A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

I'll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes and Loretta Nyhan is the other book that I was reading while I read My Name Is Mina .  I liked I'll Be Seeing You a lot better than that Mina book.  This is the kind of book that sneaks up on you and sucks you in before you realize what's happening.  It's a pretty fast read and once the letters start going back and forth between the two women, it turns into a page turner because you want to find out what's going to happen in their lives and will their men make it home from the war and then what's going happen next when they do come home and wait, it's the end of the book?!  But what happens in the post-war years to these women and their families? According to book jacket, the story reflects the authors' own story, and there's an interview at the end of the book that explains this.  Apparently, the authors are penpals over email who met through one of their blogs.  As of the day of the interview they had not

My Name Is Mina by David Almond is the follow up to Skellig , previously reviewed on the blog.  It is the pre-quel to the story that takes place in Skellig .  To be honest, I don't really know what to make of this book, and if I hadn't already written here on the blog in Skellig 's review that I would also read My Name Is Mina , I don't know that I would have finished the book.  While I was reading this book, I was also reading another book at the same time, so it took longer to finish both than it normally would have. The story is told entirely from Mina's perspective through the mechanism of her journal entries in which she shares eccentric writings and observations, including life musings, stories, and extraordinary activities.  She also looks back on the miserable days she spent in school and what lead to her mother's decision to pull her out of the school and home school her instead. Mina was eccentric in Skellig , but My Name Is Mina reveals the de