Night (Night #1) by Elie Wiesel

Title: Night
Series: Night Trilogy #1
Author: Elie Wiesel
Translator:  Marion Wiesel
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Published Date: January 16th, 2006
Genre: History, Memoir, Nonfiction, Classic
Page Count: 120
Format: Paperback

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Goodreads Summary: 
Night is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife, and frequent translator presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest to the author's original intent. And in a substantive new preface, Elie reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.

Night offers much more than a litany of the daily terrors, everyday perversions, and rampant sadism at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; it also eloquently addresses many of the philosophical as well as personal questions implicit in any serious consideration of what the Holocaust was, what it meant, and what its legacy is and will be.

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 My Review:

“An SS came towards us wielding a club. He commanded: “Men to the left! Women to the right!” Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother.”

This isn't an easy book to read. It's one that will make you feel multiple different things and Wiesel is able to really get across the fear that they were all feeling while being herded into the camps. I honestly don't know how to express how deeply this book affects me every time I read it. Like many other books that discuss the holocaust and peoples own experiences during that dark time in history, they bring so many feelings out of you that most other books can't. I will always feel like this is a must read for everyone, because once you truly see the consequences of what unchecked fear mongering and hatred can do you, you will know that you have to do everything in your power to stop it from happening again.

 Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.Never shall I forget that smoke.Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever.Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and tuned my dreams to ashes.Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never. 

A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson #BookReview

Title: A Walk In The Woods
Author: Bill Bryson
Narrator: Rob McQuay
Publisher: Random House Audio
Published Date: September 25th 2012
Genre: nonfiction, humor, memoir
Format: Audiobook
Audio Time: 9 hr 47 min

My Rating: ★ ★ ★.5

Goodreads Summary: 
The Appalachian Trail trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America–majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaing guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).

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 My Review:

“There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods.”   

Not going to lie, if I hadn't seen the movie first I wouldn't have even given this book a second glance.

Bryson decides one night that he is going to walk the Appalachian trail. The problem? He doesn't hike and his wife doesn't want him to do the trail alone in case he would get injured. So as he does some research he calls up all of his old friends he knows. And as to be expected they all think he is crazy, and pass on the opportunity to do it with him. That is until one day he gets a call from Stephan Katz who he hasn't talked to in years, nor does he really like. Katz wants to do the trail with him.

Now I know what you're thinking they why would you do the trail with someone you haven't spoken to in years and don't even like. Well simple Bryson wants to do the trail and he needs a partner to do so. So even if that person is Katz who is slow as all can be, and makes some questionable choices throughout the whole experience. He is determined to make it through with him.

As time goes on and the two become friends they learn a lot about each other. As well as learning to dislike a certain other hiker who is rather annoying to hike with all day. They learn how to survive the long days, and sore feet. In the end they actually end up making  a pretty good team.
The things they get up to in the towns they passed through were hilarious to read, as well as Katz questionable idea of what was necessary to bring on the trail and his ability to throw certain things away that were actually needed!

Overall I did enjoy this book, and getting to learn a little bit more about both Bryson and Katz. At time though I'm not going to lie the little bits of random information about the trail itself got to be a little bit much as time went on. I just wanted to hear more about Bryson and Katz not so much about the creator of the trail.

For me personally the movie was better, it took all of the funny and interesting parts of the book and put them into a condensed version that still told the same basic story without ruining any Bryson's & Katz experiences

The Dead Inside a true story by Cyndy Etler #BookReview & Giveaway

Title: The Dead Inside a true story
Author: Cyndy Etler
Publisher:  Sourcebooks Fire
Published Date: April 4th 2017
Genre: non-fiction, memoir, abuse, YA
Page Count:288
Format: Kindle

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★


Goodreads Summary: 
I never was a badass. Or a slut, a junkie, a stoner, like they told me I was. I was just a kid looking for something good, something that felt like love. I was a wannabe in a Levi's jean jacket. Anybody could see that. Except my mother. And the professionals at Straight.

From the outside, Straight Inc. was a drug rehab. But on the inside it was...well, it was something else.

All Cyndy wanted was to be loved and accepted. By age fourteen, she had escaped from her violent home, only to be reported as a runaway and sent to a "drug rehabilitation" facility that changed her world.

To the public, Straight Inc. was a place of recovery. But behind closed doors, the program used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" its patients. In her raw and fearless memoir, Cyndy Etler recounts her sixteen months in the living nightmare that Straight Inc. considered "healing." 

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 My Review:

"I never was a badass, or a slut, a junkie, a stoner like they told me I was. I was just a kid looking for something that felt like love."

Mentions of Rape, Child abuse (physical/mental), Drugs, Drinking, Self-Harm, Slut-shaming