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    EasyCockpit is a comprehensive aviation navigation tool for mobile devices and has for many years...

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    A real life crime story where you play detective. ** Winner of 3 Bafta Awards, 2 IGF Awards, 3 GDC...

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ClareR (6157 KP) rated All the Broken Places in Books

Nov 4, 2023  
All the Broken Places
All the Broken Places
John Boyne | 2023 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Gretel Fernsby has a terrible secret that she’d rather others didn’t know. If you’ve read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, you’ll recognise the name: Gretel is the daughter of the camp Commandant of Auschwitz.

In short chapters, flashing between the past and the present, we learn about 91 year old Gretel’s past, and what happened when she and her mother escaped Germany.

Gretel is very well off, living in an expensive block of very large flats in central London. She doesn’t really have any friends, and seems to keep her true self from everyone including her son.
She is confronted with the memory of her younger brother, Bruno, when a boy of his age moves in to the downstairs flat. She realises that his father is violent, and his mother is abused. Gretel can’t let this kind of violence happen again.

The characters in this were superb. Whilst the first book had its problems with historical accuracy, I feel that this book centred more around trauma, guilt and shame. Gretel carries all of these things around with her forever. She feels culpable for what happened in the camp - even though she was both a child and female. In retrospect, she is able to see what was wrong with the nazi regime, but at the time would have been brainwashed. She wouldn’t have known a time where Jews and other “undesirable” minorities would have been treated any differently. The wonder is that she went on to learn that this was wrong. The trauma that she carries with her from the death of her brother, learning about what her father was guilty of, and occurrences in Paris, is lifelong.

From Gretel’s life experiences to those of her downstairs neighbour, everything is handled with compassion and tact. Again, it’s not perfect, but then neither are humans. And that is what this book shows above all: that we can learn from our mistakes if we are willing to do so.
  
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Merissa (13961 KP) rated Unlike Any Other by Ed Londergan in Books

May 18, 2022 (Updated Jun 19, 2023)  
Unlike Any Other by Ed Londergan
Unlike Any Other by Ed Londergan
Ed Londergan | 2022 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
UNLIKE ANY OTHER is the story of Bathsheba Spooner, the first woman to be executed in the new United States of America. You find out, through her eyes, what it was like to live a life of privilege, to be passed on in an arranged marriage, to have all her hopes and dreams dashed, to a point where murder is the only way out.

Bathsheba was brought up to speak her mind, to be strong-spirited. She had dreams of marrying a wealthy man from Boston and joining Society. So when she finds out her father has arranged a marriage to a local merchant, she's not happy but eventually agrees to it. Her marriage isn't a happy one, with Joshua frequenting the local taverns more than he does his home. That doesn't stop him from his conjugal rights though. When a young man, half of Bathsheba's age, stays at their home to recover from an illness, she feels the stirrings of desire she hasn't felt for a long time.

This was a well-written piece of history that I thoroughly enjoyed. I found out more about what it was like for the people of America at that time, as well as the Boston Tea Party! Bathsheba's options were so limited at a time when a woman's rights were close to zero. I do wonder why she didn't contact her brother but, at a time when the war was dividing families, I guess I'm not 100% surprised.

I would have liked to have heard a little from Ezra Ross but maybe there isn't enough written from his account to tell his story.

A historical fiction based on a true story that I have no hesitation in recommending.

** same worded review will appear elsewhere **

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and the comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
May 12, 2022