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What I Read: March

March Books: 

What I read in March 2015

1. Sashenka by Simon Montefiore. Russia is on the brink of the Revolution, and Sashenka is a teenager from a wealthy family, but actively involved as a Bolshevik. Fast forward 20 years, and Sashenka is now married to a successful Party leader and is in every way the picture-perfect Party mother and wife. However, when tempted by an affair with a successful writer, her perfect world threatens to come crashing down. 

My thoughts: It took me a bit to get into this book, but soon enough I found myself not wanting to put it down. It may be because I had a hard time identifying with the teen-aged political rebel Sashenka, but Sashenka as a mother and wife felt closer to home. Regardless, I ended up loving (yet being heartbroken by) this book. I’d recommend, especially if you, like me, are fascinated with Russian history. 

2. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. This book has two protagonists, both are teenagers named Will Grayson. Neither knows the other exists until they happen to meet one night. One Will is trying his best to stay under the radar in high school, but it’s difficult to lay low when your best friend is a larger than life, gay, and trying to enlist the whole school in the musical he’s writing. Oh, and everyone calls him Tiny. Similarly, the other Will Grayson also tries to keep from attracting too much attention. However, meeting the other Will leads him to Tiny, and they hit it off, which derails his plan to go unnoticed as well. The Wills narrate the story, but Tiny and his musical are at its heart.

My thoughts: This was a quick read, and overall I liked it. I loved its focus on friendship. It did have the typical struggle to fit in/misfits against the world/teen angst themes mixed in as well, but at the end of the day this was about friendship more than anything else.

3. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Eilis and her sister Rose live with their mother in Ireland in the 1950s. Their mother is unable to work, and jobs are hard to come by in their small town. Eilis has an opportunity to go overseas to Brooklyn to find a job, and her mother and sister both encourage her to take it. In Brooklyn Eilis works on the shop floor of a department store, and keeps her homesickness at bay by staying busy with bookkeeping classes in the evenings. Eventually, she meets an Italian man named Tony and they fall in love and start making plans for their future. Just as she’s starting to love her Brooklyn life, tragedy strikes in Ireland and she’s forced to go back home.

My thoughts: I have mixed feelings about this book. Until the last part, I enjoyed reading it, but Eilis irritated me sometimes. She made decisions that went against her feelings, and I was frustrated when those decisions came back to bite her in the butt. I understand that not all stories will have a neat and tidy ending, but this one ended a little too abruptly for my taste.

Have you read anything good lately? 


Linking to Coffee Date at Dearest Love.

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