Heads You Win

Heads You Win by Jeffrey Archer is another massive novel from him. As always in his books you follow two main characters, male, and they somehow migrate from one country to another, often one of the characters migrate to USA. This novel is not the exception, Alex Karpenko migrate from Russia to USA with his mother, or migrate, flee is more accurate. As always in his books, you follow the two character's life from they migrate and how they work hard to achieve their goals and build a new life for themselves. They struggle a bit in the start with no money, but they always end up doing better than most immigrants ever do, owning big hotel chains or leader for huge businesses or banks. This novel is no exception here either, Alex end up in a bank doing real well. The other main character, Sasja Karpenko, ends up in the UK and he is also making a better life for himself there. It's not that the novel lacks of plot or is not interesting to read, it's just I feel I have read it before. I have read a lot of Jeffrey Archer's books, and I don't think they are poorly written books at all. It's a reason I have read so many, but now I got a bit bored. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but it was all so known to me. I knew where he was going with the characters since he seems to follow the same pattern. And not even the little twist at the end was enough for me to think this novel was something extraordinary.  But it was good enough to entertain me the first afternoon in my summer vacation.

Educated

While reading this, I had to google if the story was actually was a memoir and based upon a true story. Some of the story seems almost too over the top to be true. But it is true. It is a novel based upon the life of the author Tara Westover. She grew up with a father who was probably undiagnosed bipolar and didn't trust authorities. Her mum learned to be a midwife from other women in the mormon society. And later she made a business out of making different oils to heal and cure people's illnesses and pain, since Tara's family didn't trust the science and doctors. And not trusting doctors, was almost fatal several times after some heavy accidents.  Sometimes the story just hurts too much to even think about how she got out and turned her life around, is amazing. Sometimes I just forgot it was a memoir. And to me that is a good thing, since I normally don't read a lot of memoirs and biographies. This book though, I would recommend. Well written and an amazing story.