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Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated The Light at the End of the Day in Books

Jan 14, 2024

9 of 220
Book
The Light at the End of the Day
By Eleanor Wasserberg
⭐️⭐️

When Jozef is commissioned to paint a portrait of the younger daughter of Kraków’s grand Oderfeldt family, it is only his desperate need for money that drives him to accept. He has no wish to indulge a pampered child-princess or her haughty, condescending parents – and almost doesn’t notice Alicia’s bookish older sister, Karolina.

But when he is ushered by a servant into their house on Kraków’s fashionable Bernadyńska street in the winter of 1937, he has no inkling of the way his life will become entangled with the Oderfeldts'. Or of the impact that the German invasion will have upon them all.

As Poland is engulfed by war, and Jozef’s painting is caught up in the tides of history, Alicia, Karolina and their parents are forced to flee – their Jewish identity transformed into something dangerous, and their comfortable lives overturned …

I struggled with this book in several places. The story was so sad and I can’t even begin to imagine living like this but the book was a tough read I’m not sure why either which is so frustrating. I couldn’t bring my to like these characters at all under the storyline the characters were hard to like.

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NightCap Camera

Photo & Video and Utilities

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NightCap Camera is a powerful app that takes amazing low light and night photos, videos and 4K time...

Booksnthreads (19 KP) rated Salt to the Sea in Books

Jun 4, 2018

Salt to the Sea

Ruta Sepetys | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Young Adult (YA)

8.8

(12 Ratings)

Book Rating

So, I’ve just finished reading all three novels nominated for the YA category of the California Young Reader Medal. The first two I read kind of left me feeling “meh,” so I was all set to be unimpressed with this one as well. I’m so delighted to tell you that I was wrong.

The story is told from the perspectives of four different characters, and I loved how Sepetys begins the narrative by telling of the same opening event from each character’s view point. After that, things unfold a little slowly, but it is completely worth it as you approach the climax…by that time, I was completely invested in each of the characters and was absolutely riveted to what was happening to them.

I’m also terribly impressed that Sepetys tackles telling a story from the “wrong” side (Germans during WWII), painting the characters not as the accepted “evil” caricatures but as real human beings caught up in a horrific war. In doing so, she sheds light on a human tragedy that so few of us know anything about (myself included) because it happened to the Germans as they were losing the war.

I will warn potential readers that the end of this novel does get rather graphic and emotionally wrenching, as you would expect in a novel about war and death. Although writing for a young adult audience, Sepetys does not gloss over the terror, panic, and trauma of the events.

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Necole (36 KP) rated The Last Time I Lied in Books

Oct 12, 2018

Plot, Characters, Writing Style (0 more)

Slow at times (0 more)

Two Truths and I Lie is a theme throughout this book and I will never play or look at the game in the same way ever again!!!
Have you ever played two truths and a lie?
Emma has. Her first summer away from home, she learned how to play the game. And she learned how to lie. And she learned from the best and biggest B**** of them all Vivian. But Vivian was a true friend, wasn't she?
Then her 3 new friends and bunk mates went into the woods and never returned . . . Was Emma behind their disappearances or is their something more sinister behind it all?
Emma is an artist now and can't help painting the same subjects over and over in different hidden ways but they all have something in common! Intrigued on what Emma paints, then pick up the book and read!!!
Now, years later, Emma has been asked to go back to the newly re-opened Camp Nightingale and you won't ever guess by who. She thinks she’s laying old ghosts to rest but really she’s returning to the scene of a crime. What happens in the second part of the book will shock you and take you for yet another thrilling ride.
Because what is true and what is a lie????
A fun twisting, turning thrill ride that will keep you guessing all the way til the end ...