Rated of 5
by Big Bear A historic thriller with color and mystery
Chris Bohjalian writes with rhythm, changing the tempo with the times of the events he is describing or the content of these events. All this while he describes authentic and well researched horrific events. The prose leaves you glued to the book and although one can form a theory or two about how the story will end, the powerful and emotionally charged ending is perhaps an example of as courageous and selfless act as I have become aware of. The details of the ethnic customs he describes are delicious and never to be forgotten. This is a historic thriller with tentacles going forward to our times.
Rated of 5
by Anita Poor writing
I have previously learned about the Armenian holocaust and was anxious to read about it in a novel format. I am certain the the author did much research and based stories of the suffering of the characters in the book on that information. But I found the style of writing very off-putting and couldn't relate or feel very sympathetic to the the plight of the characters in this book. I didn't like the manner in which the two settings in time were told. I really wouldn't recommend this book unless someone to learn little about this episode of history.
Rated of 5
by Louise J Hugely Disappointing...
The Sandcastle Girls is a love story between Elizabeth Endicott, a wealthy Bostonian, and a young Armenian engineer named Armen. This love story takes place during the Armenian genocide in 1915- 1916, but the entire storyline reverts backs and forth between the past and the present.
I found the book a bit drab and didn’t enjoy the writing alternating between past and present tense. I honestly cannot say that I will be recommending The Sandcastle Girls to anyone soon as I won’t be. This novel was a huge disappointment to me considering the strength of and enjoyment in Bohjalian’s previous fourteen novels.
Rated of 5
by Diane S. The Sandcastle Girls
This book was incredibly difficult for me to read, and yet without books like these horrific events and the people who survived them would be forgotten. The Armenian genocide of 1915, is not something we learned in school and Bohjalian does a masterful job of presenting it in all its honesty and horror. Yet amongst the cruelty, there are instances of love and kindness and caring, even by those who were ordered to carry out these atrocities. Human people, with real human feelings, yet just as with other atrocities committed in the past and even now, there are not enough people to help or to even question. Things like this should not have happened and yet we trust that brilliant authors will continue to write heartbreaking stories to enlighten the reader. Well done and a fantastic book.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
read more
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
read more
Can an wiser, older narrator view the past with more wisdom than he might have possessed forty years earlier in the summer he was thirteen? Ordinary...
read more
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing(May 16 2013) In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth...
Full Story
of 5
by Big Bear 
of 5
by Anita 
