I listened to this book on audio. I found it very hard to stay engaged in this. Perhaps already knowing the outcome diminished the story for me, the details provided went into the minutia. The author should not have done the audio - whew his accents were awful.

I have been waiting to read this book! So glad that it taught me the dangers and advantages of being sick with a disease.

This was great. Jo is a Chinese-American girl living in the South. Her and her adoptive father, Old Gin, face rampant discrimination, especially considering the fact that they are treated as "in-between" - they are not colored, but they are not white, either. They are treated poorly, while also facing the realization that many segregation rules do not seem to specifically apply to them. When Jo is fired from her job, she takes up her previously position as lady's maid for a girl she grew up being mistreated by. At the same time, the newspaper shop they live under is at risk of going out of business if they don't come up with some great new idea to get a whole lot of subscribers. Enter Jo, who under the anonymous name of Miss Sweetie decides to start writing an advice column that challenges many of the racist and sexist ideas her society is filled with. Of course, this brings with it a whole host of problems - Jo's writing is a crime in and of itself, and she will be chased out of town if anyone finds out that she is Miss Sweetie. She also has to balance staying hidden underneath the printshop, bite her tongue when it comes to the cruel things her mistress says, and ignore the fact that Old Gin seems to be doing something sneaky that she worries may have to do with marrying her off to a stranger. And, of course, she's still curious about where she came from - who were her parents, and why did they abandon her with Old Gin to begin with? Jo is a great role model for young girls to look up to - she is spunky and has her own thoughts and opinions that she is not afraid to share with others. She is a big risk taker, and an absolute delight to read about.

I could not put this book down. I loved how this book went back and forth from 1700's to our time period today. I saw how the author was trying to connect the past and present. I wish I could re-read this book again, a must read for historical fiction fans!

Great book if you are interested in historical fiction in the World War II era. I felt very connected to the characters throughout the stories and felt like I was walking in their shoes. I liked the parallel between the present day and past. Quick read!

This isn't my usual type of book but I liked it a lot. Jiles did a great job of creating two unique and interesting characters, Captain Kidd, a tired and grizzled veteran of 71 who travels through Texas reading the news to groups who gather to hear him, and Johanna, a 10 year old white girl who was rescued after being held captive by Indians for four years. In the quest to return Johanna to her relatives, both of them grow and learn and show the reader what real family means.

Although I read to the end, I disliked this book very much, and I'm surprised it has so many great reviews. The writing is stiff and cliched and the characters are the same. The narrator Anna is a missing persons detective with a troubled past that’s revealed bit by bit through flashbacks as she works on multiple cases in an "unofficial" capacity while on leave from her job. It's clear that we're expected to see Anna as compelling and sympathetic, but I found her to be unlikable and her backstory was so dragged out that it became boring. The plot jumps from one case to another without a coherent connection and there are so many characters and events jammed into the past and present scenes that it's easy to lose track of things. I was also put off by the way the author weaves the real life case of Polly Klaas into the story - this feels sensationalistic and inappropriate, and it does nothing to make the fictional part of the story seem more real.

This book is absolutely terrifying. My heart raced all the way through. It is Stephen King meets Fairfield Hills. An old Sanitorium is converted into a chateaux, an avalanche or two traps everyone in and things get very frightening. It is a fast read!

This was an interesting book mainly set in Cambridge University in England. The Maidens are a group of students who are devoted to a particular professor. Some grisly murders take place and the aunt (and former Cambridge student) of one of the girls who attends the college attempts to solve who is committing them. There are lots of plot twists and I did not guess who did it at all. Definitely a page-turner until the end.

READ THIS BOOK. One of my absolute favorite books this year, easily. Akkad has created a beautiful and haunting tale that I loved every single moment of reading. Amir is a nine-year-old boy escaping from Syria with his family in search of a better life. His journey takes him first to Egypt, and then onto a boat heading to an island, where his family is sure they will have better chances of survival. With the chapters alternating between what Amir experiences on the boat and what happens after, every moment of this story is just tragically amazing.