PJ days always make me feel very reflective, so here it is.
The Island by Victoria Hislop
I have just finished reading this book, which was recommended by Chris's Mum after I let her know about the car crash that is Fifty Shades... What a difference this book is to that...
The basic plot is that there is a girl (Alexis) who has just finished university and has a bit of a strained relationship with her mother and is desperate to find out why her mother doesn't want to talk about her past. While she is on holiday with a man that she is expected to marry but of whom she doesn't know her feelings for, she visits the home town of her mother in Crete (with her mothers consent) and meets with a family friend who has agreed to tell her of her mother's ancestry and what this meant to her.
To cut the long story short, Alexis finds out that her ancestors have had a pretty hard life, which include 2 family members being banished to an Island for having leprosy, and the story of the Dr who found a cure. It also tells of Alexis's Grandmother being unfaithful to her husband and being murdered, causing her mother to be brought up by her aunt.
It was such a well researched book, and all of the characters were completely believable, which was so refreshing from the farce that is famous at the moment - Fifty Shades..
The reason I am reflective about this book is that it was about the exclusion of people for having a then untreatable disease, and then about the cure coming and how people welcomed them back into the community.
Although Hemiplegia isn't a "disease", I found that I was strangely comforted by the plot of this book. Sometimes, having what people class as an "invisible disability" - although if you look closer, it isn't at all invisible - can make you feel so excluded in the world, for example when people hand you change in a shop to the wrong hand, or when you struggle opening a can or cutting up food, but no one can physically see WHY my hand won't do what I'd like it to... The fact that in this book, people were reintegrated, made me very reflective about how accepted I am for me. I have a job which any other person could get, a boyfriend who has accepted me for who I am and I am getting on with my life... and you know what, I deserve every bit of it!
The only bit that I didn't really relate to, was when the cure was found, they were all overjoyed. Obviously, Leprosy causes so much pain, that of course if I had that, I would be eternally grateful for the cure, but as someone with Hemiplegia, I would never ask for a cure. Yes, the symptoms can be painful, and tiring, and confusing, and downright hard to comprehend sometimes, the whole of it is part of me, and I find it impossible to even imagine what I would be like without it. It defines me in a way, and that's really fine, but it doesn't rule my life, and reading The Island has reinforced that feeling, as for the last few weeks I have been struggling with pain and lack of cooperation from my limbs.
Anyway, to conclude, great book, read it if you can. She has only ever written 3 books in total so far, and I am just about to read the second, but the first book was so well written, rehearsed, researched, and reflective, that I have high hopes for the next one.
I'll let you know anyway.
Bye for now
xx
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