Book 47 and 48: Oh yeah, Bookclub...

47: The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters
Finished: November 20
Pages: 272
A slightly transparent narrative of four sisters all named after famous movie stars, each given a gift by their mother: One can tell lies and is always believed, one can help animals, one can give curses, and one can always make people laugh. Through trials, tribulations, and a secret history book, they discover that the secret gifts they were given by their mother is much more than they expected originally.
Mostly, I enjoyed it, but I also got tired very quickly of all the fighting. I'm an only child. This book made me very thankful of that fact. It wasn't terrible, but I spent a good portion of the time wishing that I could punch various characters in the face, just on principle.
It was a bookclub book, and I think I was one of four, tops, who finished it, and I didn't finish in time for the meeting. Whoops.

48: Sarah's Key
Finished: December 29
Pages: 293

tiny chapters make for easy reading. That is my first discovery with this one. While the narrative itself was tight and focused, and a very interesting topic, I found myself emotionally detached from almost all the characters for most of the novel. I wanted to feel for Julia, but I also wanted her to grow a spine and stand up for herself. If your husband is an asshole, you should probably call him on it, rather than just take it and complain about it later. I had absolutely no pity for her idiotic selfish Frenchman of a husband, who was so stereotypical that he seemed flat and pointless.
Oh, I guess you want to know the plot? During the Vichy regime in France, the French police rounded up something like 13,000 Jews in and around Paris and put in the Velodrome d'Hiver (Shortened to Vel d'Hiv in French) for two days in July of 1942. Mostly women and children, they were then taken out of the city to waiting camps, then sent on to Auschwitz, where they were not put to forced labor but simply killed. Because of the French governments complicity in this, the story has been mostly unremarked upon by the French as a whole, and Julia, our heroine, investigates this for a story to mark the 60th anniversary. In the process, she discovers a secret in her husband's family that threatens her marriage, her husband's family, and her happiness. The alternating chapters are the story of Sarah, a young girl who is rounded up in July, and her harrowing tale of a mistake gone terribly, terribly wrong. Sarah is probably the most likable character in the novel, next to Julia's daughter who is constantly spilling the beans about her mother's research.
Although not what I would call an uplifting read, it is a part of history that I had never heard of, and therefore necessary. So much emphasis is placed on the suffering of the Jews in Germany and Austria, but little time is spent on the stories of the Jews in other countries, excepting of course, Anne Frank.
Certainly it is one of those books that is goo to have read because every body and their dog will have read it at some point. Also I think it's being made into a movie and I always like reading the book first.

Good Reading,
Caitlin