Second Star to the Right by Deborah Hautzig

Title: Second Star to the Right
Author: Deborah Hautzig
Publisher: Puffin Books
ISBN: 9780141305806
Genre: Young Adult
Pages: 176
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5

I am back to my reading project of ‘The Novel Cure’ and this time since I finished D, I began with E – the first ailment being “Eating Disorders” and the first cure was “Second Star to the Right” by Deborah Hautzig. I didn’t realize the book was a young adult novel till I started reading it and since I love Young Adult Novels, I was completely bowled over.

Leslie Heller is a bright, attractive and a regular teenager who lives a life of privilege in New York City. Her life takes a drastic turn when she begins to diet in her quest for happiness and that becomes an obsession with her, to the point of death by starvation. She and her family struggle with it and at the same time Leslie also has to battle with her past and her Jewish roots.

The book deals with the emotional and mental trauma that an anorexia nervosa patient goes through. It is autobiographical and therefore the writing becomes so strong and emotional. Leslie as seen through Deborah (because she is based on her) is raw, intense and confused. The writing is heart-breaking as you see Leslie and her family coping with anorexia and coming to terms with what can be done to cure it.

“Second Star to the Right” puts a lot of things in perspective for teenagers, mainly about the issues of fitting-in and acceptance and what it takes in our world to be what you want to be. I think I will for one gift this book to every teenager I know to make him or her understand that life is not always about being accepted. It is about being who you want to be.

Next Up on the Novel Cure Reading Project:

Ailment: Egg on Your Tie
Cure: Restoration by Rose Tremain

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Book Review: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Title: The Secret Garden
Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publisher: Vintage Classics
ISBN: 9780099572954
Genre: Children’s Classics
Pages: 384
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

“The Secret Garden” is a friend’s favourite book. He cannot stop raving about it. He was after my life to read it at so many points in life and yet I just would not. Maybe I was not ready for it then. But when I was I picked it up and loved it. It was a part of the Novel Cure Reading Challenge. The book is featured under: To Cure Adoption and that is what the book is partly about, or I would say very superficially about. It is more about finding home and something magical in your heart, as cliché as it may sound.

Mary Lennox’s family is dead. Her parents and most of her family died due to a cholera breakout. She is the only one surviving and found all by herself in a big huge house. She is lonely. She pretends to be brave and she is not at all courageous. She is only ten years old and never known what it is like to be loved and perhaps to love someone. Till she chances upon a garden – a locked, derelict garden, which comes to become a place she loves and a garden which heals her and teaches her how to love and to be loved.

I have not said much about the story because I would want readers to explore and find out the way I did. The writing is fantastic. It does not seem that it was written such a long time ago, and published in 1910. The themes are as relevant today. The angst of childhood and the need to find out more is omnipresent and exists in every child. To me, the book is one of the best children’s classics I have read in a long time and will most certainly reread it.

Next Up on the Novel Cure Reading Challenge: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

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Book Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Title: Wuthering Heights
Author: Emily Bronte
Publisher: Barnes and Noble Signature Editions
ISBN: 978-1435136540
Genre: Classic
Pages: 328
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5

If there is one classic, which I go back to every year and continue to do so, without as much batting an eye-lid then that has to be, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. For some it is Pride and Prejudice. For others it could be anything by Mark Twain. For me, it is just this sole book written by Emily Bronte, who according to me was also the most interesting amongst the three.

I never need a reason to read this one, however this time; I also read it for The Novel Cure Reading Challenge. While it is a story of passion and love, it is also a story of class, of families, of how one cannot resist and yet must one do what society dictates. At the core however, it is a love story like none other. The story is dark. It is not pretty. It is not meant to be. It was considered vulgar and preposterous when it was first published. Emily went to her grave thinking she was a failure. The book was reprinted by Charlotte and now it is one of the most beloved classics of our times.

Wuthering Heights is narrated by Nelly Dean. She has lived around for a long time. The story is told in extended flashback to a lodger or rather the tenant at Thrushcross Grange. Nelly narrates the story of Heathcliff and Catharine – of their obsession, their love and their madness. Of how they could not be together and yet would not give up each other for the world.

I remember reading the novel for the first time when I was thirteen. I was depressed for a week. The empathy towards Heathcliff and the need to also beat him up was strong. The need to for once, allow Heathcliff and Catharine to be happy ever after was beyond anything else which I ever wanted and yet I knew this was not possible.
The book evokes strange feelings in the reader and those feelings remain. It is more than just unrequited love. You know there is only one way in which this story will end and yet – you pray that things become alright and they do, in a different way of sorts. The core theme also, mostly forgotten is that Heathcliff is an outsider. He has been adopted by Mr. Earnshaw at the beginning of the novel, which Hindley, Catharine’s brother cannot stand. This is just the start of things to come though.

At some point you feel Catharine also detests him and to some extent maybe that is true, but you know that love will prevail and she is merely trying to succumb, but you know she is stronger than that. Wuthering Heights will break your heart – even if you do not want it to, it will. There is no way out from that one. A read which you will never forget for years to come, that is for sure.

This one as per the Novel Cure is to Cure Adoption.

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