Hannah Mallory

Really powerful memoir about a single mom just trying to survive and take care of her little one the best she can. I read a lot of pretty judgmental reviews of this book, people criticizing the author's various decisions, thinking she should have spent money differently or worked harder etc. But I was near tears for much of the book as I saw a woman in survival mode, without any support systems from family/friends, gathering the strength and initiative to care for her child. I resonated with the loneliness she describes and the lack of capacity to do anything more than simply survive another day. No judgment from me.

This one took me a while to get into, but it turned out to be a sweet story. It portrayed the messiness, pain, and sorrow of life through the eyes of a feisty 7 year old as she gets to know her eclectic neighbors. Three quotes from the book really hit home for me:

1) If you don't like people, they can't hurt you.

2) Death's greatest power is not that it can make people die, but that it can make people want to stop living.

3) If people you like have been shits on earlier occasions, you have to learn to carry on liking them. You'd quickly run out of people if you had to disqualify all those who had some point have been shits.

This was a fantastic book. Based on a true story, set in WWII Italy. Tells the story of a young man who does incredibly brave things. Definitely includes some sadness and heaviness, but it's an amazing book. Well-written and engaging. I really didn't know a lot about Italy during the war, so I learned a ton too.

Story about two friends from a poor village in India who are separated and journey to find each other again. I appreciated the friendship piece of this book, but the immense hardship these girls endured was really hard to read. So much senseless suffering – it felt excessive and made me feel helpless as a reader.