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Coming Up For Air
Coming Up For Air
Sarah Leipciger | 2020 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Coming Up For Air is a really interesting book, in that it gives a life to the face of the resuscitation dummy, Resusci Anne. The original mask was the death mask of a suicide victim in Paris in 1899, and Leipciger tells the background story of a girl who decides to take her own life when her life becomes unbearable.

We also meet the Norwegian toy maker who designs Resusci Anne, and the things that happened in his life that brought him to that point. His is an equally sad story, and although he has been fictionalised, he has been based om the real man who made the doll.

The third story is that of a Canadian girl with cystic fibrosis, and her journey from childhood up until she becomes a journalist as an adult.

This is a book about transformations: the French maid is transformed in to a mask that will be recognised around the world over a hundred years after her death; a toy maker is transformed after the death of his beloved son, into someone who tries to ensure that everyone has the ability for such things not to happen again; and a woman with cystic fibrosis has a literal transformation with the promise of renewed, transplanted lungs.

This novel sucked me in to all three lives and times. Both the French girls and the child’s death devastated me, and the Canadian woman’s story was one of hope (although I was pretty much dreading the idea that something bad would happen to her).

I loved this book, and I feel lucky to have read it. I would most definitely recommend it.
  
40x40

Dan Lacey (7 KP) rated The Stranger in TV

Feb 26, 2020  
The Stranger
The Stranger
2020 | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Acting (2 more)
Storyline
Bingeworthy
Bingeworthy (0 more)
A genuine masterpiece.
I want to start with the trailer to this Netflix original. Whilst flicking through the vast abyss that is the Netflix catalogue I stumbled upon this and allowed the trailer to play in full. It painted a picture of a bit of a mystery caper and I found it quite captivating.

Now I wont lie to you, my wife and I watched all 8 episodes over 2 nights not through choice but through what we deemed at the time (1am to be exact) a necessity. Every episode ended on a perfect cliffhanger.

Now I'm going to keep this spoiler free but I do want to talk about the story in general. I like to think of myself as someone who can normally guess early on 'who dunnit' why they 'dunnit' and any general twists and turns along the way, but the whole series I sat second guessing myself coming up with general theories that would feel at home with someone wearing a tin foil hat. And the moment I thought I'd worked it all out was the moment it was revealed to me some 5 seconds later.

This is the series you will recommend to your family, your friends and maybe even.... a stranger ( yep I just said that).

I emplore you to take a few hours grab the popcorn and give this a watch I promise you will not regret it.