It happens that sometimes in life something extraordinary, significant or tragic happens. An incident that forces a person to gather all their will and zest for life into a fist in order to live on. This selection is about such stories. About strong people and their difficult life situations, informs Ukr.Media.
“One Moment” by Linda Green
The boy Finn is only 10 years old, and Kaz is already 59. How did it happen that the lives of these two completely different and unfamiliar people intersected?
Finn is not quite like his peers: he loves to tinker with plants, plays the ukulele and despises football, so he is a living target for ridicule at school. And Kaz is a hardworking, lonely woman, forced to take care of her adult brother, who suffers from schizophrenia. She has a difficult life, but her brother, whom she sincerely loves, has an even worse life, so she does everything she can to make his existence easier. When Kaz and Finn meet for the first time, they do not even suspect that their next meeting will change their lives forever…
If you like emotional, sincere and heartfelt stories, then the book “One Moment” is a great choice. Despite the fact that it is literally saturated with sadness, this story is still very bright, kind and encouraging, filled with hope and optimism.
“The Apprentice” Tara Westover
Tara is a young and inquisitive girl. But her family is very strange: her father constantly talks about some kind of Illuminati, authoritarian surveillance, and endlessly prepares for the end of the world, stockpiling huge quantities of canned peaches, fuel, and weapons with ammunition, while her mother works as a midwife and local doctor – she treats absolutely all ailments with herbal infusions and finger snaps, her brothers and sisters (like Tara herself) do not go to school, instead they work diligently every day at a scrap metal dump.
Tara herself knows how to handle weapons and operate a construction crane, but she has difficulty reading and writing. But one fine day her life changes: secretly from her parents, she begins to prepare for college.
What is striking is that this book is based on real events, although it reads very emotionally and like a real fiction novel. Tara's story is extraordinary and will make many look at life and their possibilities in it differently. This is a very strong and piercing story that can inspire.
“Train Dreams” by Denis Johnson
A short and concise novel, on the pages of which an epic in miniature unfolds: the story of Robert Grenier, a worker from the American West of the first third of the 20th century, an ordinary man living in extraordinary times. In essence, this is a kind of fictional biography. We are told about the most important moments of his life: how he met his adoptive family, his wife, how he ended up in America, what job he had, his daily routine and the defining moments of his life.
But his story is a story of loneliness and personal tragedy. A story of loss. A story that despite all the grief of loss that will suddenly come crashing down on him, he will be forced to continue living despite everything.
“Mr. Lin's Child” by Philippe Claudel
French writer Philippe Claudel wrote a very unusual story: a story about an elderly emigrant who lost all his relatives in the war and who was transported to a completely unfamiliar, foreign country, whose language he does not understand at all. In his arms is the greatest treasure – his little granddaughter – a quiet girl, whom he loves infinitely and whose life he cherishes. Only she alone is the meaning of his existence, because the country in which the old man is forced to stay lives its own life, it has absolutely nothing to do with him. Is he lonely? Yes, a little. But very soon a friend will appear in his life, a meeting with whom he will sincerely look forward to every day.
This story has 190 piercing pages. 190 pages that knock the ground out from under your feet when you reach the finale. This book is about loneliness and overcoming it, about the consequences of war, about helplessness and uselessness, about loss, about the fact that a person needs a person to continue living.
“Endless Days” by Sebastian Barry
A difficult, but extremely beautiful and textured story about how a young boy from Ireland simply and honestly talks about the Civil War in the United States, about the extermination of Indians, about the hungry, soldier's life, and about love for the person closest to him.
This book is surprising in how little dialogue there is and how many sad and terrible events, which in some completely incredible way sound very cheerful and hopeful. This is a story about growing up, friendship and love in conditions of constant survival. Is it possible to get used to the horrors of war? And to constant hunger and cold? Read this book and, perhaps, you will find the answer.
Джерело: ukr.media
