The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

★★★★ 1/2

"When we're afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection.  Our fear paralyzes us.  Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators' repression."

In this autobiographical graphic novel, the author tells of her life growing up in Tehran, Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  It was originally published in four volumes from 2000 through 2003.  The story begins when she is ten years old in 1980 and focuses on Marjane’s life with her family.  There are many changes that she faces, such as having to wear a veil in public in the increase threat of being bombed. Marjane struggles to understand the difference between her life and home and the image she must portray while in public and tries to keep herself informed by reading books and participating in demonstrations.  The author witnesses several family members and friends being arrested during the new ruling and they are eventually put to death.

Supported by her family’s encouragement, Marjane is a very outspoken young lady and often goes against authority, especially in her strict school.  When she is sixteen, her parents send her to a French school in Vienna to provide her with a good education and keep her away from the revolution.  There she makes a few friends, but is constantly moving around and feels she no longer has a home to belong to.  Missing the much-needed support from her family, Marjane gets involved with a number of boyfriends and drugs.  After a breakup with a serious boyfriend, she finds herself lost and ends up on the streets.  After four years in Vienna, Marjane returns home to Tehran.  Here, she struggles to fit in as well.  She eventually marries and attends a graphic design program at a local college.  After a few years her marriage falls apart, but Marjane finds support from her parents and grandmother.  The story ends with her leaving Tehran to continue her art education in Europe.

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It was told from a unique view poit of a young girl growing up in the Islamic Revolution and her journey to find her place in the world.  The book gave a lot of information about the war and Islamic culture in an interesting way.  I appreciated Marjane’s honesty in telling readers of the mistakes she made and how she learned to cope with the tragedies around her.  I also really enjoyed the artwork and how it complemented the story.

Day After Night by Anita Diamant (audio)

 ★★★★

"Sometimes luck was just another word for creation, which was as relentless as destruction."

This novel covers the post-World War II experience of four young girls.  Their lives shattered after the Holocaust, Shayndel, Leonie, Tedi, and Zorah struggle to find new lives for themselves in a holding camp for illegal immigrants in Israel.  Each women deals with their loses and memories in different ways and come together as a support system.

I first read Anita Diamant many years ago when I read The Red Tent.  I believe I was around 14 at the time and it was one of earlier attempts at reading historical fiction.  Today it remains one of my favorite books.  Day After Night was no comparison, but I did enjoy reading it.  I read a lot of Holocaust historical fiction, and this one gave the unique perspective of what happened to people directly after the events of the war.  Usually novels end in 1944-1945 or shortly after or flash back between the past and the present.  Day After Night had really unique characters that processed their past in different ways.  It was interesting to see the direct effects that the war had on them.  I did get a little confused sometimes with all of the story lines, but listening to the audio at work might have had some effect on that as well!

Home Front by Kristin Hannah (audio)

★★★★

"I know about forgiving people and loving them anyways, even after they hurt you." 

Twelve years into their marriage, Michael and Jolene are struggling to make their marriage work for themselves and their two girls - Betsy (12) and Lulu (4).  With Michael being a lawyer and Jolene having been in the army and later the national guard since the graduated high school, the two have very different career.  That never seemed a problem - until now when all they can see our their differences.  When Jolene is called to active duty in Iraq, the family struggles with their mother being away and bringing the family back together.  

I really enjoyed this book.  Like the author states the interview after the audio book, they're are not many contemporary books written about women going to war.  The book seemed very well researched and provided a unique look at what "going to war" is like for Americans today - especially women.  It was a very interesting topic for me to read about and, as usual, Kristin Hannah creates horrific circumstances and barriers that the characters must overcome.  I also enjoyed some of the side characters (Michael's mother Mila and Lulu) that added humor to the story and were able to provide a slight distraction from the intensity of the novel. 

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian (audio)

★★★★★
"But history does matter.  There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Bosnians and the Rwandans.  There are obviously more, but, really, how much genocide can one sentence handle?"

The Sandcastle Girls is the first novel I have read by Chris Bohjalian and I loved it!   Deeply moving and unforgettable, the book centers around the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and tells the story of Elizabeth, a young girls from America and an Armenian soldier named Armen.  After refusing to marry, young Elizabeth arrives in Aleppo, Syria with her father to aid Armenian refugees during World War I.  Elizabeth is horrified by the conditions that the refugees are in and is overwhelmed by their situation and tragic pasts.  She makes many connections with the Armenian people, including Armen, a young engineer.  Just as they begin to realize their feelings for one another, Armen travels to Eqypt to enlist in the British army.   Throughout the next year, they write each other letters and begin to fall in love.  Years later, Elizabeth's grand-daughter, Laura, researchers the story of her grandparents and learns of the tragedies and secrets that they both overcame.

I really liked that the novel centers on two narrators in different time periods - Elizabeth in 1915 and Laura in the present.  As Laura was learning more and more about her grandparent's history, Elizabeth was living through it in the past.  Like the author mentioned in an interview, Laura's narrative also gave the readers a much needed escape from the horrors of the Armenian Genocide.

This is the first time that I have really read anything about the Armenian Genocide.  The narrator of Laura often refers to this time of the "tragedy that you know next to nothing about" and it couldn't be more true.  I've spend a lot of time reading and learning about the holocaust and I was really surprised at how similar these events were - and how little I knew about the circumstances of the Armenians.  Over 1.5 million people were killed during this time and I'm not sure why so little is known about it.  History is interesting that way - and Bohjalian did an amazing job of writing a tribute to the Armenian people that was sad and beautiful and filled with hope.

This book was #3 on my top ten list of 2013.

Adam and Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund (audio)

★★★ 1/2

"For a moment, I burned with the desire to emblazon Thom's name on history.  But this was Eden, and we were all caught in it's web of non-time.  History was not just insignificant but irrelevant.  What mattered was here and now."

This book was...different.  I have read two of Naslund's other novels: Ahab's Wife and Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, both of which I loved.  It's not that I didn't like this this.  I guess it just wasn't what I was expecting.  I thought that there would more historical fiction, but instead, it was set in the near future, 2017.  

Shortly before her husband Thom's mysterious death, Lucy learns that he has discovered evidence of extraterrestrial life on other planets.  Three years later, Lucy is approached by Thom's astrophysicist friend, Pierre Saad.  He wants Lucy to smuggle a recently discovered codex out of Egypt that reveals new details on the book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve.  This is a dangerous mission, as many Christian, Jewish, and Muslim activists are convinced that this document will threaten the foundation of each of their religions.  While traveling with the document, Lucy's plane crashes and she lands on a secluded piece of land in the Middle East.  Here she meets an American soldier named Adam who is convinced that they are in Eden and that Lucy is the "Eve" that he has been waiting for.  Together, they must help each other heal, learn to live of the land, and eventually return to civilization with the codex.

I really liked the idea of this book, but it felt a little too random at times.  There was a lot going on: discovery of extraterrestrial live, war in the Middle East, an old codex of Genesis, a modern-day Eden, a mysterious monkey-like boy, old cave paintings, religious conflicts...it all fit together in someway or another, but it was a stretch at times.  I would have enjoyed more focus on the codex and the story of Adam and Eve and a little less of the "extra stuff."  My favorite parts of the books we the descriptions of the Eden-like paradise that Lucy and Adam found themselves in.  I loved the idea of being surrounded by a beautiful place that provides everything one would ever want or need.  It really put things in prospective!

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea by Valerie Zenatti

★★★★

Anahita's Woven Riddle by Meghan Nuttall Sayres

★★★★

Ask Me No Questions by Marina Budhos

★★★

"Because we looked away in the past, does that mean we can look away now?"

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

★★★★★

Miriam wished for so much in those final moments.  Yet as she closed her eyes, it was no regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her.  She thought of her entry into this world, the harami child of a lowly villager, an unintended thing, a pitiable, regrettable accident.  A weed.  And yet she was leaving the world as a woman who had loved and been loved back.  She was leaving it as a friend, a companion, a guardian.  A mother.  A person of consequence at last.  No.  It was not so bad, Miriam thought, that she should die this way.  Not so bad.  This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate belongings.

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins

★★★★

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

★★★★★

"For you, a thousand times over."

"It was only a smile, nothing more.  It didn't make everything right.  It didn't make ANYTHING all right.  Only a smile.  A tiny thing.  A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight.  But I'll take it.  With open arms.  Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting."

Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples

★★★★

"But beauty holds only part of a man, and that for just so long.  Keep some of yourself hidden.  You can lavish love and praise on him and work hard by his side...But the secret is keeping your innermost beauty, the secret of your soul, locked in your heart so that he must always reach out to you for it?"

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

★★★★

"Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy to real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth."

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Martenson

★★★★

"Educate a boy, and you educate an individual.  Educate a girl, and you educate a community."

-African Proverb

"Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities, but the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned.  If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls."