I'm almost finished reading The Carrie Diaries. Almost every time when I come to the end of a book I have a little hesitation in finishing it. So now isn't any different, so I thought this would be a good moment to post a blog about this book.
Like a lot of girls/women I saw the Sex and the City series and movies. So when I heard of this book about the last high school year of Carrie I really got curious and bought it.
It isn't your standard chicklit if you ask me. At least that's not how interpreted it. I really see it as a diary written by a girl who wants to become a writer and tells about her life as a senior on high school. A book full of life experiences. But you really have to see this book apart from the Sex and the City character if you ask me to really enjoy it like that.
Here is the story from the back of the book:
Before Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was a small-town girl who knew she wanted more. She's ready for real life to start, but first she must navigate her senior year of high school. Up until now, Carrie and her friends have been inseparable. Then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture, and a friend's betrayal makes her question everything.
With an unforgettable cast of characters, The Carrie Diaries is the story of how a regular girl learns to think for herself, and evolves into a sharp, insightful writer. Readers will learn about her family background, how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. Through adventures both audacious and poignant, we'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where her new life begins.
This amazing book by Tatiana de Rosnay got my attention because of the movie that came out. And I wanted to read the book first, so I did. And now I want to see the movie!
For the Dutchies the backside of the book:
De tienjarige Sarah wordt samen met haar ouders opgepakt en naar het wielerstadion in Parijs gebracht, waarvandaan duizenden joden worden gedeporteerd. Niemand heeft echter gezien dat Sarah haar kleine broertje Michel in een kledingkast opsloot, net voordat de politie het appartement binnendrong, en de sleutel bij zich stak. Zestig jaar later krijgt Julia Jarmond, een Amerikaanse journaliste in Parijs, de opdracht een artikel te schrijven over deze razzia. Ze gaat op zoek in de archieven en via het dossier van Sarah ontdekt zij het goed verborgen geheim van haar schoonfamilie.
For my International followers a summary I got from bol.com:
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can. Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv'--the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children, in order to send them to concentration camps. Sarah's Key is the poignant story of two families, forever linked and haunted by one of the darkest days in France's past. In this emotionally intense, page-turning novel, Tatiana de Rosnay reveals the guilt brought on by long-buried secrets and the damage that the truth can inflict when they finally come unravelled.
I ordered the new book of Kat von D a couple weeks ago and I just finished reading it. It's her diary of a year and it was such a nice book to read. I like diaries, so this one was a good adding to my list. She's so honest and open in this book and I could relate to a lot of things she describes. And off course the stories behind the tattoo's are inspiring and mind opening. I really like the different kind of reasons there are behind these tattoo's. I will here place some information about the book I found on the internet for you to get a more complete idea of the book.
About the book:
Kat Von D's followup to her New York Times bestseller High Voltage Tattoo offers an intimate look at a pivotal year in her personal and professional life through an illustrated diary that begins in spring 2008 and ends in summer 2009. When Kat does a tattoo, she writes about it and draws sketches in a journal, creating an entry for each piece. She has hundreds of ledgers of these entries in her own writing which reflect not only upon the significance of the tattoo for the person who is receiving it (their story), but also how the experience of creating this tattoo affects her personally. In these entries - some poignant, some hilarious, some serious - she lays it on the line about how doing these tattoos affects her life and her art. Here are the highs and the lows, the good, bad, and the ugly - including her feelings about her fame, her family, her boyfriend (Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue), her friends, and fans. Visually stunning, this graphically compelling diary is jam-packed with tons of Kat's sketches, candid photographs, images of a variety of amazing finished tattoos and her many unusual personal collections - all shot by Kat herself. Fans will love the array of clients featured here, including Metallica's Kirk Hammett, guitarist Dave Navarro, and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister, as much as they will love seeing new photographs of Kat that were taken specifically for the book. Here's the real Kat Von D - unscripted and uncensored - and her fans are going to go wild for it.
I just finished this beautiful book. Another autobiography/biography. It's about a girl that had to marry when she was 9 years old. It's a amazing book, that keeps suprising you page after page and I don't mean that in a good way. Here I will publish the back side of the book in Dutch.
Ik was negen toen ik moest trouwen is het waargebeurde verhaal van een dapper meisje, dat wist te ontsnappen uit een gedwongen huwelijk. Nadat Nojoud bij de rechtbank had aangeklopt, lukte het haar om met de hulp van een vrouwelijk advocaat, internationale hulporganisaties en de lokale media, haar scheiding erdoor te krijgen. Dit was een opmerkelijke gebeurtenis in Jemen, waar normaal gesproken iedereen zwijgt over het feit dat bijna de helft van alle meisjes wordt uitgehuwelijkt onder de wettelijke minimumleeftijd van vijftien jaar. Nojouds verhaal geeft andere meisje de moed om zich te verzetten tegen de gebruiken van hun land.
Couldn't find a good summary of this book in English, but it's called: Me, Nojoud, 10, divorcee. So you can read about it on the internet, there are a lot of articles about this book.
This is a dutch book, so probably only interesting for the Dutchies. Another autobiography and another amazing story. Here's is the backside of the book. A definitely: READ IT!!
Na een nare periode keert Merel van Groningen op haar vijftiende terug naar het internaat waar zij eerder heeft gewoond. Ze is een getraumatiseerde, eenzame tiener die wanhopig op zoek is naar liefde. Die vindt ze bij haar mentor. Hij geeft haar het gevoel dat ze mooi en bijzonder is, en dat ze in ieder geval bij hem een heel speciaal plaatsje in zijn hart heeft. Zo weet hij haar te verleiden tot een geheime relatie. Pas als blijkt dat Merel bepaald niet zijn enige liefde is, begrijpt ze dat hij misbruik heeft gemaakt van haar vertrouwen. Merel moet dan verder leven met een gebroken hart. Dit is haar verhaal.
I read this book a few weeks ago, but it's still in my mind, the story is still fresh.
It's about a english girl that comes to Holland, and get's stuck in the red light district in Amsterdam.
Here what's on the backside of the book (only for the Dutchies sorry, I will look something up in english for my in international followers)
Mijn leven in de hel - Sarah Forsyth
De negentienjarige Sarah Forsyth werkt op een creche in een Engels provinciestandje. Op een dag ziet ze een advertentie: LEIDSTERS GEZOCHT VOOR KINDERDAGVERBLIJF IN AMSTERDAM. Ze is wel toe aan wat avontuur en reageert onmiddellijk.
Na een serieuze sollicitatieprocedure wordt ze aangenomen: het lijkt wel een droom. Die droom verandert in een nachtmerrie op het moment dat Sarah op Schiphol aankomt. De mensen die haar ophalen duwen haar in een auto, nemen onder bedreiging haar paspoort af en rijden regelrecht naar de Amsterdamse Wallen. Daar wordt ze zonder pardon achter het raam gezet. Haar ontvoerders laten er geen misverstand over bestaan: als ze probeert te ontsnappen, zal dat haar dood worden. Anderhalf jaar lang ondergaat Sarah de meest vreselijke vernederingen, tot ze uiteindelijk dankzij puur geluk en een onbewaakt ogenblik de mogelijkheid vindt om te ontsnappen.
Slave Girl - Sarah Forsyth
Sarah Forsyth has spent most of her life in fear. Born in Newcastle in 1976, from the age of three, the very people who were meant to be looking after and protecting her were sexually abusing her. Somehow overcoming the hurt and heartbreak of this horrific childhood, Sarah managed to build a new and happy life for herself as a nursery nurse.
Then, one day, Sarah spotted a newspaper advert for a job in a creche in Amsterdam. Thrilled by the prospect of a fresh start away from Newcastle and all the memories it held, she eagerly signed up. But within minutes of stepping off the plan in Amsterdam her life began to fall apart. There was no creche and no job: Sarah was a victim of sex-trafficking. That night, a just twenty-one years of age, her life - her real life, her life as Sarah Forsyth - ended.
Fed cocaine and cannabis, and forced at gunpoint to work as a prostitute in the Red Light District of Amsterdam, Sarah was turned from a young innocent English girl into a desperate and terrified crack whore. Riddled with fear about what her pimps would do to her if they caught her trying to run away, it took Sarah almost a year to find the strength to fight back and escape. But, unlike many of the girls that she was forced to live and work beside, she did get away. Sarah Forsyth is a survivor. This is her heart-rending story.
