The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The stunning novel begins on a winter night in 1964 when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. His son born first,is perfectly healthy,but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down Syndrome.For motives he tells himself are good,he makes a slit-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever.

This novel shows the perspectives of the main characters,displaying how they grow and change throughout the years. The story revolves around a secret that creates a distance between David Henry and his wife Norah Henry. When Phoebe,their biological daughter is born,David makes the decision to give her up by placing her in the hands of a nurse by the name of Caroline Gill,intending for Caroline to leave the baby at an institution he recommended. 

David lies to Norah and says the baby died due to unknown reasons. 

Caroline travels to the institution and realises how terrible the place is,so she simply takes the baby in her own care. She then falls in love with a guy named Albert Simpson. They eventually get married,living with their non-biological daughter Phoebe,causing the story to converge into two different families.It was pretty unexpected.At the start of the story it seemed the Henry family would lead a happier life and Caroline Gill would perhaps lead the opposite. It was more the other way around for them.

For more than two decades,the secret had been hidden from Norah and her son Paul. This secret kept loss and grief in the family. During the story,each main character goes through devastating issues. In the end,hope starts to appear. 

The Memory Keeper's Daughter was beautifully written and slowly thought through. It was heart-wrenching and caused a sense of the fact that people can get severely hurt in their life no matter how rich or poor they are,no matter how gorgeous or terrible their lifestyle may look-disaster is lurking in the corner ready to burst. It was an eye opener really. This novel may seem sad but there were many moments of happiness and appreciation.I couldn't put the book down,I just wanted to keep reading till the end because there was always something interesting happening in each chapter. A wonderful story,a must read. 

LOOKING FOR ALASKA by JOHN GREEN

Looking For Alaska is about young Miles Halter(Pudgy) who leaves home Florida for Alabama in order to attend Culver Creek Preparatory School,a place his dad had once went to when he was a teenager himself. At Culver Creek,Miles meets Chip Martin (Colonel),a roommate of his in the school. Miles then interacts with Alaska Young,a good friend of Chip's. Throughout the journey of his friendship with Chip and his friends,he discovers many things along the way.

The story has two parts to it,the Before and the After. The two parts indicate the times Miles had before Alaska Young had died and then the effects and outcomes of it all after she had lost her life.I find it really interesting in how John Green had continued the story majorly after Alaska's death. In most novels,the story ends just a little after an important living element of the story dies,telling the isolation or happiness it might of caused and then abruptly ends. But this story continued right on,with the Colonel,Takumi and Miles investigating reasons of her death; suicide? Accident?

Throughout the novel there is smoking,drinking,sex,hangovers,etc. When talking about such things in the book,it is realistically written.The authour doesn't try to put a cherry on top or express the reality of these things in a worse or better form,just putting it in its original truth.Even though we are looking into Miles story,we get a huge glimpse of others stories,when I say glimpse,I mean a huge glimpse.

The story looks deeply into struggles that young people can face.It teaches you that,in order to be happy,you need to be able to move on and forgive. Honestly,I think parents recommending this book to their kids would be a really smart choice.If you're young,knowledge could be gained from from this book.And no, I don't mean Historical or Math knowledge entirely,I mean 'life' knowledge. Here are just some words that might give you an idea of what the story consists of; searching,friendship,loss,last words,discovering,love,investigating,pranks.These are just some of the things that come straight across my mind when I am reminded of this novel.

A funny,compassionate and realistic book produced by a very talented authour.

Favourite quotes: 

“What is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.” 

“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.” 

“Alaska decided to go help Dolores with dinner. She said that it was sexist to leave the cooking to the women, but better to have good sexist food than crappy boy-prepared food.”