Beginner’s Guide To: World War Two/The Holocaust in YA

This is a sort of continuation of this post in which I suggested good books to start with for people just starting out in Young Adult Literature. Today, I’m talking about one of the areas in Literature (not just YA) that I am most interested in – World War Two/The Holocaust novels.

Some of these might not actually be classed as ‘YA’, but I decided to mention them anyway. Let’s start!

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Even if you’re not interested in this era/subject, I seriously believe that everyone in the world should read this book at least once. It’s a true story (which I’m sure you all know) which means it’s incredibly moving, and yes, it will absolutely rip your heart out of your chest but you have to have to read it to understand. This is probably the book that has most affected me so far in life.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I’m sure you were all expecting this one so I thought I’d just get it out of the way now. Don’t get me wrong, I adore this book and I highly recommend it to everyone and the film too. Again, your heart will break but it’s worth it.

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I mentioned this book in my original post, but I wanted to mention it again. I’m going to admit right now, as much as I love The Book Thief…I prefer this. The stories in both books are incredibly different as is the writing, but there’s something about this one that causes this deep, uncontrollable ache in my chest that rivals Anne Frank’s diary. I don’t know how else to convince you all to read this.

The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail

I thought I’d mention one that isn’t nearly as well known as the others. Suzy Zail is an Australian author which means this story holds an extra special place in my heart. This one is a little bit lighter than the others – it’s still powerful, but it’s doesn’t completely ruin your life. It’s the perfect book for when you want just a little sadness, not a ‘stay in bed all week and cry’ kind of sadness.

Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

This is my most recent read, and I’ve already got a full length review up about here. This one is also different – the main character isn’t Jewish, but rather someone in Hitler’s inner circles. It’s a book about learning what’s right, and it’s just so beautiful. Again, it’s not as heartbreaking as the others but it will still get to your feels. (Also, this is actually early 1930’s but I’m counting it anyway.)

You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to narrow it down to these five books – there were others I wanted to mention and ones I haven’t even had the chance to read yet. Basically, I’ll be doing another post in the future about more Holocaust books.

Thank you all for reading!

The GIF Book Tag

The always lovely Ebony of Daring Damsels tagged us to do the GIF Book Tag, so that's what we're doing today! Basically, the person who tags will give you a list of ten books, and you just need to find a GIF describing/showing how you feel about the books in question. Let's start!

1. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

Ely:

Chami:

2. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Ely:

Chami:

3. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Ely:

Chami:

4. The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Ely: 

Chami:

5. On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Ely:

Chami:

6. The Selection by Kiera Cass
Ely:

Chami:

7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Ely:

Chami:

8. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Ely:

Chami: NOPE. NOPE. DON'T HAVE A GIF FOR THIS BECAUSE THERE IS NO GIF FOR THIS.
9. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Ely:

Chami:

10. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Ely:

Chami:

Who's terrible at noticing which people do which tags? WE ARE! (We apologise if you've already done this) But we're tagging...
Cait and Mime @ Notebook Sisters
Kate @ Fictional Thoughts
Val @ The Innocent Smiley
and Laura @ Laura Plus Books

Your books are...
1. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
2. Legend by Marie Lu
3. Allegiant by Veronica Roth
4. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
6. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
7. Cinder by Marissa Meyer
8. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
9. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

DISCUSSION: My Favourite Female Characters

I think I should start this discussion post but saying that this is list isn't all of my favourite female characters, in fact if I was going to list all of them then we'd be here for an awfully long time. I decided to do this post today because I've been thinking about female characters in YA a lot lately- a lot of them get labelled as being 'strong' just because they're kickass. Strong for me means being not just physically strong but mentally strong too. Some of these characters are physically strong, others aren't but let's get started.

1. Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events
I've talked about Violet many, many times here but I just really adore her. She's definitely not physically strong, but god is she smart! Violet invents things you see, throughout the series she comes up with these brilliant inventions that save her and her siblings. Violet was one of the first characters I ever seriously loved and I think she was a great role model- I know I always wanted to be just like Violet when I grew up. (Okay, so the inventing thing totally never happened)

2. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series
Of course no list would be complete without Miss Granger. I admit that Hermione isn't my favourite character in the entire series, but I think she's still incredibly amazing. Like Violet, she's incredibly intelligent too but she also has her flaws. (Can you tell I read these two series at the same time?) Also, Emma Watson is just a glorious human being.

3. Liesel Meminger from The Book Thief
If Liesel were a real person, I would totally adopt her as a cute younger sister- I love her that much. I know she's only young in the book but she's so incredibly strong and wise, but she's also a troublemaker. The best thing is, of course, she's a reader!

4. June Iparis from the Legend trilogy
June is one of Chami's favourite characters, and while I'm not as obsessed with her- I still think that June is a wonderful character. Again, she's extremely smart but also extremely badass. I admit, if I was ever going to live in a dystopian world, I'd want June on my side.

5. Celaena Sardothien from the Throne of Glass series
If you know me at all, you probably know that Celaena is most definitely my favourite character right now. She takes badass to a whole new level, and while she isn't exactly the nicest person- she's just so interesting to read about and I can't help but love her.

So those were the five characters I wanted to talk about today. Like I said, this is a very abridged list but I thought I'd just start with these! I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you tomorrow with another new post :)

Five Books I Almost Put Down But Didn't

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, and you can find more about this meme here. This week's list is ten books I almost put down but didn't. This one was a hard topic for me, if I'm not enjoying a book I'll either put it back in my shelves to read later (usually, months later) or if it's a library book, I'll just return it. I've stopped forcing myself to finish books that I'm really not liking. That being said, I came up with five books.

1. The Archived by Victoria Schwab
This is the most recent one, I really wasn't enjoying this at first. In fact, it took me two or three weeks to get passed the first 30 pages and I was really considering returning it to the library unread. Then I decided to just read a little more, and then suddenly- I was hooked.


2. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Some of you might know, that I absolutely adore Rebecca so it might slightly surprise you that this book is on my list. I don't really consider this as a book I almost put down, because it was more of a book I never bothered to pick up. I borrowed it from the library a couple of times, but never read it. Now it's one of my absolute favourites.

3. More Than This by Patrick Ness
This is also a favourite of mine now. Going into this book, I was expecting a contemporary so when I got a sci-fi dystopian-y sort of thing, I considered putting it down. I don't know why I decided to keep reading, but I'm glad I did.

4. Stolen by Lucy Christopher
This is another one that I really loved once I'd finish, but this is a difficult book to get through. It honestly messes with your mind so much, and that's why I considered putting it down but in the end I didn't.

5. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
This one might surprise a few people. It's actually one that I did put down for about a year and it's not because I wasn't enjoying it. The fact is, everyone of my friends who read this book told me it broke their hearts and I just wasn't ready for that pain. I did pick it up again, I loved it but surprisingly, the movie made me cry more...

Did any of you feel the same about any of these books?