The Rest Of My May Reading

I spent a lot of time in the end of May reading books set in the 1940s. Did you know that more than just World War II happened in the 40s?!?!?! I've read so much about World War II that it was interesting to expand beyond that.

This was a random library find. I remember reading Go Ask Alice as a preteen and it really impacted me. To learn that it was all a hoax; that the "anonymous author" who wrote the book was actually a con artist was very shocking to me. I had never heard of the other book the fake author also "wrote" but it was definitely an interesting, and sad, read. However, I didn't think the writing of this book was very well done. So I would read this book for the story (especially if you too were impacted by Go Ask Alice) but be warned that the writing is lacking.

I found this book very disturbing because it was the story of a family of sisters, half of whom were huge fans of Hitler and thought England needed to give him a chance. While it is historical fiction, based in fact, the two sisters who swooned over Hitler were maddening to read about. I also feel like Nancy, the sister who disagreed with her sisters' politics, was too wishy-washy in working against them. I don't know -- this book just didn't do it for me, which is unfortunate because I really like some of the author's other work.

I hadn't read many stories about the Japanese interment camps, and while that was not the main focus of this book, I found this story of Chinese and Japanese families on the West Coast in the 40s very engaging. I would highly recommend this novel as a way to learn more about that time period.

Again, this was a novel set in the 40s, but I found it hard to read. Not "hard" as in "difficult" but I couldn't get into the flow of it. I wasn't entranced by the premise or any of the characters. While it had similar themes to Hotel On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, I found this novel was not as interesting.

I really wanted to like this book. It is written by a First Nations man who grew up mostly in Manitoba and BC. While I found some of his early story telling quite engaging, the middle of the book felt more like a resume than a memoir. I don't know if I need to give this book another chance, or if it just wasn't that interesting to me, but I felt disappointed when I was done reading it. I think I'd heard good things about this book and I just didn't agree.

I rated this book 4 stars on Goodreads. And then I read a quote something to the effect of "beware of books which are about good Nazis" or something like that. And now I'm seriously reconsidering my rating. This is the story of a regular German family who goes along with what the Nazis are doing and the husband ends up working in a fairly high position. While the main portion of book focuses on the family's settling in the States in the 1950s, it does tell the story of their time in Germany. When I first read the book, I thought it set up well how an "ordinary family" could be coerced into working for the Nazis. But on reflection, I'm realizing that there is always a choice -- it might cost you your friends, your property, your country, or even your life, but there is always a choice. Can you tell I'm torn about what I think about this book?

I'm also ashamed that I didn't think about any of this when I was reading the book and just got caught up in the story. It wasn't until I saw that quote when I reconsidered my thoughts.

I've wanted to read this book for a long time. I think I first started reading it in December 2019. I'm sad to say that I don't think I "got" this book. I think a lot of people really like it and I don't know if it was the space I was in, or if it's just me, but I didn't love this. I was disappointed to read it and not understand why other people think it's so great. If you are one of the people who loves this book, please tell me what I'm missing.

So that wraps up my May reading. I set a goal of reading 150 books in 2023 and by the end of May, I was almost halfway there. Yay!!!

Total books read in May: 12

Total books read in 2023:  73