goyvonreads's Reviews (444)

A Winter Gathering is a book of short stories about people all living in challenging times; the time of the second world war. The second world war is a topic I read a lot of books about and it's a time period that fascinates me.

Many of the short stories in A Winter Gathering I enjoyed reading; Marina Koulouri was able to grab my attention with short stories that were packed with emotions, events, and interesting characters.

With quite a few of the stories (the girl working for the resistance, the couple on traveling by train) I was disappointed that they ended after about 20-25 pages. I would have loved to read more about those people!

That's why I couldn't give it 5 stars.

Met een titel als An American Marriage en een Amerikaanse man kon ik het natuurlijk niet laten om een een foto te maken met zijn paspoorten! 🤣
An American Marriage zette ik een paar jaar geleden op mijn lijst en afgelopen maand las ik hem dan eindelijk. Nou ja, luisterde.🎧
Celestial en Roy zijn net getrouwd wanneer Roy veroordeeld wordt en voor langere de gevangenis in moet. Celestial bezoekt hem wel, maar neemt ook contact op met haar jeugdvriend Andre. Of dat goed gaat? En hoe reageert Roy hierop?
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Van mij krijgt dit boek van Tayari Jones twee sterren. Deels omdat de manier van vertellen me niet helemaal aansprak en ik moet goed moest concentreren. Het tempo lag laag, ik vond de hoofdpersonen niet 'loveable'. Het verhaal zelf is relevant, belangrijke thema's als discriminatie, het rechtssysteem in de VS, en liefde staan centraal.

The Fighter of Auschwitz is about the boxer Leen Sanders who risked his own life during the war by providing other Dutch people with food, clothing, better work, and other necessary items.
Although I have read quite a few books about the Second World War, I had never heard of the Rotterdam Leen Sanders, so that made The Fighter of Auschwitz a different kind of book for me. A new kind of book.
Books about the war often score well with me, they intrigue me. This was no different with The Fighter of Auschwitz. The events, how Leen does his best to survive by boxing and thus helps his fellow countrymen. The only thing I didn't like is that the part about Leen's life before the war was quite long; almost 40% of the entire book. That part felt long.

Nevertheless it was an impressive story about an awful time in history.
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I really didn't like the main character; how could you do something like what she's done and not feel bad about it? She really didn't have my sympathy. Athena wasn't so loveable either though...