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Review: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Two men who bear a startling resemblance to one another — Charles Darnay, a frenchman, and Sydney Carton, an English lawyer — have their lives collide and intertwine between their two countries in the years before and during the French Revolution. The two meet by chance during Darnay’s treason trial in England, and both fall in love with the same woman — Lucie Manette, the daughter of a French doctor called to witness at the trial. Years later, the chaos of the French Revolution threatens their doorstep, and they each make a difficult decision that sets them on the path to their ultimate fate. This book has made me tear…
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Review: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
In 1943, an undercover operative working for the British is captured by Germans in nazi-occupied France. Subjected to repeated and horrible torture, she eventually agrees to tell her story — despite knowing that death awaits her regardless. Even in the light of her capture and torment, her biggest regret remains the loss of her best friend Maddie — the girl piloting the plane that carried her here before crashing, and who comes alive in the pages of her story as she writes. Slowly, the account of how she came to be here unfolds — as well as another, deeper story; one of friendship and family, loyalty and love. As her…
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Review: Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris
Cilka Klein spent years as a prisoner in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, forced to do terrible things in order to survive. When Russian soldiers arrive to liberate the camp, instead of being set free, Cilka is sentenced as a nazi collaborator, and soon finds herself the inmate of another prison camp— this one a Russian gulag. Experienced in prison life, Cilka quickly figures out the rules of survival in this new nightmare, and attempts to help others adapt to the hard life. She faces both hardships and opportunities, both within the camp and within herself; after this dreadful ordeal, will she ever be able to allow herself to hope and…
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Review: The Revolution of Ivy by Amy Engel
(WARNING: spoilers for The Book of Ivy.) See the review for The Book of Ivy here. Banished to the wilderness outside the fence after taking ownership for a crime she did not commit, Ivy must learn to survive the harsh reality of the landscape outside of the city where she has spent her whole life. Alone and unprepared, she must battle against the elements, predators, and old enemies in order to survive, and to face her hardest challenge: learning to let herself love again. I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I did the first in the series. There were some good points that followed through from the first…
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Review: The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel
Against the backdrop of a dystopian society, two rival families have established a city of survivors where citizens live in uneasy peace. Life is tolerable, but sacrifices must be made; punishment for not following the rules is harsh, with offenders banished outside of the protective fence that surrounds the city — a fate worse than death. Ivy Westfall — the daughter of the family that founded the city, but lost the war — has just come of age. In a yearly ceremony, the daughters of the losing faction are married to the sons of the winners. This year, it’s Ivy’s turn — she will be married to the president’s son,…
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Review: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
One summer, eight strangers receive a mysterious invitation to spend a holiday on Soldier Island. They have nothing in common with one another— except that each has a dark secret lurking in their past. When they arrive at the island, they find things are not as they expected; their mysterious host and hostess are absent, and nobody— not even the staff, limited to a butler and his wife— have ever set eyes on them. To add to the mystery, there are copies of an ominous children’s rhyme framed in every room. On the very first night of their stay, things begin to go awry; dark secrets begin to surface, matters…
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Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
While on holiday in Monte Carlo, a young traveling companion with very little to her name catches the eye of Max de Winter, a rich widower and the owner of the Manderly estate in England. Weeks later, after a short and unlikely romance, Maxim proposes marriage. But problems begin to arise upon their arrival at Manderly. The new Mrs. de Winter discovers that life at the estate is not all she imagined it would be; instead, she finds a distant husband, cold staff, and a dark mystery that hangs over the house and haunts the daily lives of its inhabitants. Loneliness, curiosity, and jealousy soon begin to cloud the happiness…
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Review: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Professor Pierre Arronax is on his way home to France after a scientific expedition when he receives an invitation to be part of a mission to hunt down a mysterious beast plaguing ships and sailors the world over. Having no idea what awaits him, he accepts— and thus starts the nautical adventure of a lifetime, what Arronax himself describes as an “extraordinary, supernatural and highly implausible expedition”. Through an unfortunate series of events, the professor, his imperturbable manservant Conseil, and their Canadian harpooner friend Ned Land, become guests on board the Nautilis— an improbable vessel owned and sailed by the enigmatic and mysterious figure known only as Captain Nemo. The…
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