Jonathan's Showcase Sunday 4-28-2013

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Here's my very first Showcase Sunday! SPOTLIGHTS!

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 

I’m a little slow getting on the train to this one, but this is the acclaimed story of friendship between two boys, one of whom is in a concentration camp. I’ve been looking at this book for a while, but just recently bought it since reading Annexed reawakened my interest in the Holocaust. I’m very excited to read it and see how it turns out, since there seems to be a lot of hate for it on Goodreads.

The God Box

Written by Alex Sanchez, this is a story about a guy named Paul, content with dating his girlfriend and being active in his religion based high school. His life gets complicated when a new student named Manuel arrives and tests what he thinks he knows about himself, his faith, and the world he lives in.

I always see the Rainbow Boys series at the library and I want to get into those, but I figured I’d try another book of Sanchez’s first.

Avalon High

This is a purely guilty pleasure read. Meg Cabot wrote this book about a girl who goes to a school and realizes that everyone seems to have a connection to Camelot and the world of King Arthur. I have to say I loved The Princess Diaries series. I found them laugh out loud funny, and I can’t wait to see what Meg Cabot does with these well known characters. 

A quick take on Annexed

Hey people,

I recently finished Annexed by Sharon Dogar, so I wanted to share a few thoughts.

Annexed is a fictionalized story about Peter Van Pels, "suggested from real life events" as written in Anne Frank's diary, which she kept during the two years she and her family spent hiding from Nazi's in Germany. If you don't know the story of Anne Frank, you can read some about her here, and I highly suggest you read The Diary of Anne Frank. 

ANYWAY.

I still can't place my feelings for this novel. Obviously it's fiction, so it was a little jarring to hear a character talking to Anne and know that it was Anne Frank. The cover touts it as a love story, but that ends up kind of being secondary to the story which is mostly Peter talking about his wishes for freedom, understandably. 

This book just didn't leave me with a feeling of knowing someone and having my eyes opened to a part of history like reading Anne's diary did. And again, that could be because it was fiction, but I just expected more from this book when deciding to read it.

At the end of the book, the author gives a true account of what happened to everyone in real life after the family was found hiding in the secret annex, which affected me more than anything in the book. I guess if you're truly curious I would suggest this book, otherwise pick up a copy of The Diary of Anne Frank and you can hear about Peter in Anne's own words.

Happy Sunday night!

-Jonathan