Lois MetzgerBesprekingen

Review can also be found on my blog. :)

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"'A rose by any other name.'

'What? A rose --?'

'It's an expression. It means you can change the name of something but it doesn't change what it is.'"

This book tricked me. I thought it was going to be a mundane, predictable contemporary. The truth is, this book is so much more, but it sneaks up on you. When the message hits, it really hits.

Change Places with Me is divided into three parts. The first part is what really deceived me. The writing is very basic, verging on painfully cheesy and annoying. But I believe a lot of that has to do with the basic emotions and reactions Rose has to the world around her. You see, something happened to Rose. On the surface, everything feels great. She's happy about everything, eager to go out and greet the world. But just beneath the surface... something feels not quite right. This "not quite right" feeling slowly creeps up on you when you're reading. As the gist of the story is revealed, the writing becomes more complex and some really powerful messages emerge.

This book is about grief, weakness, and self-consciousness. As someone who has experienced (and still experiences) grief, I always appreciate a book that deals with it in realistic ways. Change Places with Me nailed what it's like to deal with grief – most importantly, that grief can last years and never really ends, but evolves. It shows the multifaceted ways that grief affects people, and how it's more like a mix of emotions and physical experiences.

Despite appreciated how Rose evolves throughout the story, I unfortunately thought many of the secondary characters remained cookie-cutters. There's a queen bee and her vapid sidekick; cute guy who's actually a jerk; main character's less-attractive BFF. I do think the focus of the book was supposed to be on Rose and her development, but I wish we could have had some more depth in the side characters.

"'...Makeup is all about make up, get it? The outside is supposed to show the inside.'

Kim had it so exactly wrong. The outside was meant to protect and hide and deny the very existence of the inside ..."

In many ways, this book moved me deeply, because as someone who's dealt with grief, I've thought many of these things myself... nearly word-for-word. I remember when I was a teen and I wanted to hide behind various shells: my hair, the clothing I chose, the jokes I made. I remember at times barely wanting to talk to people. There are times when the grief was fresh and the world outside my personal sphere felt like a blur.

Another less important thing that surprised me was the slight touch of science fiction elements in the story. I don't usually gravitate towards contemporary stories, and while it was still majorly a contemporary, the small bit of sci-if definitely made it more intriguing for me.

I didn't expect much from this story because there is a rather low rating on Goodreads. I can see why some people might not find it appealing – the basic writing at the beginning, and Rose's deceptive simplicity. And the fact that this isn't a book about heros or villains. Rose isn't really a character you want to root for, but Rose is a realistic character. Real people remain flawed, and don't always achieve impressive things. Real people's stories don't always end with a bang.

Overall this book really surprised and impressed me. Despite how much I ended up liking it, I have settled with 3.5 stars for this one. It does have a slow start, and while I can understand why, I can see a lot of people DNFing this book because of that. It takes a while for the point of the story to emerge. Additionally, I think the secondary characters could have used more work to make them seem less like tropes. However, I would recommend this book! If you can get past the slow start, it's worth the read.

Final Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

Ellen's euphoric start in seventh grade ends abruptly when she learns that her mother is pregnant—``I think Ellen's got a touch of sibling rivalry fever,'' her father says of her unenthusiastic response to the news. After baby brother Barry is diagnosed as having cerebral palsy, Ellen's burden of anger and guilt culminates in shoplifting and illness. With the help of her mother's new friend Maribeth, mother of a teenager with CP, they learn to cope with Barry's needs and their own feelings. Freedom from guilt opens Ellen's heart; she becomes totally absorbed with Barry, even fighting her father's attempts to care for him. Stressed when he regresses after Dad returns to sea duty, Ellen accidentally overmedicates Barry and her mother severely restricts her involvement in his care, insisting they share activities without him. Gradually, Ellen does develop her own life, complete with best friend, potential boyfriend, and a new closeness to her father, now home for two years. Metzger has a vivid and incisive narrative style, but this ambitious first novel is too long, too full, and not always credible, while overly intent messages distance the reader. Nonetheless, the focus on Ellen and her struggles with the complexities of growing up, sorting out her identity, and establishing her place in a family in crisis does result in a story with appeal for patient readers. (Fiction. 10+)

not a fan

I read The Diary of Anne Frank when I was twelve or thirteen years old. At that time, if there were other memoirs or nonfiction works for children about the Holocaust, I wasn’t aware of them. I knew Anne’s diary was an important historical document and that its author had tragically died from typhus in Bergen-Belsen just weeks before the camp was liberated. I felt genuinely ashamed that I didn’t like the famous work, which seemed overly long and often tedious. Its author was self-absorbed and boy-crazy and reminded me of schoolgirls I preferred to avoid. It seemed that the thoughts of her much-complained-about older sister, Margot, might have actually been more interesting to read. I have never returned to the diary—although hearing the writer Francine Prose being interviewed about its literary merit made me briefly entertain the idea of giving the book another try.

For many young readers, an actual biography of Anne Frank, like this brief one from 2004 by Lois Metzger, might provide a better introduction to the Holocaust than Anne’s famous diary. For one thing, it offers historical, geographical, and political context in accessible language, giving a better overall sense of the times and conditions than a diary can. For another, it spares the reader from “all Anne almost all the time.” The fact is: Anne really could be insufferable — harsh and egocentric. In synthesizing a number of adult works about her (which are listed at the back of the book), Metzger gives young readers a gift. She provides them with the perspectives of others. For example, she paints a sympathetic portrait of Edith Frank, who was breaking under the strain of the dire situation and evidently depressed. Metzger frequently notes the observations of Miep Gies, the devoted employee and friend of the Franks, who was critical in their managing as long as they did in the Secret Annex. Some of Anne’s girlhood friends who survived the war are also quoted. The inclusion of multiple points of view helps to provide a more balanced impression of who Anne was as a person. They work together to make empathetic narrative nonfiction that sometimes reads like a novel.

Metzger also addresses the psychological importance of the diary to Anne. It was an outlet that allowed the young girl a place for making sense of afflictive emotions and extremely stressful circumstances. Metzger selects the more insightful of Anne’s observations and makes the case that these reflect the young diarist’s emotional maturation and growing commitment to writing as a calling. I’d have to go back to the original work to see how well founded that interpretation is.

There are now many alternatives to Anne Frank’s diary. Metzger’s is a worthy one.

Wow wow wow. A great YA book about anorexia in men. I'm going to need to do a blog review on this one.

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A well written and poignant story. The narrator (the voice) is a very good idea and a different take in a novel. A Trick of the Light is quite an emotional read, but it's worth it. Everything about it is well done, mostly the terrible changes Mike go through... both psychologically and physically. It's realistic.

I highly recommend it!

If the synopsis to Change Places With Me didn't make you raise your eyebrows a little, I'm impressed. When I first saw this book synopsis, it automatically put this onto my TBR. The idea of waking up a different person, of suddenly wondering if you're even you any longer, has always fascinated with me. I always wonder if I had the opportunity to change my memories, or alter my personality, if I ever would. It's a pretty daunting reality, to not really know who you are any more. Happiness, or not.

Meeting Rose was a bit fuzzy at first. Which, I suppose, makes sense since she isn't really sure of her own self at the moment. Metzger uses the first chapters to show Rose as she is. A bubbly, at times overly eager, and forever optimistic girl. It took me a while to settle into Rose's personality. She was supposed to be a 15 year old girl, but because of the over the top way her she was portrayed it sometimes felt like I was reading about a much younger character. If you take into account the idea that she was seeing things through new eyes, maybe that makes sense. Still, it's not what you'd expect. As I read on, and the story started to go back to what happened before, things made much more sense. It's worth working your way through, to get to the answers.

My one qualm with all of this was that, while Rose's story was eventually unfurled, it was never as solid as I would have liked it to be. The stepmother character didn't seem like a real person to me. She felt like the idea that everyone has about stepmothers. That they are cold, uncaring, and possibly even neglectful people. Add in the fact that the ending was a little rocky, in terms of pulling together all the story threads, and I finished this book a little less satisfied than I'd hoped to. The premise was excellent, to be sure. The execution needed a little more polish.

What I did like though, was the ability to see people and events through two different sets of eyes. Two different sets of eyes, that is, that belong to the same person. It's a very cool concept, and with a bit more exploration I really feel like this could have been a five-star read.

A Trick of the Light I'll admit that what first drew me to A Trick of the Light was that it dealt with something I haven't seen before. Books that deal with anorexia are almost always about females, but this one follows a male character. Even stranger, Lois Metzger chose to have anorexia as the narrator. The reader sees how it this disease becomes an all consuming entity, taking over from the inside out. Mike's story moves lightning fast, and I can't deny that I was hooked.
 
I know it might seem off at first, but I truly believe that Metzger's choice in narrator was spot on. We all know many teens deal with self image problems. Mike feels like his life is falling apart and, when he meets the wrong girl, his image problems turn into something much more. His story turns ugly quickly as his own voice is drowned out by the one in his head. It was hard to look away as he lost himself to this aggressive disease, and his life spiraled out of his control.
 
It was pretty amazing to me how well this story was told in such a short amount of pages. It doesn't go quite as deep into the consequences of anorexia as some other books. However it definitely skims the surface well enough to show how quickly the onset can be. It's a quick visit into the life of a person who was able to make it out of the abyss. As much as I would have liked to dive deeper, it was emotionally exhausting enough just to read Mike's story as it was.
 
A Trick of the Light was a different read, and one that I'm glad is out there in the public eye. It's not often that you see a male portrayed in a book about anorexia, even though they suffer from it too. While short, it's well written and intriguing. I'd recommend you give it a read.

Meh.

It was ok, not what I expected. It is clearly a child's book and why it was in the adult section under war with a YA label on it, I don't understand, this is a book suitably written for a 4th grader. I suppose the author did not wish to write a full length book complete with details for an adult audience.

It is also very dead panned and unemotional. She simply states ' They shot my mother ' and that was that.

It is a good introduction to the horrors of Poland between 1939-1945 for a young reader, an adult with a need for or love of history or personal memoirs will be left wanting.

Rating: 1

Oh my gosh. I don't see how anyone could possibly get through this book. I don't want to be cruel, but I also feel it is my obligation to save readers from wasting their time and money. I know how hard it is to write a book, but this should never have been published. Who picked this up and thought "Wow! This is great literature!"?

There is no focus. The narration and dialogue read like a random stream of consciousness from a person hopped up on ecstasy. The banter seems like two four year olds going back and forth with random thoughts, and the responded somehow always knows what the other is thinking and responds appropriately. This book is so bad that it makes me physically sick. I'm nauseated at the thought that people published this. It is not high quality. The character is a Mary Sue of all Mary Sues, and there is straight telling. When the author does describe, she focuses on the wrong things and goes overboard. One of the sentences was a 50 word jumbled mess. I know this is an arc, but no amount of error correction would fix this. It needs an entire overhaul.

I want a realistic book with a believable character and dialogue that sounds natural! I don't want whatever this excuse of a book is. It's very rare that a book ticks me off, but this one does. I was looking forward to this. Traditional book have an unspoken agreement with the reader that even if they suck they will be realistic. This one isn't, and now I have to doubt the competency of those who gave this book the go ahead. I find it unethical to sell something so poorly constructed. And to think of the bad stigma indie books get...and then to see this... What has the publishing world come to?

I'm going to try to take a deep breath and move on. This must be one of those flukes. It just upsets me when I think that this book got published when so many great books remain in the slosh pile. And before someone accuses me of being a scorned indie who's mad she never got published, I've never even submitted a manuscript. I am a reader, first and foremost, and this is just my honest opinion of this book.

I would like to thank the publisher for the ARC, and I'm sorry I have nothing positive to say.

If you would like to read a book from the publisher that I have enjoyed, try [b:None of the Above|22896551|None of the Above|I.W. Gregorio|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1412996409s/22896551.jpg|26645153] [bc:None of the Above|22896551|None of the Above|I.W. Gregorio|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1412996409s/22896551.jpg|26645153]. I haven't finished reading it, but what I have read was brilliant.

These short stories sharing the common theme of "bites" (werewolves, ghost dogs, vampires, etc.) are perfectly appropriate for the middle school classroom. All of these tales are modern and not too hard to read for your average young teen, and its not that easy to find a book like that, trust me. Like Twilight Zone episodes with ironic twists at the end, most of these are narrated with authentic, modern-day teen voices. "Going Old School in the Obama Age" is awful and pointless, but the rest of the stories range from okay to good. I recommend this to any boy who enjoyed "Curse of the Campfire Weenies" despite its ridiculous title, and I recommend that one to any kids who enjoy this one that is more appropriately marketed to "tweens" and younger teens.

Mike and his friend Tamio enjoyed watching Ray Harryhausen movies, discussing his stop-motion method of filming and the many creatures he brought to life using this technique. When his mother began to spend her days sleeping and his dad left home after he found a young girlfriend, Mike’s life started to go downhill. Read the rest of the review on my blog: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/a-trick-of-the-light-lois-met...

Short easy read that is still powerful. Good for school.

The year we missed my birthday:
It all started with the protagonist named lois . She lived in a village with all her friends but she went to live elsewhere because the popes gave work outside the country.
She was very sad because he felt that things were going to change their friends but they were saying to him that not everything was going to be like. What she was afraid of was that the friends will forget her birthday so each passing day that she always spoke of her birthday so that you will never forget them. While she was at school all her friends had a problem so kept busy every day until the day of cumplaños Lois , for that reason all her friends are forgetting the important date of Lois. All sad friends went to the house of each one to write him a letter and tell Lois what happened why because they had forgotten her birthday, Lois he understood what happened and was not upset about it.
Lois and spend time back home with all your friends and the things was like before

I don't get a feeling I got with this book very often. I was completely, excuse my French, mindfucked by this from the very beginning and sometimes I needed to take a break and process everything that I've read. It's unusual, strange, weird - however you want to call it - book and it takes some time getting used to it, or it did for me. But once I did, I couldn't keep my eyes off this book. It's a fast read, but so terrifying at the same time that it'll made you question everything that you've just read. Anorexia is an eating disorder that mostly gets younger girls, teenagers, and sometimes people forgot it can happen to males, too. This book shows perfectly how it can happen to anyone.

Everything is straight-forward, bold and astonishingly honest. There is no sugar coating, everything is described in detail - Mike's mind, the voice in his head that's probably the most terrifying thing in the story, and his process to having anorexia nervousa, without him realizing it for the most of the book, which is not surprising. I liked that more than anything. It only made me want to finish it as fast as I did and I'm definitely not sorry for picking this book up and reading it in hours time. I'll most likely go back and read this over and over again. There is no way I could give it any less than 5 stars. It's just that good.

When it comes to eating disorders, we quickly think of girls. We hardly ever think of men having trouble with their appearance.

Plot: Watching a young man spiral down the road of bulimia is hard. I have hard time reading about girls doing it. Mike thinks he can be in control of what he does to his body. The way he down spirals is something hard to watch. He pushes away everyone. From parents (the parents are crap anyway) to his friends.

Family: The one thing that ticked me off the most about this book is the family. UGH! They are frustrating beyond belief. Not to mention they think of nothing but themselves. It’s no wonder this kid spiraled down with no one to ever catch him.

Eating disorders: I think this book is very educational when it comes to a male point of view. Just like girls, guys too have problems with self-esteem. They just know how to hide it more. I’m glad that I got to journey though this. It will help me understand more.

Overall, this is a good book. It’s move slowly in the beginning but the build up to final act of Mike admitting his problem is amazing. A Trick Of The Light is an good book.

Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.

A Trick of the Light is one of those scary reads where you walk away with this huge sense of I don't know, understanding or something.

But first things first-- I didn't relate to Mike (the main character), at all. I'm not a boy with anorexia, though, so I suppose that's all right. Mostly, his characters decisions just confused me. And most of all, I just think that the entire subject of this book went a tad over my head, which completely sums up my thoughts on this: over my head.
I found that Mike's friendship with Amber only complicated things-- she was a bad influence, but I find that she gave the story a much bigger purpose. I don't really know how to explain it?

The best part was definitely the point of view that it was told from; Mike's eating disorder is our main narrator, which gives the story a certain dab of uniqueness. All in all, A Trick of the Light is a book that left me feeling a bit shell-shocked.

I received an advance reading copy of A Trick of the Light, and was genuinely stunned by its accomplishment. It is fast-paced and gripping enough to appeal to teens. Deals with an eating disorder, so I think it will speak to a wide range of readers. The central character is a young man who is funny and heart-breaking at the same time. And it has a very cool, "tricky" narrator, which I won't spoil by revealing anything. Reminds of some of the new classics of YA such as I am the Cheese, Okay for Now, and Speak. I think this one is destined to win some big awards. And it is beautifully, seamlessly written.

So scary and I love that so much

Read if you dare

I have read many such books of children who were hidden during war times. this short retelling of personal experience is different somehow whether it is the icon of hope --. the dress her mother embroidered -- or living for 9 months in a small hole beneath the floor of the barn. How did these hidden children grow up to become productive members of society?½

This books is short and sweet. A book about the Holocast combined with a girls fight for survival was a great combination.½

This book is soooo sad! The part that is really sad is when Lola's Babica dies and her mother dies and her father dies.

After her mother's death, Carrie's father sends her to live with her Holocaust survivor grandmother. Slowly, the tennager begins to recapture her engagement with life and other people.