Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 I've been working my way through this audiobook for months. With my busy schedule, the birth of my son, and my struggle through my AP curricular books, I haven't had much time to read. That being said, I've started driving significantly more, and am now putting on audiobooks in the car again. I apologize for any misspelling of character/location names - I listened to the audio and don't have a paper copy. A Torch Against the Night  picks up immediately after An Ember in the Ashes  concludes. Laia and Elias are desperately trying to get to Kauf prison to rescue Laia's brother. Helene is just as desperate to track Elias down - not because she wants to kill him, but because she knows what will happen to her family if she doesn't. Elias is badly poisoned from the encounter with his mother, Karis Veturia, better known as the Commandant. Elias's brush with death has left him hanging between worlds: the living, and the Waiting Place, where spirits go before passin...

 This was another book club choice, and as I'd read An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir already, I was eager to dive into this one. I'd heard it's drastically different than An Ember in the Ashes  and isn't even in the same genre, so I was curious to read it. All My Rage  by Sabaa Tahir follows the story of Salahudin Malik. Salahudin grew up in Juniper, California with his mother who is almost his whole world, and his father who cannot even stop drinking enough to ensure that his mother gets to dialysis. The Maliks are Pakistani, and own the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel in Juniper. The novel also follows Noor Riaz, also Pakistani, who lives with her uncle and works in his liquor store. Chachu saved Noor from the wreckage of her earthquake-destroyed village when she was six and brought her to the United States. He gave up everything to take her in, and put his entire life on pause to raise her, a fact that he is not afraid to remind Noor about. Noor and Salahudin have bee...

 After reading The Kite Runner  a couple of years ago, I have really found a love for Khaled Hosseini and have been dying to dive into some of his other books. I have had a fascination with the Middle East since I studied it in college, so I've loved these novels. And the Mountains Echoed  is a gorgeously written novel flowing through a multi-generational story of a villager from Shadbagh, Afghanistan. Each section of this novel is told through the perspective of a different character - first from Abdullah and last from his daughter Pari. Abdullah describes traveling to Kabul with his father, Saboor, and sister, Pari (who his daughter is eventually named after) where Pari is left with the wealthy Wahdatis to be raised. Pari never truly knows the truth about her former family until she is an adult when she is contacted by Markos Varvaris, a Greek doctor doing humanitarian work in Kabul. Markos rented the home in Kabul that once belonged to Mr. Wahdati. Markos received a le...

This is another book that we chose to read as a book club. I have to admit, I was really excited to read it, even though I'd never heard of it or Nadia Murad before. The Last Girl  by Nadia Murad is the tale of her fight against ISIS in Iraq. Nadia grew up in a small village in northern Iraq. Their village was generally unaffected by the American invasion in the 2000s except that American soldiers did come to their village. Nadia and her village are part of a minority religion called Yazidi. When ISIS gained power following events in Syria, they invaded Nadia's village. They killed the men of her village and took the women captive, claiming them as slaves that they were free to abuse. The Last Girl  is Nadia's tale of captivity and abuse at the hands of her captors and her escape to freedom. I loved this book. This story is raw and honest. Murad doesn't leave out the excruciating details of what she went through. In the U.S., we largely ignored ISIS and what was happeni...