THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER & THE GOOD DOCTOR OF WARSAW.

 THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER BY STEPHEN CHBOSKY. 

"I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day...or wondering who did the heart breaking and wondering why."

Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

👍 Not normally a fan of the diary entry format, even less so books written in the 'stream of consciousness' style so as you might imagine I approached this book {one of several received from my mam} with some degree of doubt. Imagine then if will my surprise that I actually enjoyed The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. 

👍 A character driven reader who particularly enjoys well written female characters ... and is even more impressed when they are penned by a man; Chbosky's female characters are every bit as well developed as their male counterparts. 

👎 Sexual abuse and suicide feature quite heavily as do drugs, sex and swearing. In a book of just over 200 pages there are also themes of rape, relationship violence, abortion, drugs, child molestation, incest ... the list goes on; that's an awful lot of heavy issues to be dealing with, so many in fact that I felt the author could not do justice to them all and it felt as if some were pointed out and then seemingly forgotten.

THE GOOD DOCTOR OF WARSAW BY ELISABETH GIFFORD.

'You do not leave a sick child alone to face the dark and you do not leave a child at a time like this.'

Warsaw 1940. The Jewish ghetto is under the Nazis' brutal control. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children slowly starve within the walls. 

But while all around is darkness, one man brings hope, caring for the ever-increasing number of destitute orphans in the face of unimaginable conditions.

And, torn apart as the noose tightens around the ghetto, how will one young couple's survive the terrible tests of wartime?

A book that though fiction features actual individuals, something that could not fail but to bring home the horror of their fates. 

Whilst I did enjoy {if that's the right word to use} The Good Doctor Of Warsaw, I'm afraid I felt it was the author's depiction of these individuals that let the book down somewhat; that sad to say I found main characters { Misha and Sophia} lacking in substance and rather, well, flat which was rather disappointing given that their story goes on for so much longer than that of Dr. Korczak, the good doctor of the title, whose story seems very much secondary.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL WITH GRANDFATHER TIME

 

A CHRISTMAS CAROL WITH GRANDFATHER TIME BY ROSE ENGLISH WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY PABLO RODRIGUEZ.

Target Age ... Children age 4 to 8 + years

Genre ... Christmas Picture Book

Publication Date: 1st October 2023

Standalone Book

Estimated Page Count ... 32

Purchase Link ...  https://mybook.to/GrandfatherTimeXmas

A modern lyrical re-telling of the Charles Dickens classic for children of all ages. Young Ebenezer hates sharing and is not very caring. Can a magical clock and a ghost puppy help him mend his ways?

**At least £1 from every book purchased will go towards donating a book to each child in Hereford County Hospital over the Christmas Season 2023**

A Christmas Carol with Grandfather Time {a grandfather clock} tells the story of the young Eb who, well, not the most nice or thoughtful of children has some lessons to learn in this re-imagining of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Though obviously not nearly as dark as Dicken's version {English's version is after all aimed at children as young as four} we have the child friendly 'ghosts' of Past, Present and, my favourite, Future, 'The Dream Catcher' who come 8 o'clock Christmas morn hope to see a changed Eb 'sharing his games, happy and caring'. 

Written in rhyme, something that I personally believe always adds a certain something to books for young children; the poetic meter is pretty much consistent throughout, making it easy for young readers to pick up the words and thus the story as it is read out loud.

All in all the book worms and I enjoyed this fun rendition of a classic story. That the children were able to talk about why it was that Eb was not a good friend prior to the visit by the 'ghosts' a bonus. However, rather pettily of me perhaps, I was slightly disappointed in the depiction of Eb's parents; that having been told by his mum that it was time for bed, Eb's dad took over parenting when he 'Jumped from his chair and said with a roar! "NOW EBENEZER! You heard what Mum said. Put down your game and get ready for bed."' after Eb declared he wasn't finished playing his game.

The illustrations however, Hmm! I'm still not sure about the illustrations and the little bookworms certainly weren't particularly enthusiastic about them in so much as, once seen, they were happy enough to lose themselves in the story whereas normally there are complaints from at least one of them that they cannot see the pictures.

Having been called upon to re-read the story 'just one more time pleasseee' over several consecutive nights now, it would seem this has become something of a favourite with the bookworms. As for myself, happy to re-read it, I do think it a festive read and it has a good message at its heart.

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Living on 'England's Green & Pleasant Land', among the gentle rolling hills of the Herefordshire Countryside, Rose's house is wall to wall books. She's a Read-a-holic, whose hobby is to write stories for the young and young at heart.

Working as a school librarian, and sharing her love of books with children, was the best job she ever had. However, life moves on and another chapter was only a page turn away. Working in a very different library now, she is a key worker for the NHS helping to run the Medical Equipment Library in Wye Valley NHS Trust.

​

After winning FIRST PRIZE in a short story competition with 'The Magic of Grandfather Christmas' she is inspired to transform the tale into a collection of stories for all ages. ‘Young Ebenezer' is inspired by the Dickens classic 'A Christmas Carol' and brought into modern times with a strong theme of sharing and caring.

​

Rose has a little sidekick called Miss Ruby Heart, a ruby King Charles spaniel from the Grandfather Time Series. The puppy is the Ghost of Christmas Past and features on the 'Young Ebenezer’ covers. She also has her own social media pages check out www.instagram.com/missrubyheart1

Social Media Website ... Website  X/Twitter

With thanks to Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources for organising a paper copy. One of several bloggers participating in the Blog Tour of this book, agree or disagree with me, all opinions are my own; no financial compensation was asked for nor given; threats of violence towards my favourite teddy bear went unheeded as did promises of chocolate.

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ASHLEY BELL.

 ASHLEY BELL BY DEAN KOONTZ. 

The only girl who can save her has no idea who she is ...

Bibi Blair is a fierce, funny, dauntless young woman-whose doctor says she has one year to live.

She replies, "We'll see."

Her sudden recovery is a medical miracle.

An enigmatic woman convinces Bibi that she escaped death so that she can save someone else. Someone named Ashley Bell. But who is Ashley Bell? And what exactly does she need saving from?

Bibi's obsession with finding Ashley sends her on the run from threats both mystical and worldly, including a rich and charismatic cult leader with terrifying ambitions.

In a nutshell the story of Bibi Bella, a young woman who, told she has an incurable brain tumour one day, awakes the next day after a strange experience in her hospital bed to find she is cured; her life saved in order that she can save the life of someone else, the someone else being the Ashley Bell of the title. The only thing is bad people {and possibly something even more sinister} are after Bibi, their mission to stop her from finding Ashley no matter what the cost.

An author who I am of course aware of but up until now whose books I had never read. At 646 pages or if you prefer 130 chapters long, some of them only two or three pages long, this is one of the longest books I've read this year. 

Left scratching my head at times, wondering just what was going on. Whilst, for the main part, entranced by the plot I didn't think it flowed particularly well; something that certainly wasn't helped by the super short chapters that bounced between different characters perspectives OR the fact that the author kept wondering off on these odd diatribes {their personal politics/philosophies creeping in a bit?} that, unless I was missing something, seemed to have nothing to do with the story. Not that these odd diatribes were the only 'distractions', there were countless others that seemed to serve little or no purpose let alone advance the story ... but more of that later. 

Told from multiple points of view, the main action shared between the heroine of the story and her fiance, I thought the characters a bit meh!

Struggling to get Bibi, it was until the latter part of the book that I began to understand her motivation and I thought her fiance, Navy SEAL Paxton, a bit of a non entity really. As for the myriad of other characters, some I'd liked to have seen put to better use; others I thought of as surplus to the story; the baddie, well, I don't think he'd have been out of place in a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Why then did I rate the book as highly as I did?

Whilst the star system is something I choose not to use on Pen and Paper, it is a necessary evil on certain sites such as GoodReads on which I rated the book ⭐⭐⭐⭐.

Having finished the book I actually sat for several hours, mulling over what I'd read, trying to figure out whether or not I'd actually enjoyed it. The conclusion being ...

Thinking about all of those bits that seemed to have no bearing on the plot, I came to appreciate just how cleverly Ashley Bell was in fact written; that all of the aspects that at the time seemed unimportant, irrelevant even, were in fact anything but.  

A mythical journey of two worlds; 'the known world and the supernatural world that shadowed it' in which we get to see to see two Bibis, one in a coma, the other in pursuit of evildoers, definitely weird; M. Night Shyamalan weird.  

Despite any misgivings I may have had I actually enjoyed this story at the heart of which there is an exploration of the question 'how much are we actually able to write our own stories'.

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