Book of the day : "The Year of Fog" by Michelle Richmond.

Today I would like to recommend you and say a few words about this amazing book by Michelle Richmond, "The Year of Fog". I'm pretty sure in the end you will want to read it. Trust me.

Maybe some of you remember my post about her other book "No One You Know". If you missed it, you can find it here. Also you can fine there more info about Michelle Richmond.

I can tell you one thing "The Year of Fog", her third book, is the same great book as "No One You Know", and I think that everyone who read it will agree with me.

↑ cover of "The Year of Fog".

To be honest, I'm glad that  at first I read "No One You Know", not "The Year of Fog". Why? Because when I read it I didn't suggest all these great words about this book. I just read, enjoying every words of this amazing and really realistic story.

There is a girl, her name is Emma, she is walking on the beach. I look away. Seconds pass. I look back, and she is gone. I keep thinking about the seconds, the ever-expanding circle. How I set this chain of events in motion. How I must find some way to make amends...

                                                                                                  "The Year of Fog"

Book is about life, love, trust, believe, searches, anxieties, sense of guilt, hope and...memory. Yes, memory is really important thing in life and in this story, because every detail can change everything.

"The Year of Fog", the story of Abby Mason, her fiance Jake and his six-year-old daughter, Emma. Their wonderful life is changing after Emma's missing in the fog on the beach above Pacific... Everything is going worse and worse with every next day of seeking the missing girl and when everything is pointing at drowning. Abby is the one person who still believes that Emma is still alive, somewhere there, but she lives, and that's why she fights with her memory to find every little detailfrom that bad and sad day, even after almost a year after going missing. Problems are not only because of memories, feelings, sleepless nights and hope, but also because of Emma's biological mother.

Reading this book we can feel the same as Abby, her hopes, fights inside her mind, searching for the truth, sense of guilt and her reflections about relation with Jake, her parents, first boyfriend, Emma... questions [Where she is? Is she really dead? Or maybe she is alive? Maybe somebody kidnap her? What she, Abby Mason, did wrong? What will be with them, with their future?]... and that weird couple who were that day on the car park near the beach.

Yes, couple from the car park. Abby has a bad feeling that maybe they are a solution, maybe they know where Emma is...maybe she is with them. And that's she finally leave everything and going to find them, Emma and return to their old life. 

But will it come true? Will she find Emma? And what about she and Jake, will they be still a couple? I won't tell you it, you must read it alone. 

I know, I'm a bit cruel, but trust me, it's really worthwhile to read because of all these feelings, anxieties, thoughts. Because of this story.

"The Year of Fog" shows us the story which could happen everyone because it's so realistic and so true. And maybe that's why you read it and read and you just can't stop because you want to know what will happen on the next page. And that's why this book is so amazing - you just want to read it because it's a huge pleasure.

You know, when I read the last word, I was so disappointed that this book is so short. I wanted more. Especially that we don't know the end of the story, to be honest and we only can imagine what happened them, their lives. And that's really cool.

Be honest, as for me (and not only) this is one of the best books of 2007. Book with wonderful story inside.

Quotes from the book:

 

Some people have a gift for making you feel okay, just by the fact of their presence.

We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility. We wage a monotonous war against our own impending deaths, against time that turns children into that other, lesser species: adults. We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselve preserved. We fear that we will die and others will not know we lived.

Tragedy, in its full and life-altering form, happened to other people.

I have a hunch that our obsession with photography arises from an unspoken pessimism, it is our nature to believe the good things will not last... But photos provide a false sense of security - like our flawed memory, they are guaranteed to fade... We take photographs in order to remember, but it is in the nature of a photograph to forget.

You find a way, somehow to get through the most horrible things, things you think would kill you. You find a way and you move through the days, one by one, in shock, in despair, but you move. The days pass, one after the other, and you go along with them - occasionally stunned, and not entirely relieved, to find that you are still alive.

I hope that my small opinion shows you how good this book is, and who knows maybe you will want to buy or borrow it and read.

To be honest, I can't wait to read another book by Michelle Richmond, because I'm sure it will the same great thing as this and last one. And this one, "The Year of Fog", I just love.

↑ cover of my copy of "The Year of Fog" - "Rok we mgle" [Polish edition].

P.S. Who from you read any book of Michelle Richmond? What do you think about it?

Book of the day : "No One You Know" by Michelle Richmond

Today I would like say a few words about book No One You Know by Michelle Richmond.

Why I chose this book? It's a good question, to be honest. Maybe because inside of this book we can find interesting story, maybe because this book is something new, something fresh...or maybe because this story is like a puzzle.

Michelle Richmond is an American novelist, who wrote four novels: The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress (2001), Dream of the Blue Room (2003), The Year of Fog (2007), No One You Know (2008). The Year of Fog, was a New York Times bestseller and also won her acclaim including being selected as one of the best books of 2007 by Library Journal and it was nominated for the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle award.





About what it is? 

This is a story of Ellie Enderlin, her family and the secret, secret of her sister's, Lila, death. Every day after Lila's death, Ellie still thinks about that day, about the murderer and just about her sister, and when she finally thinks that she's okey with it, everything is returning in one moment.
All demons of the past returning - her sister's death, her love to a guy, who had to be the one, all these secrets, people who know or knew Lila, the book about Lila's death ...

After twenty years from that day, she is meeting Peter, who was somebody more than just a friend for Lila. And when there, in a small village in Nicaragua, Ellie is getting her sister's notebook from Peter, she knows that she must know, who killed Lila. Who did it? Peter, her boyfriend, about who Ellie didn't know? 
Or maybe somebody else?

For Ellie, reading Lila's notebook is like a discovering something new, something about what she didn't know then and even after all these years. Day after day, she got to know that she doesn't know her own sister, what is really hard for her. And because of this notebook she see how much they were different...

Page by page of this book we are witnesses of Ellie's small investigation and her guesses, about what happened that evening.

Why it is worthwhile to read it?

I think that because of the story, it's really interesting, surprising and you really don't know, who killed Lila to the last page. As for me, this book has a bit of crime fiction, psychological novel and even a bit of romance, and maybe that's why No One You Know is so good.

For who this book is?

I know, the story of this book sounds a bit sad and maybe even not so easy, but trust me, it's really good. I think this book is for everyone who likes stories like this one, or just wants read something fresh, new and interesting, what won't let you stop reading until last page.

Quote from the book:

A story, after all, does not only belong to the one who is telling it. It belongs, in equal measure, to the one who is listening.

You can find more info about this book on Michelle Richmond's official page and also read more about her other novels.

↑ cover of my copy of No One You Know. 

To be honest, I really don't get it, why the second edition in Poland has changed title - Co się stało z Lilą? [What happened with Lila?]. The first edition had an original version of title - Nikt kogo znasz [No One You Know]. I really hate when they do something like that.