all the time. Some say it’s worth all the pain, but I’m happy where I am right now and I don’t want to ruin that.

In the book Ronnie and Dylan seem to be on the opposite sides. She’s very strict and he’s very easy going. He is into sports while she’d rather spend her time at their knitting group. In this way they kind of reminded me of my mom and dad. When they first met my mom was so out going and bubbly and my dad was terribly shy and never really went out of his comfort zone. They are complete opposites almost in every way except for a couple. My mom would rather stay in the house and knit and crotchet, while my dad would want to be in the garden or cutting trees. But they both love mysteries, watching British comedies and shopping. It’s comforting to know that opposites really do attract, and work.

I literally couldn’t stop reading it. Even on my holiday I was reading it, and I don’t read on holidays. Reading this book made me want to read more books in my spare time. There just as good as movies and it’s exciting to visualize how the characters look and where the scene is taking place. It was so tense all the time. The ending was perefct and I loved their characters.

Frances’ life revolves around her cooking, her house and her teaching. Moving to Tuscany she finds a beautiful house called Bramosole, which needs work to be done on it, entrancing new recipes and new friends.

What Frances values is different from many people. She never seems to care much about television, looks, anything that our generation obsesses over. I don’t want to value these things as I get older either. I’d love to be able to shut the rest of the world out and enjoy nature and cooking exotic foods. I do value these things more than I value material things. Material things keep you happy for a while but after a while they don’t matter and you soon forget about them.

I used to cook once a week for my parents. Something new every time that non of us had ever had. I’d prepare everything myself with no help from my parents. In doing that, I felt I could carry out something that I’d never done, and make it taste great. To finally start doing things by yourself and feeling like your growing up is something that I do value. Sharing a home cooked meal and watching my parents enjoy the meal I cooked was something that also made me happy. Moments like these make me feel very grateful for everything I have, and for things I don’t have. Like Frances, I’m starting to value things in life that do matter.

This book was difficult to read and I didn’t particularly like it. I was quite bored and couldn’t wait until I finished. The words in the book were too descriptive for my liking. I didn’t know what half of them meant. I don’t mind description but there were so many descriptions in this book that after a while I didn’t know exactly what was going on. It was a little over my head and I probably wouldn’t recommend it for anyone in high school, maybe for my parents.

But, there were some good recipes in the book. And after reading this book I moved on to my next and was glad I had read this book, even though I didn’t like it that much, I did enjoy the next books description and appreciated it more.

Briony Tallis was an unusual 13 year old, who was consumed by writting short stories and being particulary proper. Yet this young lady yearned for excitement in her life, but mostly she desired to have secrets. Secrets that she could try to hide, that would make her life more eventful.

When Briony sees something her sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner doing she knows that she has reached a very deep, dark secret.

Cecilia and Robbie remind me of what old school love. How people can hate someone but love them at the same time, how when you see someone at first site you know you love them. You don’t find bundles of couples like that anymore. And not saying that people aren’t in love but we definately have different ways of showing it now-a-days.

With time everything changes, even love. Relationships are more likely to be based on physical appearence and what people have more than who they are, and how they feel. In our time and generations to come, there will be even greater pressures to be like everyone else, to be something that you might not want to be or someone your not. Because we all try to be popular and liked, we end up with all the same people. And relationships change. The actions you do, the things you say, and the people who you become attracted to can all change. We have this constant concern about not being accepted, that we have to convert ourselves to fit in.

I saw the movie before I read the book but they were both very captivating. Each character was very complex. Briony was extremely unique and had a preciseness about her. Cecilia was laid back and out spoken but always seemed to be in world of her own. And Robbie was very charming but played many mind games with Cecilia.

The book was moving and unlike any novel I’ve ever read, everything in it was so intricate and I adored that. It was set in the time of World War 2 and the book was almost border line disturbing with the war scenes they describe. I know I’ve never been in a situation where war was all around me but the way the details in the scenes make you feel like your there. And I’ve never been in love but when I do I hope it’s as lovely as they say it is. Overall a sensational read.

Emma Corrigan was an average British women in her mid-twenties. She aimed to become a executive business women, paying her dad back the money she owed him while trying not to hurt her cousin Kerry, and convince herself that her relationship with Connor really was just as perfect as everyone said it was. Until her life flipped upside down, when she met the man on the plane.

Emma had frequently switched jobs. She felt that she wasn’t getting anywhere with her career. First she was in accounting, then photography, then settled for business, which all in all was a costly mess. Borrowing the money from her dad, she wanted to prove to him she could get it back. Just a small detail in her life. Then there was Kerry. Her cousin who came to live with her family because of the death of her mom and the constant business trips of her father’s. Kerry was 14 when she came to be part of their family, Emma was 10. Soon Kerry was the star of the family and Emma was always being compared to her. Emma hated visiting her family. The constant jokes about her career, the daughter and mother relationship that Kerry had stolen from her and always being second best.

Her boyfriend, Connor, was dashing, sweet, charming, what any women would want. She loved Connor, but always thought maybe he was too much of this, too much of that. She thought her little lies about loving jazz, saying she loved the idea of using the term “darling” for each other or the weight she said she was, would never catch up to her.

When Emma is challenged to go on a business trip alone on behalf of the company, in an attempt to get her promotion, it ends up a disaster, when the deal falls through the roof, she has to return home unhappy and her mind on having to tell her boss.
But little did she know that she would meet someone completely unexpected on her plane ride home.

When turbulence hits the plane, Emma can’t stop thinking that she’s going to die. In a feeling of panic she turns to the stranger sitting beside her and starts spilling out every secret she’s kept. How she hates going to family functions, that the lingerie connor bought her is way too small, that she doesn’t even know how to kick box but she told the guy at the coffee shop different or that when she applied for her job with her current company that she lied about her grade. What she didn’t know was that the handsome man sitting beside her was really her higher boss, the man the made the Panther Cola Company. To them, Jack Harper was like the pope.

Jack Harper now starts popping up at her work. And when Jack Harper reveals her secrets to show what he wants his company to design for the women of London, a passionate relationship that she thought they may have had soon turns around…or does it?

This book is really realistic. Not all the words are typed with correct punctuation and they swear pretty frequently. It’s nice to read a book that sounds so much like what you find a person going through right now. I don’t read a lot of books but this one is so good and the ending is really great. I didn’t know what to expect from it, I actually only started reading it in the beginning of the new year, just so I would fall asleep easier, but oddly enough once I started to read it…I was hooked! I also want to look into some of her other novels such as: Confessions of a Shopoholic and Remember Me? I would recommend this novel for the teenage girls. There’s drama, secrets, romance, that’s all we really need!