Book Reviews

Book Review: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

This book was written in 2021 and I’m not sure why I haven’t read it until now as I have read two of his other books, ‘The Remains of the Day’ and ‘Never Let Me Go’ and I loved them both. This one is a thought provoking read and very topical as it concerns AI.
Klara is an AF – an artificial friend – part robot and part AI. She is bought from a shop for a girl, Josie, whose health is declining and it is really a story of love. Even though Klara doesn’t have a heart, she is completely loyal to Josie and would sacrifice herself to save her. Although Klara is not ‘a person’, she does have a distinct personality with her own thoughts and feelings and raises questions about what it actually means to be human. It is an emotional story and does make you think about where AI could take us and if one day humans will be able to be replicated perfectly.
I recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a book that makes them think!

Chris D

Book Review: Sold by Zana Muhsen

This book is the harrowing true account of forced marriage and modern day slavery. The author and her sister, at the ages of 15 and 13, were tricked into going to Yemen for a ‘holiday’, when unbeknownst to them and their mother, they had been sold into marriage there – by their own father.
The girls have a very primitive and unhappy existence. Unable to communicate with family back in England and trapped in deepest Yemen where there is no need for walls to contain them as there would be no way to escape and survive the desert that surrounds them.
However, due to their mother’s grit, persistance and determination, and a media campaign back in England hope beckons…

Well worth a read as not only is it a gripping story but also it raises awareness of the very difficult issues affecting girls and women from communities around the world – and in our own backyard.

Barbara

Book Review: The Orphans on the Train by Gill Thompson

The story starts in July 1939. Kirsty is a 14-year-old girl growing up in Hamilton, Scotland. She lives with her father (Da), her mother having died some years before. Da works down the mine and Kirsty works in the Hamiton baths, mostly washing the walls and floors down after the miners had finished their after-work baths. Sometimes Da would see Kirsty splashing about in the water and began to teach her to swim. One fateful day there’s an accident in the pit and, after hours of waiting, Kirsty learns that her Da has been killed. She is now totally alone, apart from an aged aunt who has no interest in her at all. She is befriended by Maggie who also worked at the baths and takes Kirsty under her wing, helping her deal with Da’s clothes and things, taking her into her own home and teaching her some of the baking and cooking skills she’s going to need in the future. Sadly, Maggie’s husband is not sympathetic and this arrangement clearly can’t go on for very long. At this point, the local minister, a kind man who’d conducted Da’s funeral, introduces Kirsty to Miss Jean Mathison who is Matron of a girl’s school for Christian and Jewish children which had been established by the Scottish Mission in Budapest. The school is in need of a cook’s assistant and as Kirsty can cook and bake, after Maggie’s instruction, and has no other work options, she, somewhat nervously, agrees to go to Budapest and take on this work despite the threat of approaching war. Her fears are somewhat allayed by the fact that Hungary has committed to neutrality.

What a kaleidoscope of sights, thoughts and emotions Kirsty passes through in the next days as she leaves Hamilton and travels huge distances through all kinds of circumstances before she finally arrives, with Miss Mathison, at the school. Her welcome from Maria, the cook she is to help is less friendly than she might have hoped, but she just determines to do whatever is asked of her to the best of her ability so the two of them manage to rub along, though Maria never really thaws towards Kirsty. Her life gets better when she is befriended by Anna, one of the Jewish girls from the school. What drew them to one another, I guess neither of them knew but, over time they become the firmest of friends and Anna often helps Kirsty in the kitchen when her classes are over for the day. After some time, Anna takes Kirsty to meet her family. Mr Bellak is a watch maker and Endre, the Bellak’s son, is also learning the trade. The Bellaks are very warm and welcoming to Kirsty and she thoroughly enjoys her visit and is immediately attracted to Endre.

As the story goes on, the impact of the war is constantly worsening, first the Hungarian government breaks its promise of neutrality, then a change of leadership opens the door legitimizing the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian fascists; anti-Jew feelings harden and policies become more cruel. Life becomes much more difficult for the school but gets even worse when the German’s come to Hungary. Anti-Jewish sentiments, rules and actions dominate the lives of all the people of Budapest and, in particular Kirsty and the children in the school. Two major terrors come when beloved ‘Matron’ Jean Mathison is taken away by the Gestapo, never to be heard of again and Endre, is sent off to the front line to a ‘Labour Battalion’. (He does come home to be hospitalised, suffering from ‘combat fatigue’ but, thanks in part to Anna and Kirsty’s care, is soon deemed to be well enough to go back to the front line from which he later runs away and is found by Kirsty hiding in his parents’’ house, quite traumatized and terrified.)

Around the same time, Mr & Mrs Bellak, like most other Jews, are forced to leave their home and shop and find accommodation in the ghetto where they are joined by Anna & Kirsty, who’ve had to leave the school as the girls have been taken away by their parents. Mrs Bellak soon gets sick from the crowded and unhygienic conditions in which they are living and dies. Later Kirsty has the shock of seeking Mr Bellak marched out of the house where he was living and made to walk to the railway station. When he stumbles and falls, he is cruelly shot, by Dasco, the brutal son of former cook Maria. Dasco lived in the school, was always a bully, stole hard-won food and on one occasion, when challenged by Kirsty, tried to rape her but she managed to fight him off with a kitchen knife. (In a bizarre turn around, he is later brought, severely wounded, to a hidden hospital where Anna & Kirsty have found refuge and Kirsty is asked to care for him. Despite a deep revulsion, she manages to summon the courage to do so and as he is about to die, hears his confession and plea for forgiveness for having betrayed Jean Mathison to the Gestapo).

There is so much more – the heroic actions of Swede Raoul Wallenberg who rescued many Jews from Hungary, including Kirsty and Anna who he found on a train about to be transported to a labour camp having recognized Kirsty from an early visit to the school; there’s a strong swimming theme runs through the book from the opening pages to the close.

This is not an easy or pleasant read but, I hear you ask, does it end happily for Kirsty, Anna and Endre? I’m afraid you’ll have to read it to find out 😊

Phil L

All of these books and many more are available to borrow now at Blackfen Community Library. Come along, sit and have a read at our community hub and enjoy a fresh coffee from Rooted Coffee House, our in house coffee shop.

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