March 2019 Reads

At last, I'm back on track with these posts!

March was a decent reading month again.  I read these books this month:

• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon
• Memories of Anne Frank by Alison Gold
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
• Lost Soul, Be At Peace by Maggie Thrash

Here are some of the highlights from this month:

Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend by Alison Gold

My mission continues where I am still trying to learn everything I can about Anne Frank's life and life in German occupied Netherlands during World War II.  This was one of the books I found and I ordered it with some birthday money.  I didn't expect it to be targeted at a younger audience (maybe 5th/6th grade?), but that didn't stop me from reading it.

This book is written by Alison Gold, but she interviewed and helped a friend of Anne Frank's, Hannah Goslar, tell her story about how she survived the war and about her friendship with Anne Frank.  This because more interesting to me because Hannah was one of the last people to talk to Anne before she died in Bergen-Belsen, but her experience surviving the war was also quite different than other stories I've heard before.  I still don't fully understand it, but I became more intrigued.  Hannah's family managed to get on a list that would help them get to Israel and they also managed to get a Paraguayan passport.  I'm not entirely sure how they pulled this off, but both of these things acted as safeguards of sorts.  It bought them slightly better treatment and conditions wherever they went.  My understanding is that this paperwork made it so that they could be traded for prisoners of war.  If you're reading this and you know I'm terribly wrong, please correct me and I'll make amends to this post.  But it was nice to hear Hannah's story and get another shade of understanding of what life was like in this part of the world during this time.

Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon

This has been on the pile by my bed for the longest time.  Then Lunchtime Book Club decided on this book as their next read. 

I'm not going to say that this is the most sophisticated or romantic book out there on the market.  It's not.  It was predictable in a lot of ways.  That doesn't sound like a good reason to make it a highlight, but hear me out.

This book is on my highlight list because it inspired me to read a slightly longer book after a long time of poetry and graphic novels (no hate on poetry book or graphic novels).  It was a quick read told in a variety of ways... texts and email, brief book summaries, doodles, regular prose... it was lovely.

So purely for helping me jumpstart my reading habits again and shaking off the proverbial dust from winter, "Everything Everything" goes in my highlights for this month.


The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

I have really fallen in love with Rupi Kaur's work lately.  It's simply written, but her poems pack a punch.  For me at least, even if I can't identify with the exact situation she's writing about, I can still sympathize with what she is saying... I hesitate to say that I understand, because that implies personal knowledge or that there's nothing left to uncover.  I can't claim what isn't mine.  There is true pain wrapped up in these poems, but also glimpses of beauty peeking out behind the clouds.

The illustrations that go along with her poems... they're works of art in and of themselves.  They are beautiful.

I honestly don't think I have enough words to explain how I feel about Rupi Kaur's writing.  Honestly, I would read her grocery list if I could.  I'll definitely be looking for more of her work.  Recommendations are welcome!

See you again at the end of April!  Thanks for reading!

--Jude