My Sister's Keeper

A little girl has a rare form of luekemia and her brother is not a doner match. Her parents then make the decision to use stem stell research to have another child that will be a genetic match. After years of bone marrow donations, blood tranfusions and now a kidney donations, the now 13 year old girl is putting her foot down and suing her parents for medical emancipation, ensuring the death of her sister.

The book is told through first person, switching people by chapter - Anna, the younger sister, her mother, her father, her brother, her lawyer and her gardian ad litem. I hated the mother, I loved her daughter, the father was trying to do his best while the whole family fell apart. The author, a woman, writes the men well - you really get sucked into the story.

I felt that there could have been more of a balance with the mother - she was so blind to the rest of her family in her crusade to save her eldest daughter that it was very hard to feel bad for her, and I feel like that was not the intent. Although it is easy to see her point, it is VERY hard to agree with the way she handled it. She sees Anna as nothing more than body parts. Everyone who read the book felt the same as I did, but I would be curous to see what someone who has gone through something like this would think of the mother.

I would DEFINITLY reccomend this book. It is quick (but not painless). The author speaks to your emotions well. There were some parts of the storyline that I did not think were needed, but I suppose it was done to give depth to the characters. This book could have been an equally as good as a short story - maybe even more powerful as one.

The Historian

If you Dan Brown but thinks he is too "dumbed down", then this is the perfect book for you. The book was smart, well written and engaging, but it is not for the wandering mind. The tangents and detail are not for the faint of heart. You need to want to finish this one.

The book follows three main characters for their search for the real Dracula, Vlad the Imaler, or son of Dracul. Through narration, journal entries and letters, it invokes Stroker but also gives a detailed background of Instanbul, the Moguls, Turks and a history of Eastern Europe. Much to Josh's chagrin, it made me want to go to Instanbul VERY badly.

The book drags on at times, but the characters are easy to like and the story flows well. The writing keeps you in suspense and is well written.

I would certainly reccomend this book to those who have patience and an interest in European history. I had a hard time putting it down, always in search for that final showdown. It let me down a little, but the end of the story for the main characters was fulfilling and even left room for a sequel of sorts.