The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis

I'm not sure there's anything particularly interesting to say about this book, other than it was a good read. I am very partial to historical novels though, so if I ever find a historical novel I don't like, you will be sure to know. I had to put this book down at about 3/4ths of the way through it so I could read The Freedom Writers' Diary (see previous blog entry), which of course made it a little more difficult to remember where I was and what was going on when I did get back to this one, but it wasn't too difficult. Overall, good book, intriguing and hard to put down.

The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

This book is basically a compiled diary of the journal entries of 150 inner city students over the course of 4 years of inner city high school english class with their teacher, Erin Gruwell. The entries talk about the lives of these teenagers, such as dealing with drive by shootings, drugs, gangs, abusive parents, and the list goes on. The entries also help tell the story of how they grew over the 4 years and the different events and accomplishments they made, both group and individual.

Overall it tells a story of learning tolerance in a very intolerant culture. It does a pretty good job of this. It's very choppy though, since the whole thing is journal entries by many different students. You don't get a very smooth telling of the current events that happen through the book. But it is amazing to read how this one teacher was able to motivate so much change in so many students.

This was our book club book for this month, but I was only able to finish half of the book before the meeting. There were only two others who had actually finished the book, and one who had read about 5 pages. No one else had read it. So our discussion about the book itself was rather brief, however it did lead into many other interesting topics. We discussed education, writing, family issues, and much more. As for the book though, no one was very impressed by it, although they generally thought it could have been a lot better (i.e. it had a good premise) if it had been written or organized differently.

Zipporah Wife of Moses by Marek Halter

This book is about Zipporah (from the biblical story). She is a black woman in a white world, loved by her adopted father, hated by one of her adopted sisters, and loved by Moses, the man she loves. She is demanding, in what is probably a good way, by refusing to marry Moses until he agrees to fulfill his destiny of leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.

I liked her determination to get Moses on the right track and help him in any way she felt she could. Otherwise, overall it was pretty good, but not something I would likely read again.

I should explain. I am a rereader. If I loved a book the first time, I will totally want to go back and read it again, and again, and again. The series I've probably read the most times is The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. If I had to guess how many times I've read those seven books... well, probably at least 8 to 10 times all the way through. So, if I say I probably wouldn't want to read a book again later, it doesn't mean it's a bad book, it's just not a really great book.