Non-fiction
Educated by Tara Westover
I started the month with Westover's enthralling tale of growing up in Idaho with survivalist parents. Her parents, wary of the government, didn't obtain birth certificates for their children, and Westover still isn't sure when her birthday is. She was also not allowed to see doctors and wasn't schooled, publicly or in a homeschool environment.
Westover writes honestly about her life lived in this environment. She somehow takes almost a spectator's view, offering details without over personalizing, as she rolls out moments in her life that most of us have never had to live. Her writing is beautiful, even though the subject matter is rough.
When a sibling turns violent, the misogyny bred within the walls of her home forbids her protection. Following some of her older siblings' paths, she attempts to get into college and out of the place that can no longer guarantee her safety, and never really could.
One reviewer said that if Westover's story was fiction, it'd be a lot easier to stomach. However, it's not, and we are better because Westover came forward to share it. You will root for Westover from the very first page and feel emotionally invested even when you turn the last one.
DIY Rules for a WTF World by Krista Suh
This book would be easy to dismiss as cutesy or too millennial. That would be a mistake. One of the creators of the pussyhat movement, Suh shares her tips for using our talents and passions to create a life of meaning and change, and her advice is sound.
From encouraging us to figure out if we're in a time of taking in or putting work out into the world to encouraging us all to beware of secondary emotions, Suh's advice makes sense for the world we're living in. She encourages us to know we're already enough, to choose the non-negotiables and stick with them, and to keep working until being a feminist is the obvious choice for everyone instead of something people view as a threat.
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death by Maggie O'Farrell
I fell in love with This Must be the Place, a novel by O'Farrell. Still, I didn't know exactly how to feel about her approach to her memoir since she based it around 17 near death experiences. It was a unique design, and it paid off.
From the first chapter where she describes narrowly escaping murder to the last where she details the challenges of having a daughter with an autoimmune/severe allergy issue, I could not look away. O'Farrell's life has been unique in many ways, but she points out the truth and makes readers feel it: we're always teetering on the edge, never sure when the end is coming. Most of us likely don't even know how many times we've barely scraped by, cheated death by a matter of seconds. O'Farrell, due to many factors in her life, is acutely aware of many of these times in her life, and it gives her a wonderful perspective to offer advice to the rest of us on what it means to really live.
A Book that Takes Its Time: An Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness by Irene Smit and Astrid van der Hulst
I don't buy books. I know, weird. However, I occasionally make exceptions, and this is a must-buy. Really, buy it, because no library in their right mind would stock it because it's interactive and patrons would destroy it on day one.
It's not an exaggeration to call this book life changing. Created by the editors of Flow Magazine, it is a mix of written articles and interviews, journaling, illustrations, and invitations to create in a variety of ways. I looked forward to picking it up every day and savoring whatever activity I decided to try. I'm still working my way through the 30 day mindfulness journal, and I reread the essays regularly.
This book encourages me to slow down, sit with my kids and create art, and remember that the little moments in life are the big moments, if only we don't miss them. There are post cards I've mailed to friends, beautiful moments I've captured on illustrated paper, and a collage that I made that I'm pretty proud of. Grab this book and make space in your day to dive into it.
Unbound: From Freedom from Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood by Jamie Sumner
Jamie and I both wrote for Parent.Co, and this should tell you tons about what I think of Jamie's writing: when we received an email telling us to archive our work before the site shut down, I archived some of Jamie's. Yes, I was in a mad panic, crying and worried about losing my writing, but I wanted to make sure I could go back and find her words as well.
I'm on the launch team for her book that comes out April 10th, and I gave a full review of it on Goodreads. You can also find that review below.
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I received an early copy of this book and devoured it. Jamie Sumner's honest look at the expectations we put on ourselves as mothers, as well as how to try to release them, is beautiful, hilarious, and gut-wrenching. Sumner shares her journey to motherhood, which included infertility and many unexpected turns, and opens up about all the emotions she experienced while waiting for her life as a mother to begin. Interspersed with Sumner's story are the stories of women from the Bible. Sumner seamlessly weaves these Biblical narratives in and helps even those of us who have read them a thousand times see these women in a new light. Sumner's voice is unique, her message redemptive, and her story impossible to put down. The messages and lessons she learned are universal and already etched in my mind to recall when I have one of those days where I need to remember to release my expectations and lean into the already-written story. The questions at the end of each chapter make this book perfect to use for daily journaling, and it would also be a great read for any book club or Bible study. No matter how you choose to read it, this is a book worth reading. | ||
However, I have even more to say because it has stuck with me weeks after turning the last page.
You need Jamie's story and her grace-giving ways in your life. I sat up a couple of nights ago googling, "how to fix the damage you've already done to your kids", so I definitely need it. In the moments where other writers might remind us to act right, fly straight, and pull ourselves up to our full potential, Jamie reminds us that God already knows we're going to muck it up often and loves us anyway. That message inspires me to want to love harder instead of sending me down the shame spiral.
Everything Happens for a Reason: and Other Lives I've Loved by Kate Bowler
Prepare yourself now: you will laugh often reading a book about a woman who has terminal cancer. I know, it was weird, but Bowler's voice is unique. She is able to capture the sorrow and questions that come with a colon cancer diagnosis in her 30s as well as the joys and absurdity of life.
Due to Bowler's first book on the prosperity gospel, she is an expert at recognizing the kind of faith that believes it should be rewarded with health, wealth, and prosperity. While it's easy enough for most of us to laugh off preachers in mega-mansions and people practicing a name-it-and-claim-it faith, Bowler shows that many Christians still subscribe to the belief that we should get some rewards for our faith. A life with our children, cancer-free, perhaps.
In exploring why and how we believe this, as well as what happens when we don't get that life, she offers insights to how people often try and fail at sitting with others in pain. The appendix of the book offers tips on what to say and what not to say to those grieving or living with incurable illnesses, and it should be required reading.
The narrative is not always linear, but that didn't take away from the experience for me at all. Bowler affirmed something I have felt for years: things happen, not always for a reason, and that's okay. We don't have to lesson the hell out of people's tragedies. (Bowler also begs us to stop Eastering the crap out of people's Lent). We can sit with them, mourn with them, and be okay in the not knowing.
New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living by Cary Telander Fortin and Kyle Louise Quilici
This book is pretty, informative, and simple. I have not turned it back into the library yet because I'm in love with it.
The authors introduce us to new minimalism, the type that isn't defined by number of items or deprivation. It's defined by having what we need, enjoying what we have, and practicing clutter cutting in every area of life. That' includes materials, but it also means clearing up our mental space and schedules to lead a quality life.
Whether you're a newbie to the minimalist movement or have been at it for years, you will thoroughly enjoy this one. The first section that covered principles over how-tos was my favorite, but that may be because I've read a ton of how-to books before. I like being reminded of the why behind minimalism to keep my endurance for the process up and moving forward.
Fiction
I stuck in for over 300 pages of what I will call a very disappointing labyrinth of dysfunction. A lawyer with a mysterious past, a lying husband, and a maybe-criminal collide with a single mom and her beautiful young daughter. That's about all I retained.
Mysteries have to be pretty amazing these days to compete with the masters out there, and this wasn't. It was intriguing enough to make me see it through, but I was indifferent and exhausted by the end. I don't really have the endurance to even thoroughly review it, so that says a lot.
Looking for Alaska by John Green
I was way behind in picking up this one, but when one of the second avid readers in my life recommended it, I knew it was time. Green's account of teenage Mile's life away at school is funny, honest, and heartbreaking. When he meets Alaska Young and makes friends with a group of intelligent misfits, his life takes turns he couldn't have imagined before, some that lead to great memories and others to tragedy.
I was way behind in picking up this one, but when one of the second avid readers in my life recommended it, I knew it was time. Green's account of teenage Mile's life away at school is funny, honest, and heartbreaking. When he meets Alaska Young and makes friends with a group of intelligent misfits, his life takes turns he couldn't have imagined before, some that lead to great memories and others to tragedy.
Still Me by Jojo Moyes
I love Louisa Clark, and she's the reason I came back for the third installment of the Me Before You trilogy. The second book was not bad, but it paled in comparison to the first. The third is better and fully displays Moyes' genius when writing Louisa Clark and her quirky ways.
The book picks up with Clark in New York having left ambulance Sam behind to pursue the move. They work at a long-distance relationship, and it is predictably fraught. The people Louisa is working for are complicated and interesting, and so are the wonderful/awful characters she meets along the way.
At some point in life all of us have to decide who we are and what that means for the direction of our lives. Louisa faces that choice, and the consequences are meaningful, hilarious, and honest, just like her.
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
D read this one before I did, so I was determined to finish it quickly so he would stop taunting me about knowing the ending. Finn made that pretty easy. This mystery is told in short chapters that accelerate to a satisfying ending.
Anna Fox has some problems, one of them being that she likes to watch her neighbors' lives play out from the safety of her own home. A shut in, she is the creepy lady who spies on those not wise enough to close their curtains. When she sees something that causes her concern, is it real? Can someone who has problems leaving her own front porch be trusted to know what she saw? Will anyone believe her?
The story twists and turns, and while a couple of parts are predictable, I was still surprised by the ending. Finn does a good job at rolling out the story at just the right speed, and I enjoyed it.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
I did not know that Siobhan Dowd, author of The London Eye Mystery, had any other works in progress when she passed away. I read "The London Eye Mystery" almost a decade ago and fell in love with her work just in time to find out she had lost her battle with cancer.
When I picked up "A Monster Calls", another recommendation from reader friends, and saw that it was based on Dowd's story idea, I felt grateful and sad to have found her again after so long. After reading this YA story, I was wrecked even more by the end.
When a tree turns into a monster that speaks to Conor at night, telling him stories to make Conor offer his in return, questions arise about why this monster has arrived. As Conor deals with his sick mom, his absent father, and a grandmother he doesn't connect with, he is forced to deal with his own feelings and thoughts, and in this he learns lessons that will resonate for both younger and older audiences.
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