The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

 “The Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About” is the tragic historical event upon which the novel The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian is based.  In the year 1915, one and a half million Armenian Christians were slaughtered in an ethnic genocide led by the Turks who began the killings under the false premise that the Turkish border to Armenia was vulnerable to attack.  It was WWI and the Turkish had sided with the Germans with the intent of controlling all of Europe and perhaps the world.  The “preemptive cleansing” began with firing squads in towns all along the border of Turkey, but it escalated to mind boggling cruelty, butchery and unbelievable savage indifference toward the women and children who were marched across the desert with little or no food and water and left in mass graves, the sandcastles it would seem.  The story is told from the perspective of a “modern day” writer who chose to investigate her grandparent’s history.  The story of Elizabeth and Armen is a heart wrenching tale of love and loss and determination and strength.  Bohjalian manages to relate the horrors of this time with clarity and yet shows the reader that there is no absolute even in war.  Even in the heart of darkness, you can find light in people who resist, who try to right wrongs and who are determined to show some kindness and love.  I really learned much about a time in modern history that I knew next to nothing about. Some in our group were overwhelmed by the ugliness of the storyline, but agreed it was an important read.  Not for the faint of heart, but a book that will give you much to think about.  As we know, we are bound to make the same mistakes if we do not learn from the past.  Awareness is the key.

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

 What would happen if you could see your future and then make changes to the present that would ensure  happiness?  In Rebecca Serle’s book, In Five Years, the main character, Dannie, has mapped out her life, her love life and her future and totally believes this plan is the way to control all possible outcomes.  As is often the case with this kind of over planning and control, “life” has other ideas.  Blindsided by the news that Bella, her best friend, falls ill and this changes everything.  Bella was the only person that Dannie allowed to really know her or see her with her protective walls down. Suddenly, Dannie is forced to live spontaneously and off her prescribed track.  It is when Dannie allows herself to really look at her life while “off program” that she realizes that she is settling instead of really living.  Serle lets us look at the results of allowing fear to control your life in order to avoid pain.  We see the mistakes of the control and we are relieved when Dannie starts to open up her life and her heart to new possibilities.  Serle uses a  “dream” premonition to begin Dannie’s awakening, but we were not sure this literary trick was entirely necessary.  The overall result of the novel was acceptable.  This would be a good beach read.