If He Had Been With Me (2)

 Entry 58:

Review

Topic: If He Had Been With Me

    Like the last blog that I posted, I talked about this book. I have been thinking about things to talk about for this blog and this book has been heavy on my mind. In the beginning of this book, with the title of this book, you know that at the end and throughout the book it is building up to a tragic end. How the author portrays events and tells the story is beautiful all throughout. When I finished this book, while crying, I still for some reason almost decided to go back over it. Read it all over again, but this time take time to reflect and take notes for discussion- I have not read it again but it is that good. 

    In this book, the story is told in what some may call flashbacks and there are time skips, because she is referring to "Before"- you would not know if you do not pay attention that this book went from current time, then went to memories and is building up to tell you the story. This book is a love story, "if he had been with me" tells us what happened but does not actually provide an alternative story to if he had been with her. It is telling us the past, what actually happened but it does briefly address how everything could be different had he been with her. This is a very deep love story that does not last long but also kind of did. The authors goal was to show that time is not always granted, and to love people while you have them because you never know what the future holds. The book did just that- my heart was hurting over this book at 4 am. 

If He Had Been With Me

 Entry 57

Reflection 

Topic: Book Review

    Over this week, I found time to sit down and read a book in its entirety. The book is titled "If He Had Been With Me" and was written by Laura Nowlin. I would recommend this book to anyone, it is a pretty realistic book in terms of feelings and emotions. This book made me bawl my eyes out at the ending, and while I do not want to spoil it there are some things that I just need to get off of my chest about this book. 

    Throughout the book, there was a lot of inner battles within the characters. The mother has depression, the father is rarely in her life, she loses friends over the years and gains friends back. There is a lot of realistic problems within the book, but the way it was all put together made a beautiful story. One of the main things that I noticed in the book would be the main character, Autumn, you can see she is a young girl trying to figure herself out and to fit in. She feels like she is an outcast and she tries so hard to fit in with the other "misfits", she dates a guy who makes her happy, but she is not in love with. She tells herself when she loses feelings, to just stay because he makes her happy and she will love him again one day. I think that this is a serious problem that she maybe could have avoided. It bothered me all throughout the book, I have felt like this before. Just staying somewhere that I just feel content, not happy but just okay so I do not hurt anyones feelings. 

    The main goal of the authors was to create a realistic style book, with real problems and a love story embedded in it. They did an amazing job at that and I fully recommend this book. It just made me realize somethings about myself while reading because I felt a lot of similarities with some of these characters. 

Book Review

 Entry 8:

Reflection 

Topic: Last sentence of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

"Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication which strong family affection would naturally dictate;—and among the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, producing coolness between their husbands." 

    I have never read this book, but I wanted to see if with a little research into this last lines meaning and trying to see if I can get the gist of the book before I start reading it. 

    By just reading this line alone it seems as though there was a conflict build up throughout the book between Barton and Delaford, Elinor and Marianne; this line makes it appear as they got over it and realized family and friendship is more important than petty disagreements. Seems like a happy ending.

    However the "coolness" between husbands also makes me suspect that not everyone is happy. It seems as though this last line shows that not all relationships can be perfect all the time, that there will be ups and downs in their lives. I still think that no matter what though the last lines shows how true happiness and friendship should overcome all obstacles.

    After doing a bit of research on the ending there are a lot of questions on it there is actually a happy ending to the book. Wondering if Marianne really loves him? Or if she only married this man because it made "sense" to others. Saying that the narrator keeps telling us how much she truly does but the readers have still questioned her feelings. 

    There is no for sure way to tell by reading articles what the true meaning of the last line is but I figured I would give it a try. I guess I will have to read the book to figure out the true ending and the complete story. 

Book Review 1

 Entry 2- 

Research and Reflection

Topic: Quote from The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa

""Dirty people," I heard. 
Had I heard it right? What have we done for me to have to endure that? What crime had we committed?"(Page 9)

    A bit of backstory behind this quote. The novel, a historical fiction, at this point is taking place in Berlin, 1939. People said this to this twelve year old Jewish girl. 

    Historical Information: Doing some research further to really get into this quote I looked up a timeline of things Hitler did when he came to power. Important dates/years on this timeline included: 

• 1935, Hitler created the Nuremberg Laws. These laws essentially stripped Jewish people of their civil rights as German citizens, they were also defined as a separate race. With his new law, marriage or sexual relations between Germans and Jews was forbidden. 
• In 1936, he started promoting Nazism to the world. 
• In the later part of the year 1939, the "New Order" was put in place. This was a plan to abuse and eliminate Jews and Slavs. 

    Now in the book, this girl has a rich family. They own a hotel or apartment complex. German tenants in the building told this to the young girl because of her background. They call her and one of her friends "dirty" because they are Jewish. In 1939, there was a lot of racism towards anyone who was not German, actually they also discriminated against anyone who was not considered to be the perfect Aryan; having blonde hair and blue eyes made you "favorable". 

    Racism is seen throughout so many countries and so many different time periods and we still can see racism as well as sexism and other types of discrimination today. People often argue that racism or any other discriminatory actions are taught. In the book, a child is called dirty by an adult based on her race. The adult is a mother and says it with her child next to her, the child used to attend school with the young Jewish girl and they were once friends. However, she picked up from her mothers habits and either did not say anything or spit at her old friend. I guess you could say that racism is in fact taught. 

    The reason I picked this quote from the book is that up until then there were not perfect hints that this girl was Jewish. The title is misleading. The German Girl, she was not considered German by anyone in Germany in that time period. She then goes off on a rant explaining how she is German, more German than most of the "real" Germans. She even explains how. I guess I picked this quote because I keep going back to it. I know that the book takes place 80+ years ago but we know that this was a real event that happened. Racism still goes on- people are still so mean to each other.

Link to timeline I used: https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/nazifica.htm