Rating: PG-13 (This book actually rates itself. In the book, one of the characters actually says, "I give it a PG-13." There are two F-bombs but they're in the same paragraph and then there's no other language really, just some sexuality, but it isn't graphic at all, and there's a little talk about body parts, but again, it didn't make me uncomfortable at all. The story is set in 1936, and it's not very scandelous really.)
Summary:At the 1936 Berlin Olympics the beautiful Sydney Stringfellow begins an intense love affair with the son of a Nazi diplomat, but the affair abruptly ends when political forces tear them apart. Back in the US, Sydney is left healing her broekn heart when a striking American begins to pursue her -- but can she ever really forget the handsom young German who first took her heart?
My Thoughts: I could hardly put this book down! I read it in like 2 days. I was hooked immediately. There are funny parts, sad parts, happy parts, surprising parts. Towards the end, you think you have it all figured out when suddenly it changes, and then you think you have it figured out again, and it changes again. Full of unexpected twists and turns, and just the right amount of suspense, you'll hardly even believe you're reading a love story. But it's a fantastic love story at that!
So since the summary I found on Amazon gives us absolutely nothing to go off of, basically, the story is set up by Sydney as an old woman about to die, finally ready to tell her son Teddy all about her adventures when she went to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Up to this point in her life, she has refused to talk about Berlin and all that she experienced there. I love the way it's told because you get lost in the story but then get brought back to real life, and old Sydney is hilarious. She gets off on these tangents that you can totally imagine some old lady going off on about the old days and it's terribly funny. Here's a teaser quote. "There are no surprises left. You can tell on the phone who it is before you pick it up. All the children are on that Facebook thing, so there're no blind dates left. Just peek-a-boo dates. Everybody has to know what sex their child is hardly before they're out of bed and through conceiving. no, no, no, we think we're so clever, but we're a poorer world without surprises."
This is one of those books where the characters feel really real. Since some of the characters in the book that Sydney meets (like Elenor Holm, an Olympic swimmer, and Leni Riefenstahl, a German filmmaker) are actually real people, and some of the events in the book actually happened, I kept forgetting that Sydney is not a real person. I kept thinking she was real and I was so excited to find out how her life turned out. It was the kind of book that you immediately want to read again once you've finished, because knowing how it all turned out, you could look at every instance in the book entirely differently. It would almost be like a different book. It's also one of those books that you'll find yourself mulling over and thinking about long after you've finished it. This one is highly, highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment