Tuesday 1 March 2016
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books And A Beat.
To play along just do the following:
Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis.
My reading comfort zone and I don’t always share a ZIP code and I think for this one it might have thought I moved to the moon (pun intended). I don’t think that I know much about oppression and discrimination. At least not first hand or in the sense that my life would have been severely different without them ... I think, but who can say for certain? We can’t change our past, but we can certainly try to change the future.
There are no words for all the feelings I had while reading this book. Disbelieve, anger, hope, and devastation would be among them. I know that I had a similar reaction to a book only a few weeks ago (see The Truth about Peacock Blue) and they have primarily one thing in common: They describe a mentality that I can’t confidently say I know enough about, but at the same moment also a mentality that I can’t and don’t ever want to understand or support. While the first book dealt with freedom of religion and acceptance of other’s beliefs as well as the worth of women, this book desperately shows how lucky we are if we live in a country where we are free to choose whom we love. Yes, there are still prejudices and hostilities, but hopefully you don’t have to fear the death penalty for loving someone who happens to be the same sex as you are. Deborah Ellis has a powerful way of writing these feelings into her story. The love the two main characters develop for each other grows from a beautiful friendship into a hopeful confusion to a short wonderful love to this heart-shattering devastation. All within an arguably short book, but some stories to me feel more impressive for their brevity.
I won’t pretend to understand the challenges of being LGBTQ* but I also hope to not be totally ignorant about them. And while this is based on a true story that happened almost 30 years ago, which is bad enough, this could and does still happen. Your place of birth should never determine what you can think or say, who is able to decide about your future, and whom you are allowed to love.
No discussion question this week as I am aware that the topic of this book can be very controversial. Share your thoughts and teasers in the comments if you like.
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis.
 |
| Moon at Nine – Pajama Press |
But first and most important, we are human beings with a right to choose for ourselves how we want to live. All we have is our lives. Each person gets just one. We owe our parents and the revolution our respect, but we don’t owe them everything.
I choose you, not just because you are wonderful and not just because you love me.
I choose you because the act of choosing you belongs to me. It is mine, my free will.
I choose you over my father. I choose you over my country.
And even if you decide you don’t want me, I still choose you.
Because in choosing you, I am choosing myself.
— Chapter 14
My reading comfort zone and I don’t always share a ZIP code and I think for this one it might have thought I moved to the moon (pun intended). I don’t think that I know much about oppression and discrimination. At least not first hand or in the sense that my life would have been severely different without them ... I think, but who can say for certain? We can’t change our past, but we can certainly try to change the future.
There are no words for all the feelings I had while reading this book. Disbelieve, anger, hope, and devastation would be among them. I know that I had a similar reaction to a book only a few weeks ago (see The Truth about Peacock Blue) and they have primarily one thing in common: They describe a mentality that I can’t confidently say I know enough about, but at the same moment also a mentality that I can’t and don’t ever want to understand or support. While the first book dealt with freedom of religion and acceptance of other’s beliefs as well as the worth of women, this book desperately shows how lucky we are if we live in a country where we are free to choose whom we love. Yes, there are still prejudices and hostilities, but hopefully you don’t have to fear the death penalty for loving someone who happens to be the same sex as you are. Deborah Ellis has a powerful way of writing these feelings into her story. The love the two main characters develop for each other grows from a beautiful friendship into a hopeful confusion to a short wonderful love to this heart-shattering devastation. All within an arguably short book, but some stories to me feel more impressive for their brevity.
I won’t pretend to understand the challenges of being LGBTQ* but I also hope to not be totally ignorant about them. And while this is based on a true story that happened almost 30 years ago, which is bad enough, this could and does still happen. Your place of birth should never determine what you can think or say, who is able to decide about your future, and whom you are allowed to love.
No discussion question this week as I am aware that the topic of this book can be very controversial. Share your thoughts and teasers in the comments if you like.
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3 comments:
What a powerful teaser! My teaser this week comes from Dragon's Fire by Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey. I'm trying to finish this series by reading the books I missed when they were new. Happy reading!
I've read other books by Deborah Ellis — mostly books for junior-aged readers — and have enjoyed them immensely. I've recently read books by other authors about discrimination against women, from birth on, in countries in the middle east and India. This one sounds different than those and, while, interesting, I feel like there's been a glut of this topic that makes me shy away for now. As humans, I think we all have a long way to go no matter where we live or what religion we practice. Thanks for sharing about this book. I'll mark it for future reading. My teaser is here: http://wp.me/p4DMf0-1dz
Wow that's quite the teaser. Sounds like a powerful and gripping read. I hope you enjoy it :D
My teaser is from A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
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