Between Shades of Gray || Ruta Septeys

Title: Between Shades of Gray

Author: Ruta Sepetys

Length: 344 pages

Publication date: March 22, 2011

Genre: YA historical fiction

Rating: 5/5

When I finished reading Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, I made a comment to my husband that my heart was not okay. He asked why I felt like that, and I had to think about it for a moment. I think it's because the effect this story had on me reaches farther than just a fictional story.

I find myself constantly reaching for stories set in WWII, and most of them take place in Nazi Germany. This one was a first for me. This book is from the point of view from Lina, a 15 year old girl living in Lithuania in 1941, which is when Stalin was in power of the Soviet Union. Lina's family ends up getting deported for "crimes" against the Union, and they are put on trains headed to labour camps in Siberia. This is a story of their survival amidst the most deplorable and loathsome conditions, and them holding on to hope of being able to go home soon.

Sometimes I try to figure out why I like to read these kinds of stories so often. Of course, they are based on real life occurrences, and to read about the evil ways these people were treated makes me sick. It breaks my heart to think about how people are able to convince themselves that certain groups are not even human anymore and treat them worse than animals. (Reminds me of our society's attitude toward abortion, but this isn't about that.) It's just horrible to think about, and yet to see how Lina's family and their group of people banded together was so incredibly beautiful. In the midst of inhuman conditions, they showed each other such kindness. They banded together and became a fortress among themselves, and it was so beautiful.

This book was incredible, just incredible, and I want everyone to read it now. I could go on and on, but I want to you experience it for yourself. I borrowed this from this library and I'm going to be buying a copy for myself, this is something I can see myself reading again and again.

The Martian || Andy Weir

Title: The Martian

Author: Andy Weir

Length: 369 pages

Publication date: September 23, 2012

Genre: Science fiction

Rating: 5/5

Mark Watney is in trouble. He's on the fourth manned expedition to Mars, and on the sixth day of the mission, an intense storm forces them to abandon the mission, and in the chaos, Mark is left stranded. On Mars. By himself. Oh, and the storm eliminated any communication with Earth. So Mark has to figure out how to make his limited supplies last until the next expedition arrives... in 4 years. But Mark is smart, and he's bound to figure out how to make it, right?

I had heard for months that this book was amazing. I even bought it and had it on my shelf, somewhere close to the top of my TBR (to-be read) pile for a few months. But then I watched the trailer for the movie adaptation, and I knew I couldn't put it off any more. That day I picked it up, and within 2 pages I was glad that I had made that decision, and by page 6 I had laughed out loud at least once. Really.

The Martian was quite different from what I was expecting when I picked it up. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got. First of all, this is a very scientific book. After all, it is about an astronaut trying to survive on Mars. He does that through science. And Mark Watney is very smart. This book is filled with his scientific calculations, and yet I never felt bored! Sometimes it went over my head, but Weir did such a great job writing it in such a way that it was accurate and still somewhat entertaining.

I also really liked the character of Mark Watney (I just really like to refer to him by his full name.) He was very resourceful, and his sense of humour was great. That's what made the book for me. He had a very dry sense of humour, and he would react to situations very differently from what I would (ie he remained calm whilst I would have sat in my spacesuit and cried for a year.) The only thing that I would have liked to see more of was a bit more of the emotional and psychological effects of being completely alone for many months. You get a hint of that at the end, but just a hint. But this isn't necessarily that kind of book either. This isn't a story about Mark Watney's emotions. This is a story about his survival. He's too busy trying to grow potatoes in Martian soil to worry about his feelings.

This story is told mostly through Mark making log entries, but there are chapters focused on the people back at NASA and his crew on the ship, which I thought was interesting. Seeing things from their view as they try to get Mark off of Mars alive, and then reading his own account after was really cool. It filled in so much of the story.

This is a survival story at its finest. Really, when the very atmosphere of the planet you are on will kill you, it makes for a really intense story at times. There is some moderate swearing, but I didn't find it to be gratuitous. To my memory there was one allusion to two characters having sex, but other than that there wasn't any sexual content either. If you're looking for a really exciting and funny story that has you holding your breath as you reach the end, this might be for you!

(As a side note, last night I dreamt about Mark Watney. In my dream, his family was with him on Mars, but the rest of the situations were the same. One night, a dinosaur (really, brain?) came into their living area, destroyed his potatoes, and killed his sister. I was really really upset about the potatoes being destroyed.)

Top 5 Favourite Books of 2015 (so far)

Hey guys! Today is Top 5 Wednesday! Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads group, and you can find the information here.

I really liked this week's topic, but I didn't have time to make a video, so I decided to write a quick blog post about it. So this week's topic is your top 5 favourite books of this year so far. It was pretty easy for me to choose, but they are in no particular order, because I don't roll like that.

5. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
         This actually the first book I picked up this year, actually. I read it while we were driving home after our Christmas holidays. This is a great dystopian/urban fantasy type story, and the story and the characters just pulled me in. The writing wasn't always my favourite (the author has a tendency to rush through action sequences, which left me feeling lost at times) but overall it was a gripping story and I was just wrecked at the end.

4. Paris Letters by Janice MacLeod
        I read this book just a couple weeks ago, and I still think about something or other about it just about every day. It's a memoir of a woman who decided to save up for a year so she could quit her job and live in Europe for 6 months. The title gives away where she left her heart. The writing was quite beautiful, and I could really feel the author's passion for the decisions she made and the things she was experiencing. It made me feel like I could save up money for a year so I could quit my job too!

3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
        If you are any kind of geek, or have any interest in video games or the 1980s, this book is going to be right up your alley. The story is set decades in the future, in the 2040s, and the world basically exists in a virtual reality online. The creator of this world passes away and leaves clues for the world's most epic scavenger hunt. Again, this was a story that just pulled me into the world, and I loved (almost) every page! There were a couple things that I found offensive (a rant of heavy Christian/religion bashing, and a crude sexual reference) but otherwise it was so much fun!

4. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
         I love me some WWII fiction, and this was a beautiful one. Doerr's writing was just incredible. He was able to weave together a moving account of two children from different sides of the war, growing up in the middle of it. I was often amazed at his attention to detail, and how he was able to intertwine all of these events to create one long thread. By the end I had experienced all the feels multiple times. Keep your tissues handy.

5. The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
        I had heard a lot of hype about this book, and I had reached a point where I had to read it because I was scared of getting spoiled! If I had started reading this on a Friday night, I would probably have read most of it through the night. This was such a well-crafted fantasy world! A princess runs away from her wedding, and the prince she left and a hired assassin are sent to bring her back. The tricky part is that we don't know which one is the prince and which one is the assassin. I got so into that part, trying to figure out if my guess was right. But this book is so much more than an awesome fantasy world and a crazy twist. The characters are so awesome, I loved all of them. The princess is one of the best female characters I have read in a long time, and there are good lady friendships! I couldn't ask for anything else, except maybe the second book in the series, like, yesterday!!


What books would make your top 5 list? Leave a comment and let me know!