Well September turned out to be a quasi-doozy of a book month for me. Honestly, I don’t know what to attribute my level of distraction to, but I think it is entirely to blame for why some books I read were less enjoyable than I expected them to be. The books weren’t BAD, I just feel rather apathetic about many of them. Still, I’ll try to dig into this book review and give you my best takeaways from them! Side note: As I’m trying to figure out why September felt just “meh” in the reading department, I just realized something; I read too much non-fiction for my liking this month. Don’t get me wrong, the non-fiction books I read were great and I enjoyed them immensely (as you will see below), but I think my ratio for a happy balance generally involves more fiction. Whew, I’m glad I figured that out. ANYWAY! I got 7 books under my belt this month, thus completing my 50th book for 2018 (whaaaat?!), which seemed like a good milestone to hit the month before my baby is due, since my reading may come to a screeching halt after that! Let’s jump right in.
Ghosted / The Summer Wives / Winter Garden / Small Animals / Garden City / The Sacred Enneagram / Imperfect Courage
Ghosted
This book was really good! I was expecting something spooky or haunting (as implied by the title) so I kind of read it with anticipation that someone was going to jump out from behind a corner at every turn, but it was definitely NOT a creepy/scary book. It was just a really great, complex, tragic love story. I didn’t expect several of the turns it took, which made it a fast page-turner of a read. I would say this book is worth all of the hype it’s been getting on some of the Bookstagram accounts I follow, which is where I heard of it in the first place. Highly recommend if you want a love story that’s got a thicker plot than your typical RomCom.
The Summer Wives
This was where things fell flat for me. I MUST say before I go on, I think this is a good book. I just didn’t entirely enjoy it because like I said above, I seemed to be distracted the whole time I read it. And the problem with being distracted during this book is that it jumps around between generations and decades and if you aren’t focused on the changing times, you can easily get lost and confused. This seems to be what happened to me. So instead of enjoying the complex love stories within it, I was constantly asking myself, “Who is that character again?” Not a fun way to read a book. So while I didn’t get the most out of this book, I would still solidly encourage other readers to try it.
Winter Garden
OK, whew, I can breathe a sigh of relief that my author idol, Kristin Hannah, is in fact human and all of her work cannot be exceptional. Which is to say, this book was NOT one of my favorites from her. My review is twofold, though, because I really liked the STORY (you’ll have to read it to know what I mean; the entire book is written from the voice of an elderly mother telling her grown daughters a mysterious story), but I did not like the DELIVERY. I think the story itself could have just existed on its own without the subplot of the grown daughters/elderly mother/etc. But since this was still at its core a book about WWII, I finished it and entered my obligatory WWII fast because I’ve learned about myself I cannot read too many of these back to back or I get all dark and stormy and overwhelmed by the devastation of the characters I fall in love with. (I need a constant genre rotation in my library to keep me on my toes and from getting bored; can anybody else relate to this??). Overall, it was “Meh.” How’s that for a shining review? (Trust me when I say stick to some of Hannah’s newer best sellers like The Nightingale or my most recent favorites, The Great Alone and Magic Hour).
Small Animals
I have been so anxious to write the review for this one, and I think it could be a hotly debated book! The back story is that the author began her journey of investigating why we are a generation of parents, parenting out of fear, when she began a two-year legal battle after leaving her 4 year old in the car for 5 minutes while she ran into a store to grab something in the safe Virginia suburb of her youth. She returned to her car to find her son still happily engaged in his iPad game. What she didn’t realize at the time and learned later is that a stranger saw her child, proceeded to photograph her child and report her to the police (but I’d like to point out that the stranger left the scene… One would suspect that if the well-intended stranger truly had the child’s best interest in mind and wasn’t just being vindictive, they would have stayed at the scene until the parent of said child or law enforcement arrived). What ensued for the author, Kim Brooks, was a huge dive into researching and interviewing parenting professionals, psychologists, sociologists, and anyone who knew anything about the root of the fear that governs so much of our parenting. Gosh, I could really talk about this issue for a long time and wish we could have a real, in-person discussion about it! I want to clearly point out that I did not agree with all of Kim’s opinions and assessments of parenting and that we should, to summarize, lighten the hell up. She made several highly credible and well-backed points that parents don’t send their children to the park by themselves or leave them in the car for 5 minutes while we run into the post office, because we fear abductions, when in reality, abductions account for one of the least significant threats to our children (the greatest threat to their safety being riding in a car, which our kids do from birth multiple times per day, often so the parents-in-charge can do something so SELFISH as get a coffee from a drive-thru). But in the case of a working single mother who permitted her 9 year old to spend the afternoons after school at the neighborhood park alone, her permission and absence from constant supervision was viewed as negligence and she was legally charged accordingly. Stories like this litter the book and truly evoked empathy from me. Would I let my kids ride their bikes alone to the nearest school/park to play without me? No. I wouldn’t. I just can’t bring myself to do that. But I also, as a stay at home mom, don’t need to. Also worth pointing out? My very attentive and involved parents allowed me to (without a cell phone) go play with the neighborhood boys for hours at a time as a 9-or-10 year old, and we often ended up near the creek (which could have been teeming with bacteria at the least or a scary, drug-addicted creek-walker at the worst). They trusted us, they gave us the freedom to make choices, learn lessons, and come to our own conclusions about what is a good or bad idea, developing common sense, in a safe and controlled manner (“be home when dad whistles for you”/“you can go play for one hour”). What Kim spends most of her book exploring is that kids develop a ton of immeasurably valuable life skills simply by being on their own, without a parent holding their hand and answering for them constantly. I do not feel she was defending her choice to leave her son in the car; she acknowledged early on that it was a lapse in judgement and she should have insisted he join her in the store. But what that incident prompted was a pretty fascinating study of what makes us so freaking afraid? Here are my main takeaways:
- Others’ perception of us (this is our #1 fear as parents!!). What will they think of me? How will I be judged?
- Sensationalized high profile legal cases surrounding child abductions that the media gloms onto and over-broadcasts. The Natalie Holloway and Elizabeth Smart cases are few and far between, but based on the amount of media coverage they receive, we draw conclusions about them that cause our brains to assume this type of tragedy is commonplace and could (possibly even likely will), happen to us, too. Should we always have a healthy awareness of this potential? Of course. But should we live in fear of the boogeyman constantly just because it has historically happened to a few individuals? Let me ask it this way: Did you forego your drive around town today because you know what the car accident statistics are? I’ll just leave it at that.
I highly recommend this book, simply because she put a ton of research into asking the question of why are we letting fear be our motivator? I don’t want to let fear motivate me to do ANYTHING. So again, while I don’t agree with her on everything she said, I think her research and findings are worth reading. Seriously this book is BEGGING for conversation, so read it with your book club or let’s have our own discussion in the comments below, because like I said before, it is a HOT topic!!
Garden City
I read this book over the course of the month as a part of my morning quiet times (which take place each morning during the 6:00 hour when I drink coffee + a read few pages of whatever bible study I’m currently in + read a few pages of a devotional + spend the remaining time in a Christian non-fiction book I’m reading, and occasionally journalling). I loved this book because it spoke about God’s perception and intention for work and rest. As a woman who is currently not employed outside the home or working on any vocational projects of my own, you might think this sounds pretty irrelevant to me. But if you think the work I, or any other stay at home individual, does is not in fact WORK, you’re missing the point of what work is. The author points out that God set us on Earth to rule the Earth.This means taking the raw materials before us and making them better; more useful; more beautiful; to turn them into something new. So as a mom, I am obviously hard at work not only raising my kids, but creating meals for my family to eat that will nourish their abilities to rule the Earth; keeping them in clean clothes to be able to attend school comfortably and without distraction; giving them a safe place to come home to when they need to recharge for another day of ruling; hopefully you get the point. We’re all workers in God’s economy. And I liked that he validates and encourages individuals in WHATEVER job they’re in to look at what they’re able to rule over and how their work contributes to the greater good of God’s economy (because it does, even if you don’t feel like it). Similarly he gives great examples of what taking a Sabbath looks like and why it is a gift to us (not an obligation). One reviewer commented that this may be The Purpose Driven Life of our generation, and I tend to agree with that assessment. Great book to read alone or as a part of a group study.
The Sacred Enneagram
This is my third Enneagram book I’ve read, and I continue to get sucked in deeper and deeper with each text. This one is DEFINITELY a 201 level book, so I would NOT recommend beginning your Enneagram journey with this. As a novice student, myself, it was a little deep for me, but I felt I had enough of a base understanding to hang in there. The most beautiful part of this book is that it doesn’t spend much time (at all) belaboring the nine types, what they mean, and what characterizes them. The author assumes that by the time you’re reading this book, you (hopefully) already have a good understanding of those basic facts. What he DOES spend an enormous amount of time pointing out, though, is how we can understand ourselves through prayer, identifying our emotional tendencies, and leaning into our spirituality to get us back to our truest self (the self God created us to be before things like our Childhood Wounds and primary fixations sunk their teeth in and made us cling to the less healthy aspects of our types). I have shared my enneagram syllabus with you all before, but in case you have missed that and want to follow a similar learning guide (right or wrong as it may be), I have walked through this path as follows:
- WEPSS personality test
- The Road Back to You
- The Path Between Us
- Sleeping At Last Podcast (type 3 for me; some types have yet to be recorded)
- Sacred Enneagram
Imperfect Courage
Finally, I wrapped up the month by listening to Jessica Honegger’s new book Imperfect Courage. Jessica is the founder and Co-CEO of Noonday Collection, so as a major entrepreneur, I was totally inspired by her story of launching and running Noonday (serious Mom-Boss Goals). Also, her story (and business mission, I learned) has much to do with adoption which is always fascinating for me to learn more about, simply because I have been touched by adoption in my family and among my friends. This book was very sweet, pretty feel-good, and overall very encouraging. She speaks of a message throughout the book to lift one another up, let go of our judgement and shoulder each other’s burdens. She condemns mom judgement (from ourselves and towards others), and she exposes the realities of the lives of women around the world who are Noonday partners. Learning these stories was empowering and encouraging, and I’m always eager to learn new perspectives of women in my stage of life, but living in vastly different worlds. The only thing that would make this book 4 instead of 5 stars for me, was that is was just a tad precious. Nothing wrong with precious, but it’s just sugary sweet sometimes and feels like it should be wrapped up in a bow. Anybody know what I mean?? Ok, that’s all for negativity, I still HIGHLY recommend this book and found it to be informative, encouraging and enlightening.
So there you have it! I have a pretty high stack of books for October, so depending on when the little man/lady decides to arrive, I may still be able to knock out a few good page-turners (fingers crossed). On the table: some Christian fiction/parenting books, a new thriller, another WWII novel, and of course, a baby book.