The House at Sugar Beach

So this week I finished reading Handle With Care. Just like the other books I've read of Jodi Picoult, the whole book was amazing EXCEPT the ending. She always turns the story into a tradegy in the last, like, five pages. From now on, I think I'm just going to stop reading her books before those last few pages because then they would be twenty times better. I'd still recommend Handle With Care to anyone. It has amazing writing and characters. Anyways.. after I finished Handle With Care, I started reading The House at Sugar Beach. I thought I'd give this book a try (even though I usually don't like memiors or nonfiction) because it sounded really interesting. The House at Sugar Beach is about Helene Cooper, now a New York Times journalist, and her childhood as a "Congo." A "Congo" is the term referring to the decendents of emancipated American slaves who founded the country of Liberia. Helene, as a young child, lived in a huge mansion with an easy life handed to her. But, according to the book's inside flap, that easy life isn't going to last for long. In 1980, Helene and her family flees to America because the Congos are being attacked and killed. I'm not very far into this book yet, but I'm having a hard time staying focused. It's kind of boring. I'm going to keep reading, though, because it sounds like an amazing story of Helene's life. How can she go from escaping her home country, scared and in danger, and then become a successfull journalist for a major newspaper. I'm really curious to hear her story so I'm going to keep trudging through this book.