Tuesday, October 13, 2009


Book Review- The Necklace

  This is the book that I won from BookXcess so yeay! Thanks a lot BookXcess.

  There’s so much to learn in this book or rather, this true story. 13 women bought a diamond necklace. Yes, you read that right, 13 of them formed a group and bought the necklace. The idea was founded by Jonell McLain and although a lot of people tried to talk her out of it, she proceeded with the idea.

  The 13 women came from different backgrounds; some had to deal with blow after blow of losing their loved ones; either physically or mentally, who signed the check to buy the necklace that they finally named as Jewelia (after Julia Child)  without even looking at it and there are also some who were attracted to get into the group after seeing how the pioneers managed to raise money through a diamond necklace. And surprisingly enough, they did not sell Jewelia to raise the money. Really creative, isn’t it?

  I personally think this story is really beautiful. Beautiful because I can relate to it. Most of the women find themselves unable to buy the necklace, which price was originally USD 32,000. Furthermore, it happened during this time. Of course I do like Anne Frank but having to relate to it is a bit difficult given that Holocaust was really a long time ago, right?

  I learnt about a lot of things after leafing through the 120 pages. The power of dream, never stop dreaming. And never stop to work for the dream because dreaming without working for it is useless. The founder of the group dreamt about having the necklace and when she don’t think she can do it alone, she tried to rope in more people to agree to buy the necklace and she did manage to buy the necklace.

  Some of the women in the book see little need to wear the necklace but that did not stop them from buying it. The rule is to circulate the diamonds among members for 28 days. Some of them, instead of wearing it themselves, shared the experience to wear the necklace to someone else. Although it was only for just one day or even a few minutes, it made a whole lot of difference. It was repeated in the book how a child, an old woman, a worker in the post office, cherish the moment they had with the necklace. One story struck at me when one of the women brought the necklace around to the hospital and gave an ald dying lady to wear it. The old lady wore it in the hospital bead and combined a smile into it. Although the necklace did not cure her, she was happy throughout the day. A picture was taken and it happened to be the last picture her children ever had of their mom. They liked it because it was their mom’s last picture and she looked happy in it.

  It seems that if we want to be happy, we don’t necessarily have to own the thing and use it for ourselves. It seems that making other people happy matters the most.

  I think this is a very good book. Although I can’t tell the rest of the lessons in in, if you happen to see this book by Cheryl Jarvis with the title The Necklace, it’s worth the peek.

  Ha bace syud jangan tak baca review I

2 comments:

s.c.h.u.l.t said...

aha. this reminded me of Jeffry Archer's book: Twelve Red Herrings.

Dalam tu ada satu tajuk sebijik sama! 'The Necklace'

Nice short story because its about a woman who have two husbands!

Dia beli necklace harga 3million! 1.5 from suami pertama dan 1.5 lagi dari husband kedua. HEHEHE :D

Unknown said...

u wah! tapi kalo ucu, ucu nak beli rantai gold. lps tu lime thn kemudian, jual. dpt profit (tumbuh tanduk)