Alisne Ne Ne itibaren Semabu, Sierra Leone itibaren Semabu, Sierra Leone

Enjoyable dramatic secret-baby story (not my favourite trope, but tolerable in this case). Heroine is an academic and hero is the billionaire jerk she knew back when he was also in university. Their paths have crossed a few times over the years, because of their mutual connection through her cousin Imogen. The story was enjoyable largely because she doesn't put up with a lot of his nonsense. One detail that threw me right out of the story: She began learning basic Greek just after the baby was born, 18 months previously. And she's an ancient history Ph. D.? Ridiculous. She'd have to know multiple languages, including modern Greek, to do that kind of work. I know it's petty, but that really annoyed me.

I really didn't like this book. Miranda is so annoying and selfish and whiny.

The street Lawyer is another book that i read at a very young age. I got this book as a graduation gift. This book is very graphic and was a little difficult for me to understand. I had to read this book twice. I think the book was a little to long and had a lot of things going on that some 8th graders wouldn't understand. But now as i'm sitting here reflecting on this book i really took away how harsh and real life could be. This book is about a lawyer who worked for a topnotch law firm and because of one incident he quit his job to help homeless people when they needed legal help. The incident that changed his mind was when he was working at that law firm when he was in a meeting with other associates and were being held hostage by a homeless man for no reason. I think the homeless man only did because the people who worked for that law firm thought they were good to help the poor and the working class. In this book John Grisham really showed how we teach others bad when they are going through a little trouble in this world like homelessness and depression. Sometimes we never even take time to help.

This is a really great book by Nguyen -- the editor of Colorlines -- about the post-9.11 nastiness. I love how it cuts across the different immigrant communities.