books I've read

Anne Hawn's books

Who Moved My Cheese?
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
Scientific Secrets for Self-Control
Just One Damned Thing After Another
The Vanishing
Exercises in Knitting
The Good Dream
The Very Best of Edgar Allan Poe
The Chosen
BT-Kids' Knits
Talking God
The Professor
The Christmas Files
The Finisher
Home Decor for 18-Inch Dolls: Create 10 Room Settings with Furniture and 15 Outfits with Accessories
Dracula and Other Stories
A New Song
Christy
All Quiet on the Western Front
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents


Anne Hawn Smith's favorite books »

I'm reading 150 Books

2019 Reading Challenge
2019 Reading Challenge 19614 members
<b>Are you ready to set your 2019 reading goal?</b> This is a supportive, fun group of people looking for people just like you. Track your annual reading goal here with us, and we have challenges, group reads, and other fun ways to help keep you on pace. There will never be a specific number of books to read here or pressure to read more than you can commit to. Your goal is five? Great! You think you want to read 200? Very cool! We won't kick you out for not participating regularly, but we'll love it if you do. Join us!

Books we've read

The Help
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
The Night Circus
The Golden Compass
11/22/63
The Little Lady Agency
Catch-22
The Good Father
A Discovery of Witches
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Fahrenheit 451
Frankenstein
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
A Christmas Carol
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Color Purple
Matched
Cloud Atlas
The Princess Bride
The Catcher in the Rye


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Saturday, February 15, 2014

Diamond

Diamond (Hetty Feather)Diamond by Jacqueline Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this last book out of order, so it was a little abrupt at the beginning, but I quickly filled in the blanks.  This story is one that Hetty has written about a young girl called Diamond and her life.  Diamond is actually Ellen-Jane Potts, the 5th child in a family that had a Matthew, Mark, Luke and was looking for a "John."  There was another daughter called Mary Martha, but Ellen-Jane was definitely a disappointment.  Ellen-Jane was different from the rest of the family.  She was blond and tiny like her mother and the rest were all dark and sturdy like their father.  She was also "bendy."  She could do back bends, crab walks, walk on her hands and other gymnastic feats as soon as she could toddle about.  Unfortunately, life didn't go well for Ellen-Jane and eventually her father sold her to the Tanglewood circus where she lived a brutal life under her owner, "Beppo, the clown."  Beppo once was an acrobat until he fell and broke his back.  His sons still were acrobats and he was brutal with them and "Diamond."

Hetty and Diamond's lives come together at the Tanglewood circus where Hetty fulfills a dream of becoming a circus performer.  In the first book, Adeline, the stunning horse rider, tells Hetty that the circus life is brutal, but she has to learn herself.  This book again reveals the lives of poor children of the Victorian era when a child could be sold and mistreated. Hetty and Diamond find some kindness in the circus, but they, along with the other children of the troupe are exploited.

The only reason I gave this three stars is the abrupt ending.  While this is part of a series, I think the author could have made the book resolve in a satisfying way and yet still leave room for the sequel.


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