Log #5

Title of the Book: Paradise

Author: Joan Elizabeth Goodman

Page read: 1~60 (chapter 8)

It’s really funny that I often told people I always judge a book by its cover, yet I didn't do the same for this book that I've chosen for my next novel. Let me be honest with you, this type of book is the least choice that I'd pick up in the bookstore; the title is out-dated, the cover isn't fun at all, it even has the old paper smell on it. It just doesn't look very appealing to me. However, I think this book was calling out for me as I walked by the bookshelf, it just happened to drop onto the floor, making me pick it up and place it back. I casually glanced through the back of the book while I placing it back, I soon figured I might be interested in this book, which was also the reason why I bought this book at the end. 

This book only has 25 chapters, yet the book itself doesn't look very thin to me, so I decided to take my time and read it slowly. The book is set in 1542, telling a story of a sixteen-year-old young woman, Marguerite de La Rocque, who lives in a strict Huguenot household in France.  Marguerite is excited when she is offered a chance to move to Canada, a new world, to escape from her father's control and her uncle's madness. However, the crossing is horrible and painful, but once they landed in Canada, which they called "The New World" or "Paradise", Marguerite is caught with her Catholic lover Pierre, which was a big crime at the time that people with different religion cannot be together. She, Pierre, and her maid, Damienne, are abandoned on an island where the three struggle and has to fight for their survival in the wild.

This is where I left the story, I think it is very interesting as I haven't read a lot of books which talked about how difficult for people to move into Canada by crossing the oceans in 1542, how feudal the society was at the time, how stubborn the people were to accept a new religion or the differences between them and even against each other for it. I'll keep on reading and hopefully I will learn more how Marguerite and the others tried their best to survive in the wild.