A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly November 18, 2006

This is a great coming-of-age story about a young woman growing up in 1906. Mattie Gokey is a smart, capable young woman who loves literature and whose fondest desire is to go to college, but she spends most of her time caring for her younger sisters and helping her father with the family farm. Mattie has to choose between caring for her family and friends or going against her father’s wishes and leaving home at a time when women just didn’t do that sort of thing. Add to that a neighbor’s son whom Mattie thinks is far too good looking for her starting to pay attention to her, and Mattie’s choices become far more complicated.

I really felt for Mattie in this novel. I wanted so badly for her to make certain decisions, and when it looked like she wouldn’t, it just drove me crazy and I had to keep reading, even when I had other things I had to do.

A real-life murder mystery is also part of this novel, and I thought that part of the novel was written with great sympathy and compassion.  It always seems so unexpected to me when a novel can make you think about and care about a real person.

I will definitely be reading more by this author.

The Road Home by Ellen Emerson White April 23, 2006

I forget how I came across this book on Amazon. When I was a teenager, I loved reading Ellen Emerson White’s President’s Daughter series—my favorite novels in the Young Adult category. So when I saw a listing for this book, I immediately wanted to read it. I love the way this author writes young people, book smart and emotionally confused, not knowing how to express love to friends or family, but always funny.

I read this book because of the author, not because of the subject, which is the Vietnam War. A young woman goes off to become a nurse in Vietnam during the war, and she changes, completely, as a result of her experiences. The author wrote a series of books that took place in Vietnam, and this one came after the series. There are events—big events—that took place before the book begins, events too interesting to just be referred to. But the book is affecting and interesting nonetheless, and a really good read.

It’s certainly a good reminder of the damage that war can do to people, and how survivors can’t possibly emerge unscathed.