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Showing posts from May, 2017

Book Review: The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

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The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is a historical fiction novel that spans many years and tells of the friendship between former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. I don't know if I would have picked up this book if it hadn't been the August selection for one of the book clubs I belong to in my area because I don't read a lot of historical fiction. However, I am so glad that I read it and was able to learn many things I hadn't learned about in any of my history classes.  I don't recall learning anything about Mary McLeod Bethune, and she is an important part of American history. The things she helped spearhead to provide African American people equal rights is quite impressive. One of the things I was horrified to learn about is Franklin D. Roosevelt's resistance to stop lynchings because he was afraid of losing the Southern Democrats backing for his New Deal Bill. Another thing that I fo...

Book Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

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Have you ever read a book and had a moment of déjà vu? A moment where you thought you've read it before? While reading Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, I had several of those moments and kept racking my brain of what book I had read that could possibly be similar to Dark Places in any way, shape, or form. And, I came up with Truman Capote's true crime book, In Cold Blood that I started reading but never finished. Both books, Dark Places and In Cold Blood , take place in Kansas where a family, or a few members of a family, were murdered in their home. Coincidentally, or maybe not, both of these homes happened to be on a farm. That's really where the similarities end, but it was enough to make me feel like the basis of Dark Places was taken from Capote's book. Dark Places begins in the present day and introduces us to the main character, Libby Day. I find her to be passive, unmotivated, and continuously blaming others & her past for not being able to keep a...