Good Reads

Lindsey's books

If I Stay

by Gayle Forman

A Child Called "It"

by Dave Pelzer

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

Before I Fall

by Lauren Oliver

Because of Winn-Dixie

by Kate DiCamillo

Book talk

Blog project 4

How did the holocaust effect the lives of people? Do they still effect the lives of people today?

 

In Angel Of Death Eva Kor shares her personal story with all of us. In her story, she includes some really horrific things that she was put through, as well as her sister.

 

In this book, it starts out with her having a normal life, and at the age of ten, her family was taken by the NAZIs and put on a selection platform. There, she never ever saw her family again, except for her sister, Miriam. They were lucky to stay with each other, for they had the privilege because they were twins. Although it was barely a difference, it still saved their lives. Every day they would go through some horrific things done by Dr. Josef Mengele, he was a man who put these kids through horror, something that would be a death penalty today. He would inject the twins with something that would make them really sick, and they wouldn't be fed or given water if they were sick, at one point she snuck water from the faucet which eventually saved her life, if she would have died, Josef Mengele would have killed her twin on the spot. Recently, I heard her speak, and man is she inspiring. In her book she has three things that she wants the whole world to do, and one of them is to forgive your worst enemy. Recently, she has done just that, and she said it relieved her soul of everything, but in the Jewish terms, the enemy is supposed to apologize to the victim, and although she is Jewish, she forgave the enemy first. Ever since then, she has stated that she felt better about living her life.

 

I also learned that the poisonous gas/substance from the gas chambers were put into the "shower" by a hole through the side. Apparently this is a big thing to many people, they all thought the gas would come through the showers, and gas them then, it only took 3-5 minutes for the people who got gassed to be declared "dead."

 

According to other people with different stories from the holocaust, people with disabilities, women who were pregnant, and people with handicaps, were to be killed on the spot, for they were not strong enough to survive, or work for the German people. Over 1.5 million Jewish kids died, and overall 6 million Jewish people died. Eva Kor, at one point had no more family but her sister, but today she has passed away. Her sister’s death had a big impact upon her life, and although she is married, she still misses her sister Miriam a lot. Living without your siblings/parents who grew up with you is different, a change that will never be returned to normal.

 

We all learned a big lesson from the holocaust, and whether you believe that or not, it has changed a part of our lives. Everyone from the holocaust has a different story to tell, and maybe you should look it up, and give support to all of those who went through this nasty time in our lives. I know for me, that Eva Kor inspired me, and has too many, and I wanted to thank her for that.

 

People have said that the holocaust images will never get out of their head, or seeing their loved ones dead. It’s something that they said, “they could never forget.” Although people survived, almost everyone lost their family members, or friends in the holocaust. The ironic thing is, Hitler and other Nazis wanted to burn all of the documents and forget that this had ever happened, that is exactly what he did.

 

Today Eva Kor has a project dedicated to finding the history of herself and others in the holocaust. This project is called C.A.N.D.L.E.S. To this day, she only has a few records of her existence in the holocaust, as she is finding more, she is quickly learning what really happened to her in the holocaust. From the book, all she started out with was 3 pictures that she found in her home crumbled up after the holocaust, and the number tattooed on her arm.

 

Eva Kor changed the way I look and value life, without her my life would be different, and I like the change she has given to me. Eva, please keep inspiring people like me, you're amazing.

Book 4 Check in 2

For book 4 I read, Surviving the Angels of Death, by Eva Kor. For the second part of the project, I read interviews, and articles, from Eva Kor, and other people who have survived the Holocaust.

Eva Kor was born on January 31st 1934, and had a twin sister, Miriam. Miriam and Eva were just 10 years old when the Nazis started to take away Jews rights. Around the age of 10, Eva and her sister were taken to Auschwitz, the deadliest Nazi camp out of all of them. Luckily, they were twins. Miriam and Eva were taken to be experimented on by Doctor Mengele, and were given certain benefits that included, keeping their hair, and not wearing prisoner uniforms. When they were taken to be experimented on, they never saw their family again, and were considered "orphans." Eva and Miriam, tried their hardest to survive, after such horrible conditions, and managed to do this quite well, they were one of the few sets of twins to survive the experiments at Auschwitz. Throughout the book, Eva describes how she did it, and what made her survive.

Miriam and Eva both survived camp, but unfortunately, some of the chemicals put into Miriam's system, made her die after "kidney failure" in 1993. Eva donated her kidney to her sister before her death, to try and save her. Eva created the organization called C.A.N.D.L.E.S, trying to find any record of them being in the holocaust, unfortunately, they have only found a few documents, including pictures, and according to her story, they burned all of them for the sake of no record, and trying to cover up what they did.

According to the interviews, everything that was in the book, was correct. Everything matched perfectly with the story, and her sister Miriam's.

Later in her live, Eva Kor, gave the Nazis forgiveness for everything they have done to her. But you may question, "Isn't that against Jewish rule?" She stated at her speech that is was against the rule, but she could not keep the burden that was on her forever. She forgave everyone who was included in her time in the Holocaust, even including Hitler, and that tells us that she is a very strong person!

I was inspired by Eva Kor, and her stories, its not forever that you can meet her, and have these experiences, and if she comes near you, I would recommend seeing her, she is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met in my life, and I hope she continues to inspire people like me, for as long as she can!

Listicle.

For book 3 I read, The Girl On The Train.

The Girl On The Train is about the main character, Rachel is drunk throughout almost the whole story. She then realizes that her life has become something she doesn't recognize, something that tells her she is living in a lie. In the beginning of the book, she gets fired from her job in London, but still continues to ride the train to work everyday so the people around her have no idea what had happened, and she has nothing else to do. During the book, she is obsessed by her ex husband Tom, who soon got married to Anna, and they now have a child together. This drives Rachel crazy. Jess is actually Megan in the book, once Rachel sees her kissing another man, "Megan" goes missing. This is her journey to find Megan and what had really happened to her.

Here are 5 ways Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train, are similar:

1. Someone goes missing:

In Gone girl, Amy, goes missing, and Nick doesn't know why, the story is then based on his journey to find Amy, as they soon figure out that Amy has framed them for something that will change his life forever. In The Girl On The Train, Megan goes missing and nobody knows why, this story is then based on finding Megan for them to be reunited.

2. Both Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train are thrillers:

You know what really happened to the people before they announce what really happened at the end of the book, this makes the book a thriller, not a mystery. For a mystery you don't know what had happened to the event until the end of the book making you think and a thriller, you already know what happens to the characters or event in the story, thus making both of these books thrillers. In Gone Girl, you have to wait until near the end of the book to find out what happens to her, so the book could technically be classified as both a mystery and a thriller.

3. They both have chapters with different characters narrating it:

In Gone Girl, usually the chapters are between Nick talking and narrating and Amy's diary blogs within the story, this gives us an idea of what she is really like, and how we can deceit her character.  In The Girl On The Train, Megan goes missing and, she speaks within the book, as well as Rachel, and other characters.

4. The characters that go missing are girls!

In Gone Girl, Amy goes missing and in The Girl On The Train, Megan goes missing, among the writers, they could have chose any characters to go missing, not just girls, even though they would have to rewrite the story, this proves that these books are incredibly similar.

5. The books both make weird plot twists:

In the middle of The Girl On The Train, Megan falls in love with her kidnapper, and wants to stay with him forever, which is odd, because usually when people get kidnapped, they want to get out of there as fast as they can and not stay with the bad person who took them. In Gone Girl, we figure out that Amy framed her husband for murder.

In all, they were both very good books, and I would recommend them for people to read! They both get a little odd at times, but I think it is worth reading it! Maybe it isn't a coincidence that these books are so similar, maybe the authors had an idea together, but for now we will never know.

Blog #5

In my opinion a book has to be 98% true to be non-fiction. Sometimes the writer wont remember certain parts of the story, or facts that had happen, especially the dialogue, so it is okay for you to have a few missing details to the story at hand. In my opinion half truths are okay, if you don't remember the entire story, then you can make up something if you need to, but I feel like you should avoid half truths whenever you can because it makes the story, in my opinion, false. In retrospect I have to hand it to the authors for trying their hardest to get everything right, or at least somewhat right. I believe that it is unrealistic to put make believe stories into a non fiction piece, it just isn't right for me. I believe that you should not bend the facts into a story rather then to try your hardest to get the facts straight. I believe that you should not make a story up and then call it nonfiction, I believe that  is a little bizarre. I understand that it is okay to add  embellishments to the story, but don't make the whole thing false. If you write half-truths, then people will start to believe those, and that isn't the right facts for the people who are into and believe strongly into the book. I feel like David is wrong, I feel as if we need genres to have interests, and beliefs towards something that has been written in a book. It matters because, if you are interested in fiction type books rather than non fiction books, then you would get extremely bored reading the book that you don't necessarily like. If an author has to go through strict measures to  get a story straight, then why is it fair for all of the other authors to  not have that same guidelines, it wouldn't be fair to the other authors that have worked so hard to create a well written piece to just put it into the same category as  all of the other books.

Book Two blog post

 Overall, I think, "The notebook" was an excellent read, it demonstrated to me what true love is and how it is suppose to be brought to our attention by. This book also has a great scene and an excellent plot lone throughout the entire book.

The best adaptation to the book, "The Notebook" is a movie, because of the plot line and how the book is laid out. The one thing that should not ever be changed during the making of this film, is the love story between the two people, Noah and Allie, because without this part of the book the entire film would be changed, and the whole story would not make sense. The thing that would need to change in this book is some of the dialogue between the characters, because it is kind of confusing at times. One thing that must be fixed before it is made into a film is the beginning, for me the beginning was hard to get into and it made the book hard to read, but other than that make things less confusing, for example don't jump from one character to another while talking and have no leads into that. For the casting choices I would do Shailene Woodley, and Ansel Elgort, because they both would do a wonderful job acting out the parts that need to be played. One song that I would definitely add into this book is "The perfect two." This song choice would be good because it is a wonderful song for a couple and that is what this book focuses on. Something that I would capture in this book, is the scene and the story behind the two people. The scene and the character actions go hand in hand in this book, and certainly would not be the same without them in it, for example the scene where he has to let her go back, and the kissing scene in the rain, would not be the same within the book / movie without the scene. Overall, this was a good book, although I would make the beginning more interesting for others to read, it was a good choice and I would definitely read this again!