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shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (858)
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
[2.5 but this rating could change as I read more poetry. I have nothing to compare this to yet]
I have a mixed relationship with poetry just like I have a mixed relationship with art. What makes good poetry? Bad poetry? Good art? Bad art? So much of it is subjective and dependent on what speaks to or engages the reader/viewer.
I have not read much poetry so I’m not writing this from any position of ‘I know everything (or anything) about poetry’. I don’t have a lot to compare this book to and I don’t have strong opinions about any of this— at least at the time of this writing.
Maybe once I’ve explored more poetry my thoughts about this book will change for the worse or for the better. Only time will tell.
This book sent me on a fun rabbit trail of pondering poetry and asking others some of these questions. It wasn’t necessarily the content of this book that was thought-provoking for me, but to think about the concept of poetry and how one should/could write it.
My first thought when I read this book was— ‘What makes this poetry?’
Some of the poems had more of a rhythm or a repetition to it that fits what I think of poetry. But a lot of the poems felt like a series of statements with random line breaks. I picture a cat walking across a keyboard creating the poem structure.
Was the lack of capitalization and punctuation what made it poetry?
Was the depth of emotion expressed what made it poetry?
I don’t know. I don’t know what makes something poetry or what makes it good. Feel free to share with me what your opinions about any of this are. I don’t think there’s just ‘one right answer’ to this so I’m curious what other people think.
Now to talk about this actual book— Save Me an Orange. This was a book recommended to me by a librarian when I asked for a short book of poetry.
Hayley Grace got TikTok famous when she started reading her poetry online. Save Me an Orange is her debut book published in 2024.
It’s divided in three parts: the roots, the spoiled fruit, and oranges.
The roots are a series of poems (I think it’s a bunch of different ones?) that describe her broken relationship with her parents and her parents’ broken relationship. The roots are the foundation of her own journey to/through broken love, what informed what she thought love looked like.
———-
“i think i was forced to grow up fast
because my parents could not”
———
“the boy you meet when you’re 16
is supposed to be your first heartbreak
not your father”
_______
“i mean my father was a handyman
but he spent most of his time
making the outside of our house
perfect.
to ensure that no one would question
what went on inside of it.”
————
“i am the product of my parents
their dna is infiltrated throughout my body
my mother’s heart
my father’s eyes
my mother’s sadness
my father’s rage
their qualities rooted inside of me
even as i grow up
my feet are cemented to the ground
i can’t escape
i can’t escape this
i can’t escape them”
The spoiled fruit is her experience in a bad relationship with a ‘rotten orange.’ Someone kind of like her dad. It depicts the pain of that and the depression it caused.
“to love you
was to hand you a gun
and have you aim it
at my heart
and pray
you never pull the trigger”
Oranges are seeing the things in life worth living for. Not allowing one rotten orange to spoil the whole tree. It’s the sunrise after a dark night.
“you were put on this earth to live
it’s not too late
to start now”
________
“but now i know
because there was a life after you
and it was beautiful
and sweet
and sometimes scary
but i don’t have to wear rose colored glasses
to see life in color anymore”
_________
“but if i have learned one thing
it is that the only thing
that can always come back
is love
love leaves
but always returns
sometimes in the form of a person
or a song
maybe a book
or even a hobby
love always comes back”
—————-
Since poetry has a lot to do with what emotions it evokes, I asked myself: What did this book make me feel?
It made me feel sad that her parents destroyed her security and her ability to recognize real love. The divorce rate in America is around 40-50% and is one of my least favorite things about Western culture— a pretty flippant attitude toward divorce.
How many kids who went through their parents’ divorce came out unscathed? You could probably count it on one hand. It wrecks them. And their concept of love, stability, trust.
So if divorce is so common and so destructive, why don’t we hold marriage in higher regard? Why don’t we treat sex with more respect and sturdier boundaries? Why don’t we enter into a marriage covenant with more reverence? With more care and wisdom and commitment? It’s not just a thing to do because a wedding is pretty or because we get a tax break.
Marriage was created by God as a representation of God and the church. A relationship that should be characterized by love and grace and faithfulness.
It matters.
You know how much it matters because you don’t have to go far to find books like Hayley’s that are wrought with the bullets of divorce. Divorce tears apart God’s design for human flourishing. You can’t read poetry like Hayley’s and come away with any other realization.
That’s not to say every single divorce is categorically wrong. Because a lot of divorces stem from abuse or repeated infidelity. But the tragedy of the divorce remains because it is still a tainting of what marriage was created to be.
In a culture that worships self and sex, it’s not a surprise that so many marriages end this way, but maybe books like Hayley’s can change people’s posture toward sex and marriage.
What a gift we could give our children— to give them a whole family built on faithfulness and steadfast love, a love that stays even when it’s hard, a love that began with a commitment that goes beyond feelings and self.
It resonated with me when she said
“your appearance will always be
the least interesting thing about you”
and I think more should be written about what beauty is and should be. Our appearance isn’t inconsequential, but I like that she recognizes that there should be more interesting things about you than the way you look.
The poem where she asks her boyfriend to talk to her, to SEE her, ‘with her clothes on’ is telling of our culture. So much emphasis is put on women empowerment and body exposure and the focus is on the body, the clothes, even the nakedness, that we think that’s what makes us interesting, worthy of spending time with. But it all boils down to lust and selfishness.
When our appearance and the acts of the flesh are what become ultimate we diminish what really makes us who we are. What makes us lovely. When we reduce women to their bodies (no matter who is ‘in control’) we ask others to reduce us to our bodies.
You can’t build a relationship that revolves around the removal of clothes.
It made me feel hopeful.
She doesn’t leave the reader in the depths of her despair and the brokenness of life but pushes them to see life on the other side. She encourages readers that there is more to life than the one relationship that consumed us at the age of 16 and didn’t work out.
There are people who need us, who rely on us, who love us. There are so many reasons to choose life and joy.
That’s the idea behind ‘save me an orange’— save her an orange because she’s going to be around to eat it.
I’m glad there was this redemption to the book when it easily could have just been about brokenness.
To be honest, most of the material of this book was not relatable to me. I didn’t endure a divorce; my relationship with my parents has always been good; I have never had my heart broken; I have never experienced abuse; I have never experienced deep depression or suicidal thoughts.
Those are all very intense things and I’m sure there are a lot of readers who will probably read her words and see their own feelings displayed on the page. That wasn’t the case for me. So this isn’t a book that’s going to sit with me a long time like it might for others.
I’m not sure the style or writing was my favorite either.
It sounds like her second book was largely about heartbreak so I doubt I will read that one.
Recommendation
I am not sure how to recommend this book because I don’t know what people look for when they want to read poetry.
Is it more about structure and creativity and profundity? If so, this probably isn’t the book for you.
Is it more about expressing deep or hard to talk about feelings that relate and resonate? This would probably be a good option for you if you’ve experienced any of the similar things she has.
I have not read a lot of poetry so I can’t even compare this to something else to say- if you like that, you’ll like this. I honestly have no idea if you’ll like this. Some reviewers liken it to Rupi Kaur’s poetry— which I’ve never read and can neither confirm nor deny if it’s like that.
My lower rating for this book is not because I necessarily think it’s terrible, but because if someone was going to ask me for a recommendation for a book of poetry, I doubt this would be the one at the top of my not-yet-existent list. There wasn’t really anything that made me think— ‘people HAVE to read this!’ and though I haven’t fully grasped my opinion about poetry, I think what I recommend should stir more excitement in me about what I’m reading.
While this isn’t poetry that really stuck with me or spoke to me, at the very least it inspired me a little bit to explore poetry and go back to even writing some poetry myself.
[Content Advisory: 2 f-words; some sexual content; implied abuse]
I have a mixed relationship with poetry just like I have a mixed relationship with art. What makes good poetry? Bad poetry? Good art? Bad art? So much of it is subjective and dependent on what speaks to or engages the reader/viewer.
I have not read much poetry so I’m not writing this from any position of ‘I know everything (or anything) about poetry’. I don’t have a lot to compare this book to and I don’t have strong opinions about any of this— at least at the time of this writing.
Maybe once I’ve explored more poetry my thoughts about this book will change for the worse or for the better. Only time will tell.
This book sent me on a fun rabbit trail of pondering poetry and asking others some of these questions. It wasn’t necessarily the content of this book that was thought-provoking for me, but to think about the concept of poetry and how one should/could write it.
My first thought when I read this book was— ‘What makes this poetry?’
Some of the poems had more of a rhythm or a repetition to it that fits what I think of poetry. But a lot of the poems felt like a series of statements with random line breaks. I picture a cat walking across a keyboard creating the poem structure.
Was the lack of capitalization and punctuation what made it poetry?
Was the depth of emotion expressed what made it poetry?
I don’t know. I don’t know what makes something poetry or what makes it good. Feel free to share with me what your opinions about any of this are. I don’t think there’s just ‘one right answer’ to this so I’m curious what other people think.
Now to talk about this actual book— Save Me an Orange. This was a book recommended to me by a librarian when I asked for a short book of poetry.
Hayley Grace got TikTok famous when she started reading her poetry online. Save Me an Orange is her debut book published in 2024.
It’s divided in three parts: the roots, the spoiled fruit, and oranges.
The roots are a series of poems (I think it’s a bunch of different ones?) that describe her broken relationship with her parents and her parents’ broken relationship. The roots are the foundation of her own journey to/through broken love, what informed what she thought love looked like.
———-
“i think i was forced to grow up fast
because my parents could not”
———
“the boy you meet when you’re 16
is supposed to be your first heartbreak
not your father”
_______
“i mean my father was a handyman
but he spent most of his time
making the outside of our house
perfect.
to ensure that no one would question
what went on inside of it.”
————
“i am the product of my parents
their dna is infiltrated throughout my body
my mother’s heart
my father’s eyes
my mother’s sadness
my father’s rage
their qualities rooted inside of me
even as i grow up
my feet are cemented to the ground
i can’t escape
i can’t escape this
i can’t escape them”
The spoiled fruit is her experience in a bad relationship with a ‘rotten orange.’ Someone kind of like her dad. It depicts the pain of that and the depression it caused.
“to love you
was to hand you a gun
and have you aim it
at my heart
and pray
you never pull the trigger”
Oranges are seeing the things in life worth living for. Not allowing one rotten orange to spoil the whole tree. It’s the sunrise after a dark night.
“you were put on this earth to live
it’s not too late
to start now”
________
“but now i know
because there was a life after you
and it was beautiful
and sweet
and sometimes scary
but i don’t have to wear rose colored glasses
to see life in color anymore”
_________
“but if i have learned one thing
it is that the only thing
that can always come back
is love
love leaves
but always returns
sometimes in the form of a person
or a song
maybe a book
or even a hobby
love always comes back”
—————-
Since poetry has a lot to do with what emotions it evokes, I asked myself: What did this book make me feel?
It made me feel sad that her parents destroyed her security and her ability to recognize real love. The divorce rate in America is around 40-50% and is one of my least favorite things about Western culture— a pretty flippant attitude toward divorce.
How many kids who went through their parents’ divorce came out unscathed? You could probably count it on one hand. It wrecks them. And their concept of love, stability, trust.
So if divorce is so common and so destructive, why don’t we hold marriage in higher regard? Why don’t we treat sex with more respect and sturdier boundaries? Why don’t we enter into a marriage covenant with more reverence? With more care and wisdom and commitment? It’s not just a thing to do because a wedding is pretty or because we get a tax break.
Marriage was created by God as a representation of God and the church. A relationship that should be characterized by love and grace and faithfulness.
It matters.
You know how much it matters because you don’t have to go far to find books like Hayley’s that are wrought with the bullets of divorce. Divorce tears apart God’s design for human flourishing. You can’t read poetry like Hayley’s and come away with any other realization.
That’s not to say every single divorce is categorically wrong. Because a lot of divorces stem from abuse or repeated infidelity. But the tragedy of the divorce remains because it is still a tainting of what marriage was created to be.
In a culture that worships self and sex, it’s not a surprise that so many marriages end this way, but maybe books like Hayley’s can change people’s posture toward sex and marriage.
What a gift we could give our children— to give them a whole family built on faithfulness and steadfast love, a love that stays even when it’s hard, a love that began with a commitment that goes beyond feelings and self.
It resonated with me when she said
“your appearance will always be
the least interesting thing about you”
and I think more should be written about what beauty is and should be. Our appearance isn’t inconsequential, but I like that she recognizes that there should be more interesting things about you than the way you look.
The poem where she asks her boyfriend to talk to her, to SEE her, ‘with her clothes on’ is telling of our culture. So much emphasis is put on women empowerment and body exposure and the focus is on the body, the clothes, even the nakedness, that we think that’s what makes us interesting, worthy of spending time with. But it all boils down to lust and selfishness.
When our appearance and the acts of the flesh are what become ultimate we diminish what really makes us who we are. What makes us lovely. When we reduce women to their bodies (no matter who is ‘in control’) we ask others to reduce us to our bodies.
You can’t build a relationship that revolves around the removal of clothes.
It made me feel hopeful.
She doesn’t leave the reader in the depths of her despair and the brokenness of life but pushes them to see life on the other side. She encourages readers that there is more to life than the one relationship that consumed us at the age of 16 and didn’t work out.
There are people who need us, who rely on us, who love us. There are so many reasons to choose life and joy.
That’s the idea behind ‘save me an orange’— save her an orange because she’s going to be around to eat it.
I’m glad there was this redemption to the book when it easily could have just been about brokenness.
To be honest, most of the material of this book was not relatable to me. I didn’t endure a divorce; my relationship with my parents has always been good; I have never had my heart broken; I have never experienced abuse; I have never experienced deep depression or suicidal thoughts.
Those are all very intense things and I’m sure there are a lot of readers who will probably read her words and see their own feelings displayed on the page. That wasn’t the case for me. So this isn’t a book that’s going to sit with me a long time like it might for others.
I’m not sure the style or writing was my favorite either.
It sounds like her second book was largely about heartbreak so I doubt I will read that one.
Recommendation
I am not sure how to recommend this book because I don’t know what people look for when they want to read poetry.
Is it more about structure and creativity and profundity? If so, this probably isn’t the book for you.
Is it more about expressing deep or hard to talk about feelings that relate and resonate? This would probably be a good option for you if you’ve experienced any of the similar things she has.
I have not read a lot of poetry so I can’t even compare this to something else to say- if you like that, you’ll like this. I honestly have no idea if you’ll like this. Some reviewers liken it to Rupi Kaur’s poetry— which I’ve never read and can neither confirm nor deny if it’s like that.
My lower rating for this book is not because I necessarily think it’s terrible, but because if someone was going to ask me for a recommendation for a book of poetry, I doubt this would be the one at the top of my not-yet-existent list. There wasn’t really anything that made me think— ‘people HAVE to read this!’ and though I haven’t fully grasped my opinion about poetry, I think what I recommend should stir more excitement in me about what I’m reading.
While this isn’t poetry that really stuck with me or spoke to me, at the very least it inspired me a little bit to explore poetry and go back to even writing some poetry myself.
[Content Advisory: 2 f-words; some sexual content; implied abuse]
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
“You can’t afford the time that stupid sin will take. There is no time to have the dumb years… The longer you stretch things out, the more of your life you are wasting.”
Apparently I’m on a kick of reading books with ‘dumb’ in the title, having recently finished Big Dumb Eyes and also just discovering the book The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World that I haven’t read but would love some information about.
One of my goals in life is to ‘not be dumb’ so these books all help in different ways I guess.
But seriously this review has been challenging to write. I feel more like (read: I am) one of the old church ladies than the teenagers it’s written for.
I’ve really liked the other Jankovic books that I’ve read and appreciate her very matter-of-fact way of communicating. She doesn’t shy away from speaking hard truths.
However, I’m struggling to discern how this book will come across to teenagers. I’ve talked some with friends who have teenage daughters and so as we discuss I may end up adjusting this review to offer better insights that will help parents decide if this book is a good fit for their daughters.
Jankovic has four teenagers. I’m pretty sure this book grew out of the many conversations and dilemmas that arose with her own kids, so I believe this book to be coming from a place of authenticity with questions and conflicts prevalent for teens today.
Some of the topics include: modesty, peer pressure, emotions, repentance, body image, boys, envy, and more.
The quote I put at the beginning of this review is somewhat the heart of the book that is then fleshed out in the various chapters about different sins you may get distracted by.
She uses the analogy of a brightly lit hallway you’re walking down but you see these dark and mysterious looking doors as you go. Being lured into these dark places are the times we get caught up in and distracted by sin.
She admonishes: “Whatever reason for your desire to wander off, fight it and fight it with all you have. Because once you take a turn down a dark corridor, it can take a very long time to get back out of there. It doesn’t matter how petty the sin is— it is big enough to fight.”
There is a feeling of invincibility that most teenagers have. Plus an added sense of rebellion to authority and being told what to do. (I say this from personal experience in multiple ways.) When you’re in high school or college or heading off into the world, you haven’t gotten old enough to realize everything you don’t know. You think you have a pretty good idea of what’s ahead of you and what your limits are— and you for sure aren’t going to make the same mistakes as your parents.
The ‘no time to be dumb’ title is a bit provocative because no one wants to be called dumb, but I do think it’s a worthy endeavor to try to explain to teenagers how dumb sin takes more of them then they realize. That fighting sin, even little sin they think is a harmless ‘I just want to try it out of curiosity’ can still really hurt them or others in the present or their future self or spouse.
Will teenagers reading this book respond to that? I’m not sure. I’m guessing it will be a mixed bag of reactions. Would I have listened as a teenager? I would like to think I would.
She does make a point to encourage the girls not to write-off all the church ladies and their wisdom because they were all once teenagers too.
Even if you don’t agree with everything she says in this book, I think there is still a lot of good information for teenagers to think about. Perhaps this is a good book for a teenage girl to read with a mom or mentor of some kind. It may work in a girls group setting if led by an adult. Which leads me to….
The presentation of the information is in the form of letters— an aunt to her niece. Her niece is leading a group of peers in a Bible study of sorts and so the letters are the aunt’s way of helping her navigate tricky topics or situations that come up as the group is working together to strive toward godliness.
I do think the conversational and informal way the letters are written is a compelling style for younger readers to stay engaged in because it could easily be a letter written to them. They are short and easy to read.
However, I do wonder if the context of a student-led peer group isn’t a helpful tool for some of these topics. Especially when discussing topics that are not super clear cut like modesty. I worry that with teenage girls who are already very immersed in comparison and judgment and gossip, discussing these things could create tensions or conflict in relationships or a spirit of self-righteousness.
I like the idea of my daughter having a peer who wants to follow Christ and to help keep each other accountable, but the larger that group of ‘accountability’ gets, the more complicated that looks in reality.
Kindness or Flattery?
I do agree with Jankovic’s point that kindness and love are not defined by the absence of conflict and that we need to be okay with some awkwardness or being willing to point out things that are not okay.
We can’t be afraid of conflict; that’s part of how things get normalized that should not.
This kinda ties into the topic of flattery. I thought it was a really interesting connection she makes between flattery of friends and that of men:
Apparently I’m on a kick of reading books with ‘dumb’ in the title, having recently finished Big Dumb Eyes and also just discovering the book The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World that I haven’t read but would love some information about.
One of my goals in life is to ‘not be dumb’ so these books all help in different ways I guess.
But seriously this review has been challenging to write. I feel more like (read: I am) one of the old church ladies than the teenagers it’s written for.
I’ve really liked the other Jankovic books that I’ve read and appreciate her very matter-of-fact way of communicating. She doesn’t shy away from speaking hard truths.
However, I’m struggling to discern how this book will come across to teenagers. I’ve talked some with friends who have teenage daughters and so as we discuss I may end up adjusting this review to offer better insights that will help parents decide if this book is a good fit for their daughters.
Jankovic has four teenagers. I’m pretty sure this book grew out of the many conversations and dilemmas that arose with her own kids, so I believe this book to be coming from a place of authenticity with questions and conflicts prevalent for teens today.
Some of the topics include: modesty, peer pressure, emotions, repentance, body image, boys, envy, and more.
The quote I put at the beginning of this review is somewhat the heart of the book that is then fleshed out in the various chapters about different sins you may get distracted by.
She uses the analogy of a brightly lit hallway you’re walking down but you see these dark and mysterious looking doors as you go. Being lured into these dark places are the times we get caught up in and distracted by sin.
She admonishes: “Whatever reason for your desire to wander off, fight it and fight it with all you have. Because once you take a turn down a dark corridor, it can take a very long time to get back out of there. It doesn’t matter how petty the sin is— it is big enough to fight.”
There is a feeling of invincibility that most teenagers have. Plus an added sense of rebellion to authority and being told what to do. (I say this from personal experience in multiple ways.) When you’re in high school or college or heading off into the world, you haven’t gotten old enough to realize everything you don’t know. You think you have a pretty good idea of what’s ahead of you and what your limits are— and you for sure aren’t going to make the same mistakes as your parents.
The ‘no time to be dumb’ title is a bit provocative because no one wants to be called dumb, but I do think it’s a worthy endeavor to try to explain to teenagers how dumb sin takes more of them then they realize. That fighting sin, even little sin they think is a harmless ‘I just want to try it out of curiosity’ can still really hurt them or others in the present or their future self or spouse.
Will teenagers reading this book respond to that? I’m not sure. I’m guessing it will be a mixed bag of reactions. Would I have listened as a teenager? I would like to think I would.
She does make a point to encourage the girls not to write-off all the church ladies and their wisdom because they were all once teenagers too.
Even if you don’t agree with everything she says in this book, I think there is still a lot of good information for teenagers to think about. Perhaps this is a good book for a teenage girl to read with a mom or mentor of some kind. It may work in a girls group setting if led by an adult. Which leads me to….
The presentation of the information is in the form of letters— an aunt to her niece. Her niece is leading a group of peers in a Bible study of sorts and so the letters are the aunt’s way of helping her navigate tricky topics or situations that come up as the group is working together to strive toward godliness.
I do think the conversational and informal way the letters are written is a compelling style for younger readers to stay engaged in because it could easily be a letter written to them. They are short and easy to read.
However, I do wonder if the context of a student-led peer group isn’t a helpful tool for some of these topics. Especially when discussing topics that are not super clear cut like modesty. I worry that with teenage girls who are already very immersed in comparison and judgment and gossip, discussing these things could create tensions or conflict in relationships or a spirit of self-righteousness.
I like the idea of my daughter having a peer who wants to follow Christ and to help keep each other accountable, but the larger that group of ‘accountability’ gets, the more complicated that looks in reality.
Kindness or Flattery?
I do agree with Jankovic’s point that kindness and love are not defined by the absence of conflict and that we need to be okay with some awkwardness or being willing to point out things that are not okay.
We can’t be afraid of conflict; that’s part of how things get normalized that should not.
This kinda ties into the topic of flattery. I thought it was a really interesting connection she makes between flattery of friends and that of men:
“When you start training each other to need flattery, you start thinking that flattery is niceness. You start thinking that kindness is people falling all over themselves about your outfit or your haircut or how unbelievably talented you are. You start expecting a lot of petting and admiration. You can actually take a pretty secure girl with loving parents and a wonderful life and make her desperate to hear lies. This kind of thing is incredibly common on social media— social media can serve as a gateway drug to the habit of lying to each other… completely inflated overblown and unrealistic comments…”
Not only does this acceptance of ‘this is how you respond to a compliment’ behavior diminishes true kindness, it makes you vulnerable to accept this kind of ‘kindness’ (flattery) from men who use it for dishonorable means. We don’t want to be girls and women who are lured in by flattery but are won by honest, reasonable, rational ways of expressing their love.
After talking about flattery she connected it to physical touch and how friendships between girls can develop a lot of physical touch like sitting on each others’ laps or constantly touching each other’s hair or rubbing each other’s backs or snuggling. I remember a time in college where a few of my friendships had been like this.
And then I got married and looking back I’m not sure why. Of course everyone desires intimacy with someone but there are better ways to handle that desire. Adult friends aren’t constantly touching each other or sitting on laps— we’ve discovered other ways to cultivate appropriate intimacy.
“The physical relationship you will someday share with your husband is so important (in so many ways), and there is no reason to add baggage or confusion to it in advance… Whatever awkwardness it takes to get and maintain appropriate boundaries is worth it. Once you stir up and awaken physical love, it is hard to control. You’ve created an appetite with no wise or lawful way to satisfy it.”
For a lot of the topics discussed in the book, she’s targeting that feeling we get where we go ‘Hm. Why are we doing this? This doesn’t seem right’ but no one wants to cause disruption or feel awkward and we justify it that ‘it’s not a big deal; it’s harmless; I won’t rock the boat over it’ and then all of a sudden it’s ‘normal’ and we still don’t know why we do it.
I think that’s an important part of this book— it’s not Rachel trying to be God and prescribe specific behaviors. It’s her bringing things to the surface and asking the reader to reflect honestly on the behavior, the thought, the idea, the message and look to Christ. Is it good? Is it true? Is it lovely? Is it right?
It’s true that we often ignore our ulterior motives— there’s nothing wrong with this shirt! It’s just a shirt! But is it, though? With so many things if we are honest with ourselves we KNOW what we’re doing. We KNOW if something is right or wrong. We KNOW our doublemind. She’s saying- ‘stop pretending and think about it. Don’t be dumb. Be honest and be discerning. It’s worth it.’
Homemaking?
One drive of the book is this idea of homemaking and learning skills. It’s this aspect that might lose some of the teen readers. While I desired to be a wife and mother someday, I’m not sure learning how to make a home was a top priority for me in middle school and high school.
She includes a list of ideas of skills to learn (with the assumption that you’re already learning other types of skills with schoolwork) but there weren’t a lot that resonated with me, even as an adult: I don’t want to make a roasted chicken or a quiche. I cross stitch and I paint but I’m not into knitting.
She gives the disclaimer that these are just ideas, mark it up, cross off and add to it, she just encourages readers to take the time to learn a useful skill, have a hobby, be an interesting person.
To this, I say- yes! There are so many things I don’t have time for now as an adult and mother of three. Things I want to learn or things I wished I had spent more time learning better when I was younger and carefree. Teenagers don’t understand the opportunities they have and maybe they won’t even when we tell them, but I think it’s worth trying to spur them on to invest their time in learning skills rather than scrolling their phones.
I do wonder if cell phones and social media have made people less interesting. What do they have to talk about if their time is spent glued to the screen and their hands are idle. What do they have to show for the day?
Jankovic and her sister, Rebekah Merkle, both use their platform to advocate for elevating homemaking. Not even that women should be stay-at-home moms but that the attitude toward ‘making a home’ should be honored instead of dismissed.
Women valuing their work and pursuing excellence in it “shouldn’t be filed under the category of ‘not working.’” This isn’t a pulling down of women in the corporate world, but boosting up the work of women in the home.
What, then, is homemaking? This book perhaps seems to be setting forth a definition of that, but I think there is more freedom than the reader will most likely at first derive here.
I wonder if this idea might be distracting or confusing for the target audience.
I do think what’s on page 116-117 is a good reminder, though, that the home is a battleground that the enemy wants women to ‘disappear’ from. To invest in the home and find joy in work done in the home brings glory to God and thwarts the strategies of the devil.
The Critiques
The bottom of page 78 mentions kids raised in daycare and public school “while their mothers prioritized their careers” and I probably shouldn’t take this completely out of the context, and I’m not trying to make much of it but I did wonder if this was a dig at public schools?
I think she would say it’s not a dig at public schools but is a comment directed toward a generation of mothers who desired to invest all their time and energy into their work instead of in teaching and investing in their kids— which you can do even if they attend public school and even if you work outside the home. The emphasis is on your attitude and if, wherever you are, you are pointed toward home or away from home.
I agree with another reviewer that it was TMI on the knitting tips. I’m sure there are readers who are interested in that, and if it were tips on painting water colors without turning your paper into a watery soupy mess, I’d be eating it up. But I don’t care about knitting. This is probably one of those things where you can just pass over it and not let it ruin the book for you, but you don’t have to love knitting; it’s okay to move on.
Another reviewer thought the section on porn was too short. And that’s probably true. The chapter called that is only a couple pages. I do think pornography, which is way more prevalent for boys, is increasing for girls and probably should be talked about more. Especially when so much of the internet is basically porn but somehow allowed and somehow allowed to just pop up on all kinds of apps for no particular reason. It feels impossible to avoid.
To this I would say, yes, we do need to talk more with our daughters about that. This was never meant to be an exhaustive book about every topic. Use it as a launching point and go beyond the book in areas you feel like your teenager needs.
There are several reviewers who hate the book because of its fundamentalist theology. Primarily the roles of husband and wife. [Read ‘Fundamentalism’ and the Word of God by J.I. Packer to delve into why the word fundamentalism has baggage and what proper theology should be]
Now I’m not here to defend their father, Douglas Wilson, or his church, and there are definitely ways that men have wrongly used Scripture to try to dominate or control women. It should be said that the proper reading of Scripture does not allow for this.
No this book is not a treatise on ‘how to find the best husband’ or an exposition on the applicable Bible passages, but I don’t understand the reviewers who are offended by the way Rachel presents a wife’s relationship to her husband. There are actually things in here encouraging girls to stand up for themselves against boys that make them uncomfortable. She says to find a husband that doesn’t push you into things but leads you.
Because of the context and length of the book I think there has to be some leniency on what is or is not clarified or disclaimered as if this is the complete entirety of what Rachel believes about the husband/wife relationship.
I read the book and saw an encouragement to teenage girls to pursue Christ in everything, even if it puts you in an awkward position. I didn’t read it as a prescriptive checklist to be the best version of yourself.
I do think more caution should have been used in terms of what girls should be saying to each other in regards to all of these things and being ‘accountable’ to one another, for sure. Probably disagree the most with her on that point.
I’m not even offended by her tone though I’m not surprised that some are. I think that’s part of what she is pushing against— this idea that strength in truth is rude or offensive and the ultimate thing we could do in our lives is ‘be kind.’ She’s always had a bold, no-nonsense style of writing not to be harsh but to exhort and inspire us to rise above the ‘comfortable’ and the ‘feel good’ and live the holy and sacrificial but better way that is in Christ.
Recommendation
Overall, I think this is a good discussion-starter book that a mom or mentor should read with the teenage girls in their life. There is a lot of good information and encouragement in here that young women should hear and think about even if it’s a bolder voice than they may be used to.
It’s likely you won’t agree with everything she says, but it’s a good launching point to figure out the areas your particular teenage girl may need to flesh out more.
The heart of the book is about pursuing Christ and growing in wisdom and discernment in a culture that wants us to fall in line with ‘the norm.’
I’m not the target audience and I don’t have a teenage daughter, so I’m still gathering feedback from other moms who have read this with their daughters and finding out what they thought of it. If I get new information that I feel is important for other readers/women to know as far as who should be reading or recommending this book, I will add updates to this review.
**Received a copy via Canon Press in exchange for an honest review**
challenging
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
“The love of God in our culture has been purged of anything the culture finds uncomfortable. The love of God has been sanitized, democratized, and above all sentimentalized.”
If you feel confused by the idea that the love of God is a ‘difficult’ doctrine, it’s possible you’ve drifted into a sentimentalized view of what God’s love is.
This book, less than 100 pages, may be a great way for you to evaluate the way you think about what you mean when you talk about God’s love. Clearly we can’t reduce or comprehensively do justice to all that God’s love entails, but, for such a short book, Carson does a really good job of covering some big pieces.
Carson provides a framework— the five ways Scripture distinguishes the love of God:
1. The love between the three members of the Trinity
2. God’s providential love over his creation
3. God’s salvific love toward a fallen world
4. God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect
5. God’s love in the sense of being conditioned on our obedience
I won’t include all the biblical references for all of these here, but you’ll find these all throughout all of Scripture.
So one of the main themes of this book is how Carson reveals what happens if one of these is emphasized over another.
If you feel confused by the idea that the love of God is a ‘difficult’ doctrine, it’s possible you’ve drifted into a sentimentalized view of what God’s love is.
This book, less than 100 pages, may be a great way for you to evaluate the way you think about what you mean when you talk about God’s love. Clearly we can’t reduce or comprehensively do justice to all that God’s love entails, but, for such a short book, Carson does a really good job of covering some big pieces.
Carson provides a framework— the five ways Scripture distinguishes the love of God:
1. The love between the three members of the Trinity
2. God’s providential love over his creation
3. God’s salvific love toward a fallen world
4. God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect
5. God’s love in the sense of being conditioned on our obedience
I won’t include all the biblical references for all of these here, but you’ll find these all throughout all of Scripture.
So one of the main themes of this book is how Carson reveals what happens if one of these is emphasized over another.
“It is easy to see what will happen if any one of these five biblical ways of talking about the love of God is absolutized and made exclusive, or made the controlling grid by which the other ways of talking about the love of God are relativized…
We must not view these ways of talking about the love of God as independent, compartmentalized, loves of God…we must hold these truths together and learn to integrate them in biblical proportion and balance.”
We need to learn how to identify in Bible passages which way God’s love is being talked about, and that will help us understand places where it seems like God’s love is contradictory.
I won’t talk about each of these in my review because there’s one particular chapter that is grabbing my attention right now, but I do want to at least mention:
- In regards to the Trinitarian love chapter, it might be helpful to also check out the last chapter of Tim Keller’s book The Reason for God called ‘The Dance of God’ which talks about that in a little more accessible way if you find this book more complex on that chapter.
- In regards to the chapter on the relationship between God’s love and his sovereignty, I would also recommend a couple other books: Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer and Chosen for Life by Sam Storms. This is where the Arminian vs Calvinist theology is discussed. It is also a discussion on his immutability— can God change? or change his mind? I will include three quotes here that are important to these questions.
“A God who is terribly vulnerable to the pain caused by our rebellion is scarcely a God who is in control or a God who is so perfect he does not, strictly speaking, need us. The modern therapeutic God may be superficially attractive because he appeals to our emotions, but the cost will soon be high… God himself is gradually diminished and reduced from what he actually is. And that is idolatry.”
“Closer to the mark is the recognition that all of God’s emotions, including his love in all its aspects, cannot be divorced from God’s knowledge, God’s power, God’s will. If God loves, it is because he chooses to love; if he suffers, it is because he chooses to suffer. God is impassible in the sense that he sustains no “passion,” no emotion, that makes him vulnerable from the outside, over which he has no control, or which he has not foreseen.”
“Our passions change our direction and priorities, domesticating our will, controlling our misery and our happiness, surprising and destroying or establishing our commitments. But God’s ‘passions,’ like everything else in God, are displayed in conjunction with the fullness of all his other perfections”
The chapter on the relationship between God’s love and God’s wrath was probably my favorite at the time of this reading because (if you’ve been following along on other books I’ve recently read) I’ve been thinking through the theology of Progressive Christianity which has a real problem with God’s wrath.
I won’t define Progressive Christianity here (read THIS review if you want to go into it more) but the primary adherents can’t reconcile a God of love with a God of wrath.
They say things like: How could a loving God sanction genocide? If it’s wrong for me to murder, it’s wrong for God to murder. How could a loving God send people to hell? God is not retributive, he’s restorative. Jesus changes the image of God and ‘corrects’ the wrath from the Old Testament.
The thing is, whether you like it or not, God’s wrath is real and it is portrayed throughout the whole of Scripture.
But I like how Carson points out that God’s love and God’s wrath are not on the same spectrum. More love doesn’t mean less wrath and more wrath doesn’t mean less love. They are not opposing forces.
“Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God’s holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath— but there will always be love in God. Where God in his holiness confronts his image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God he claims to be, and his holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God’s wrath is diminishing his holiness.”
It is hard for us not to apply human experience with emotions to God as if humans and God must or do function the same way. We do not. Just like it’s appropriate for God to be jealous and to receive praise, it is wrong for us. There are ways where God’s emotions function and work differently than ours— he is the Creator and we are the created. We can’t lose sight of that.
“God’s love is not generated by the loveliness of the loved. Thus there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time.”
Carson corrects the misconception that the New Testament ‘corrects’ our understanding of God’s love and wrath, but that, instead:
“The reality is that the OT displays the grace and love of God in experience and types, and these realities become all the clearer in the new covenant writings. Similarly, the OT displays the righteous wrath of God in experience and types, and these realities become all the clearer in the new covenant writings. In other words, both God’s love and God’s wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new.”
Carson corrects the misconception that God is full of wrath and Jesus is full of love and thus mollifies the stream of constant wrath coming from God towards his people.
“Here it is not that God is reluctant while his Son wins him over; rather, it is God himself who sends his Son. Thus (to return to Hebrews), even if our great high priest intercedes for us and pleads his own blood on our behalf, we must never think of this as an independent action that the Father somehow did not know about or reluctantly approved, eventually won over by the independently originating sacrifice of his Son. The Son himself comes into the world by the express command of the Father.”
This is also how we must look at the cross. The cross was not God murdering Jesus. God the Father sent Jesus, his Son, to the cross because he loved. Jesus voluntarily went to the cross because he loved. It was a communal act of love, not an egregious act of cosmic child abuse.
Carson clarifies the confusion with limited and unlimited atonement and puts forth the labels of general vs definite atonement. I already held Calvinist beliefs about election so his arguments here confirmed what I already believed about (in short) how the distinguishing reason between those who end up in heaven and those who don’t must reside in God, not in us, lest we have any reason to boast.
I think the biggest surprise of the book was when Carson took on the oft-stated (I confess I’ve used this myself) cliché- ‘God hates the sin but loves the sinner’:
“There is an element of truth in these words: God has nothing but hate for the sin, but it would be wrong to conclude that God has nothing but hate for the sinner… Nevertheless the cliche is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin and on the sinner.”
“God in his perfections must be wrathful against his rebel image-bearers, for they have offended him; God in his perfections must be loving toward his rebel image-bearers, for he is that kind of God.”
It feels uncomfortable to say some of these things, but that doesn’t make them untrue. We just must do our due diligence to take God at his Word, and all of his Word. His hatred of both sin and the sinner displays his holiness, but his forgiveness toward the sinner displays his love and grace. We can’t emphasize one aspect of God’s love at the expense of another.
There was one section where Carson is looking at the Greek words for love but they are written in Greek and I had no idea which word was which and I had no idea how to even Google words in a non-English-letter language to understand what he was talking about. As I’m writing this, I realize I might have been able to use the translate feature in the camera app, but I would have preferred the English version of the word in parentheses so I could follow along better on that part.
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book, especially for those who struggle with understanding the relationship between God’s love and human responsibility or God’s love and his wrath.
It’s a low time commitment book and there are resources within for further reading, but to boil it down to such a short book, Carson gets the big rocks and includes enough to defend the position that the ‘traditional’ understanding of God’s love and his wrath and his election stands on Scripture and is not in opposition to one another.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“There’s a lot of history here in the region, and where there’s a lot of history somewhere, you can be sure you’ll find a lot of tragedy. And where there’s a lot of tragedy, there always seem to be a lot of ghosts— or at least stories about them.”
Steven James is one of my go-to authors for good suspense thrillers. I’ve read the vast majority of his books including the Patrick Bowers series and the Travis Brock series— both excellent.
Rift, though, is a departure from his MO. At least in terms of content and genre.
The website for this trilogy describes this as a ‘young adult folklore horror’ novel.
It’s set in the Appalachian mountains and, having visited that area multiple times, James definitely captures the Smoky Mountain folklore vibes and mystery.
The main character is a teenage girl which is also different than he normally writes (adult male). I thought that was an interesting change, but good for him for branching out. He does give credit to a few females in the acknowledgements who helped him ‘get into’ the mind of a teenage girl. I thought he did a pretty good job with that as well.
This book is less about suspense and more about supernatural creepiness. Not necessarily in the evil, dark, demonic sense, as much as the evil, fantasy world sense.
Basic Premise
The story begins with the tragic death of Sahara’s dad who drowned when his car went off the icy road he was driving on to go after Sahara following a fight they had. It was a life-altering moment for Sahara. Not just to lose her father, but words were said and truths revealed that also drove a wedge between her and her mom.
Her mother, struggling deeply with the grief of her husband’s death, sends Sahara from Wisconsin to live with her grandmother in Tennessee.
While working at her new job at the library she discovers a blocked off area in the basement that used to serve as a holding area for coffins (corpses) back when the library was a train station and they needed a cold dry place to store bodies in between train rides.
Even though Sahara knows she has an overactive imagination (“a polyphiloprogenitive mind” for anyone who wants a new word to use), she is convinced there was some sort of other being in that dark, haunted room with her. A ‘thin place’ where another realm bumps up into our reality. Perhaps even a portal to this other world where something may be trying to cross over.
Things get more real when Sahara, a rather good story-teller, sees these ghost stories manifesting themselves in her world. With the help of some friends from school, they investigate and try to somehow close the ‘rift.’
Though a seemingly simplistic plot, there are some deeper threads woven into this adventure.
First, we continue to walk with Sahara as she grieves and remembers her dad and carries the guilt of their last conversation. All the what ifs that led to her loss and drove her away from her mom.
“What do you do when you can’t pick up the pieces of a broken life but also can’t seem to move on without them?”
“I’m both, somehow, at the same time: the billowing sail and the sinking ship. Somehow, I feel like I am heading toward the future while also being dragged down by the past.”
She is in an identity crisis looking for a place to belong, a place to be loved. So we explore grief, family, friendship/found family.
“Tragic stuff happening to you doesn’t change who you are. It just reveals who you are underneath. The real you.”
Second, we have the concept of story. Stories handed down. Stories written down. What do stories do, what are they for? How do stories grow and change?
Steven James has written a few non-fiction books where he explores story. I’ve always appreciated his deep thinking and the way he incorporates that into his books.
Here are a few quotes from this book:
“We turn our pain into narrative so we can bear it; we turn our ecstasy into narrative so we can prolong it. We tell our stories to live.”— John Shea
“Stories are perennials. They’ll keep flowering as long as they’re told and retold and allowed to grow in the wild.”
“Some doors were never meant to be opened. Some tales were never meant to be told.”
Sahara earns herself the nickname ‘Zod’ which in a roundabout way comes from the story of 1001 Arabian Nights. The story is told in the book so I won’t spoil it if you don’t already know it but in the story Scheherazade (see: Sahara-zade to Zod) is a heroic storyteller.
James recognizes and incorporates the biblical truth of self-sacrifice that is so common in story:
“‘I’m guessing your story’s climax required a valiant choice or a selfless act, because ‘happily ever after’ always comes at a cost.’”
Love always costs us something.
This is brought up in terms of a ‘good story’ and then is part of Rift as the book climaxes and Sahara is faced with her own valiant choice or selfless act. It is also what leaves this book on a cliffhanger!
I thought these two quotes were thought-provoking and may make good discussion topics:
“Love hurts because to love someone you have to give away part of yourself and— obviously— you suffer when you lose them. And you do all of this willingly. But love is essential, so maybe it is torture— the kind that keeps us alive, gives us a reason for living.”
“If the choice costs nothing, it means nothing.”
A note on the ‘creepiness’ factor of the book: If you’re used to reading horror or a bit gruesome novels, what’s in here probably won’t even make you flinch. If you are apprehensive about what that means in this story I will say it’s not over the top but there are a couple ‘ghost stories’ that are told that involve “skin and hair and teeth and blood in the closet”.
There are also talk of elementals and changelings. Of elementals, it is said,
“They’re like livin’ shadows, formless and hungry and bent on causin’ nothing but pain and suffering. Some people say they feed on fear and tears and the dread of children.”
There are definitely moments that will make you scrunch up your nose or feel creeped out. So if any of that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, this probably isn’t the book for you. If you like some creepiness or ghostly elements, then you will probably enjoy this.
Now if you’re looking for extreme levels of horror, you also won’t find that here. It’s a good in-between.
Considering how this book left off, I’m guessing there is ‘more where that came from’ coming down the line in book two, as well. It’s the theme of the series.
A note on the local delicacy of using Goo Goo Clusters to make smores: we are headed to Tenneesse in August and we may need to try this treat while we spend a week in the Smokies!
A note on the publication: I see there aren’t many reviews for the book even though it published last December. I’m not sure if this didn’t get the same kind of marketing as his other books or if his usual audience was unsure about this diversion from the norm. I’m also a bit confused because it looks like the second book was supposed to come out in April but I can’t find it or any information on it. Just an overall odd rabbit trail Steven James has found himself on.
Recommendation
If you enjoy Steven James and aren’t afraid of a little ghost story, I would definitely recommend.
If you prefer Steven James’ typical type of thriller this may not scratch the itch for you.
If you avoid all things supernatural/creepy/teeth and bones, then by all means, avoid this book as well.
If you say- ‘the more guts and demons, the merrier’ then this is also not going to scratch your itch.
Like I mentioned, this is a new type of book coming from Steven James so I’m not entirely sure what to expect going forward in the series, but if I can find the others, I plan to see what happens to Sahara and the rift!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; ‘ghosts’ or supernatural beings are part of the story and some stories told within are a bit gruesome]
Steven James is one of my go-to authors for good suspense thrillers. I’ve read the vast majority of his books including the Patrick Bowers series and the Travis Brock series— both excellent.
Rift, though, is a departure from his MO. At least in terms of content and genre.
The website for this trilogy describes this as a ‘young adult folklore horror’ novel.
It’s set in the Appalachian mountains and, having visited that area multiple times, James definitely captures the Smoky Mountain folklore vibes and mystery.
The main character is a teenage girl which is also different than he normally writes (adult male). I thought that was an interesting change, but good for him for branching out. He does give credit to a few females in the acknowledgements who helped him ‘get into’ the mind of a teenage girl. I thought he did a pretty good job with that as well.
This book is less about suspense and more about supernatural creepiness. Not necessarily in the evil, dark, demonic sense, as much as the evil, fantasy world sense.
Basic Premise
The story begins with the tragic death of Sahara’s dad who drowned when his car went off the icy road he was driving on to go after Sahara following a fight they had. It was a life-altering moment for Sahara. Not just to lose her father, but words were said and truths revealed that also drove a wedge between her and her mom.
Her mother, struggling deeply with the grief of her husband’s death, sends Sahara from Wisconsin to live with her grandmother in Tennessee.
While working at her new job at the library she discovers a blocked off area in the basement that used to serve as a holding area for coffins (corpses) back when the library was a train station and they needed a cold dry place to store bodies in between train rides.
Even though Sahara knows she has an overactive imagination (“a polyphiloprogenitive mind” for anyone who wants a new word to use), she is convinced there was some sort of other being in that dark, haunted room with her. A ‘thin place’ where another realm bumps up into our reality. Perhaps even a portal to this other world where something may be trying to cross over.
Things get more real when Sahara, a rather good story-teller, sees these ghost stories manifesting themselves in her world. With the help of some friends from school, they investigate and try to somehow close the ‘rift.’
Though a seemingly simplistic plot, there are some deeper threads woven into this adventure.
First, we continue to walk with Sahara as she grieves and remembers her dad and carries the guilt of their last conversation. All the what ifs that led to her loss and drove her away from her mom.
“What do you do when you can’t pick up the pieces of a broken life but also can’t seem to move on without them?”
“I’m both, somehow, at the same time: the billowing sail and the sinking ship. Somehow, I feel like I am heading toward the future while also being dragged down by the past.”
She is in an identity crisis looking for a place to belong, a place to be loved. So we explore grief, family, friendship/found family.
“Tragic stuff happening to you doesn’t change who you are. It just reveals who you are underneath. The real you.”
Second, we have the concept of story. Stories handed down. Stories written down. What do stories do, what are they for? How do stories grow and change?
Steven James has written a few non-fiction books where he explores story. I’ve always appreciated his deep thinking and the way he incorporates that into his books.
Here are a few quotes from this book:
“We turn our pain into narrative so we can bear it; we turn our ecstasy into narrative so we can prolong it. We tell our stories to live.”— John Shea
“Stories are perennials. They’ll keep flowering as long as they’re told and retold and allowed to grow in the wild.”
“Some doors were never meant to be opened. Some tales were never meant to be told.”
Sahara earns herself the nickname ‘Zod’ which in a roundabout way comes from the story of 1001 Arabian Nights. The story is told in the book so I won’t spoil it if you don’t already know it but in the story Scheherazade (see: Sahara-zade to Zod) is a heroic storyteller.
James recognizes and incorporates the biblical truth of self-sacrifice that is so common in story:
“‘I’m guessing your story’s climax required a valiant choice or a selfless act, because ‘happily ever after’ always comes at a cost.’”
Love always costs us something.
This is brought up in terms of a ‘good story’ and then is part of Rift as the book climaxes and Sahara is faced with her own valiant choice or selfless act. It is also what leaves this book on a cliffhanger!
I thought these two quotes were thought-provoking and may make good discussion topics:
“Love hurts because to love someone you have to give away part of yourself and— obviously— you suffer when you lose them. And you do all of this willingly. But love is essential, so maybe it is torture— the kind that keeps us alive, gives us a reason for living.”
“If the choice costs nothing, it means nothing.”
A note on the ‘creepiness’ factor of the book: If you’re used to reading horror or a bit gruesome novels, what’s in here probably won’t even make you flinch. If you are apprehensive about what that means in this story I will say it’s not over the top but there are a couple ‘ghost stories’ that are told that involve “skin and hair and teeth and blood in the closet”.
There are also talk of elementals and changelings. Of elementals, it is said,
“They’re like livin’ shadows, formless and hungry and bent on causin’ nothing but pain and suffering. Some people say they feed on fear and tears and the dread of children.”
There are definitely moments that will make you scrunch up your nose or feel creeped out. So if any of that kind of thing makes you uncomfortable, this probably isn’t the book for you. If you like some creepiness or ghostly elements, then you will probably enjoy this.
Now if you’re looking for extreme levels of horror, you also won’t find that here. It’s a good in-between.
Considering how this book left off, I’m guessing there is ‘more where that came from’ coming down the line in book two, as well. It’s the theme of the series.
A note on the local delicacy of using Goo Goo Clusters to make smores: we are headed to Tenneesse in August and we may need to try this treat while we spend a week in the Smokies!
A note on the publication: I see there aren’t many reviews for the book even though it published last December. I’m not sure if this didn’t get the same kind of marketing as his other books or if his usual audience was unsure about this diversion from the norm. I’m also a bit confused because it looks like the second book was supposed to come out in April but I can’t find it or any information on it. Just an overall odd rabbit trail Steven James has found himself on.
Recommendation
If you enjoy Steven James and aren’t afraid of a little ghost story, I would definitely recommend.
If you prefer Steven James’ typical type of thriller this may not scratch the itch for you.
If you avoid all things supernatural/creepy/teeth and bones, then by all means, avoid this book as well.
If you say- ‘the more guts and demons, the merrier’ then this is also not going to scratch your itch.
Like I mentioned, this is a new type of book coming from Steven James so I’m not entirely sure what to expect going forward in the series, but if I can find the others, I plan to see what happens to Sahara and the rift!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
[Content Advisory: no swearing or sexual content; ‘ghosts’ or supernatural beings are part of the story and some stories told within are a bit gruesome]
hopeful
informative
fast-paced
On this day 1700 years ago The Nicene Creed was first adopted.
This is a very short (less than 100 pages) book taking you through the Nicene Creed— what the Council was all about, what the creed says, what it means, and why it matters.
DeYoung wrote a similarly short book on The Lord’s Prayer and these also remind me of Jen Wilkin’s book, Ten Words to Live By, about the ten commandments. All three books take specific ‘statements’ that the church practices or believes and fleshes them out in deeper ways than an average church-goer may even know about.
Just because something is tradition and been taught for years and years doesn’t mean it’s to be discarded, but you should know what it means and why you memorize it and quote it. These books help your understanding.
I was interested in The Nicene Creed book because I realized I had never memorized it and knew only a little about the creed and the Council of Nicaea.
When I heard people making claims about the council and the creed saying that it was where people of power got to decide what books would be in the Bible or claiming that the council was evidence that the church has never agreed about anything, I knew that I needed to learn a little more about what actually went on there.
To the first argument, THIS is also a good, succinct explanation about how the Council of Nicaea was not a council to pick the books of the Bible (Kruger is a New Testament scholar and an expert in how the Bible was canonized). The Council was about articulating what the Church believed about the divinity of Jesus.
Historical Context
I thought Kevin DeYoung did a really good job of explaining the history and context of the Council and acknowledging the intentions behind the differing views.
“We learn something about heresy by examining Arius’s logic: heresy almost always involves denying one truth in an attempt to safeguard another truth.”
In Egypt, 318 AD, Arius publicly declared his theological views on the divinity of Christ.
“The issue in Arius’s mind was not how a man could be God but how God could become a man. Arius wanted to protect monotheism and the unity of God. He saw himself as defending the majesty and sovereignty of God the Father.”
“The issue was how to understand the Son’s begottenness. Arius argued that begetting implies a beginning…. Arius’s famous phrase was ‘there was a time when he was not.’”
So the Council met to better articulate what we believe about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the end, Arianism was condemned and the divinity of Jesus upheld.
One of the key words in the creed is homoousios which was the term they landed on to describe how the Son was of the ‘same essence’ as the Father.
It should be noted that the original creed was overwritten in 381, but the theology remained the same:
“The Council of Constantinople (381) didn’t simply repeat or revise the Creed of Nicaea (325). In fact, Nicaea’s creed is largely forgotten. In one sense, Constantinople established a “new” creed, probably taken from a liturgical formula that had developed since the original council. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the bishops at Constantinople did not see themselves as writing a new creed but merely expanding and reestablishing the orthodox truth affirmed in 325… Even though the words didn’t come directly from Nicaea, the theology did.”
I will say that I think it could have been helpful to have some sort of diagrams or maps to help visualize what groups were located where, etc.
Solid Doctrine or Right Living?
If you’re wondering about creeds in general, I thought it was interesting that DeYoung reminds us how different Roman religion was in the ancient world compared to what Jesus taught. Roman religion cared far less about doctrines and focused more on cultic rituals of sacrifices, experiences, civic virtue, and the practices done in temples.
It can’t be overstated that for Christians— what we believe (our doctrines) are of utmost importance. Right doctrine (orthodoxy) should lead to right living (orthopraxy) but we can’t have one without the other.
“To be sure, the apostolic message exhorted people to live godly lives but only in conjunction with a robust message about sin, salvation, incarnation, resurrection, atonement, reconciliation, and eternal life. Any gospel that denies these essentials or ignores them or skips over them to get to something else or leads people to doubt them or does not deal straightforwardly with them is, in effect, a different gospel. The Christian faith is more than a doctrine to be believed, but it is never less.”
This is forefront in my mind because having read Alisa Childer’s book, Another Gospel?, and watching a video from The New Evangelicals (linked in previous linked review), it is clear that Progressive Christianity has chosen leniency and ‘freedom’ in doctrine and it truly changes the gospel message and everything about what Jesus taught.
Here are just a few verses that remind us that right doctrine is not just a modern convention or a tactic invented for control or power, it was understood by Jesus’s disciples as essential to the faith:
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
“but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone…” (Eph 2:19-20)
“so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” (1 Tim 1:3)
“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Tim 6:20)
“He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it… This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.” (Titus 1:9, 13)
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.” (Rom 16:17)
“‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” (John 14:15)
Having established the importance of the creed (the first of its kind), DeYoung spends the next chapters taking specific phrases from the creed, explaining why it was included or the principle of truth that it was articulating:
Only Begotten; One Substance; For Us and for Our Salvation; Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son; One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; One Baptism for the Remission of Sins
[If you are interested in the doctrine of the Trinity and how we can believe this doctrine, I would recommend this narrative, logic-focused book called Monothreeism that explores how believing the Trinity makes as much sense as believing in our own existence.]
Church Unity and False Teachers
I won’t go into all of them, but one that stuck out to me was the one holy catholic and apostolic church. Again, because of the claims of Progressive Christianity.
Progressives often condemn conservative Christians for sacrificing unity in the church by holding to traditional doctrine. Conservatives are being the divisive ones, not progressives, they say.
But DeYoung rightly states
“The oneness of the church is not a call to discount doctrine and to foster institutional unity at all costs… Paul celebrated unity in the midst of diversity, but that diversity was not theological.”
Ephesians 4:1-16 describes the unity of the church including that it is called to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all”.
As the verses earlier stated— sound doctrine is important and at the center of what binds Christians together in Christ because it is about Christ and his work on the cross.
We don’t have councils to make up new doctrine, “new threats to the faith merit new efforts to delineate truth from error” and The Nicene Creed, which has stood the test of time, is an example of when better articulating the doctrine taught in Scripture keeps the Church unified in what matters most.
We are warned about false teachers. And I think a lot of Christians get false teachers mixed up with pagans. Those who practice other religions are not the false teachers, those are just pagans. The false teachers are in the church, twisting God’s words. They are masquerading as light; they are often subtle and hard to detect.
This helpful article delineates the patterns of false teachers: question what God says, defy or reject what God says, and offer a ‘better’ alternative that appeals to natural appetites.
The way we protect against false teachers is by guarding the deposit of sound doctrine that Jesus taught and entrusted the apostles to uphold. Jesus told them he would send the Holy Spirit to help them understand everything he had already been teaching them so we can trust what they say.
That is why ‘apostolic’ is important and the basis for which the New Testament books had authority.
I can’t help but also think of Gavin Ortlund’s book— Finding the Right Hills to Die On— which is a book about theological triage. He seeks to consider a gradation system on issues that are top tier, nonnegotiable doctrines (i.e. what is stated in the Nicene Creed), down to the lowest tier issues that are matter of opinion (i.e. what worship musical instrumentation should be).
He writes to give a good reminder not to let your passion for truth and upholding solid doctrine cause you to lose humility or care for others’ hearts. These things are not opposed to one another. To be upholding truth and following Jesus’s teachings and example should also look like humility and love. Humility and love, when practiced, should not be void of truth and the light of salvation as taught by Jesus.
To be a unified, global church does not require our worship services to look the same or even our baptism practices to be identical, but it does require theological unity in salvific doctrines.
Summary Statements
I really liked that he included six statements of summary— our takeaways from looking at the Nicene Creed. I’m including them simplified here, but he gives a little bit more explanation in the book
1. The Nicene Creed stresses the importance of believing the right thing
2. The history of the Nicene Creed teaches us that new statements (and modified statements) are often necessary to combat new errors
“The Nicene Creed is a creedal floor, not a creedal ceiling…”
3. The Nicene Creed models for us the central importance of the Trinity
4. The Nicene Creed underscores the importance of “religion” for Christian life and worship
“Christians have gotten into a bad habit of making ‘religion’ the bad guy opposite the good guy of the gospel. If religion means man-made worship or man’s attempt to earn God’s favor on his own, then Christianity has no place for religion. But usually when people talk about being ‘spiritual but not religious,’ they mean that they want a faith that is unencumbered by doctrinal boundaries, sacred rites, and the institution of the church with its authority structure and obligations.”
5. The Nicene Creed is not embarrassed to view Christianity with a soteriological focus
“Sometimes you hear people say that modern evangelicals invented this salvation-focused gospel… or that medieval people were scared into believing in a God of judgment because the church wanted to control them… but we see right here in the fourth century that the church conceived of the Christian faith as irreducibly about sin and salvation, about judgment and forgiveness, about how we can be saved from the human problem that is sin and death.”
6. The Nicene Creed points us to the future… it deliberately ends on a note of expectation and hope
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book. You can probably read it in one or two sittings and it will bring clarity and transparency to some of the doctrines you may have started wondering why you adhere to or recite.
It’s not meant to be exhaustive, but the ancient creeds the Church has upheld has not done so for no apparent reason or for nefarious purposes. We have creeds that affirm what God’s Word already revealed and if you haven’t been taught the ‘why’ then you should read the book.
And definitely, if you think the Council of Nicaea was a power struggle about choosing the books of the Bible, you should do some more research about that, including reading this book.
This is a low commitment, high reward kind of read.
I hope DeYoung continues to put out these short books that help the average church-goer to see the foundation of the church as it pertains to Scripture instead of a set of traditions with no real meaning.
**Received a copy via Crossway Publishers in exchange for an honest review**
This is a very short (less than 100 pages) book taking you through the Nicene Creed— what the Council was all about, what the creed says, what it means, and why it matters.
DeYoung wrote a similarly short book on The Lord’s Prayer and these also remind me of Jen Wilkin’s book, Ten Words to Live By, about the ten commandments. All three books take specific ‘statements’ that the church practices or believes and fleshes them out in deeper ways than an average church-goer may even know about.
Just because something is tradition and been taught for years and years doesn’t mean it’s to be discarded, but you should know what it means and why you memorize it and quote it. These books help your understanding.
I was interested in The Nicene Creed book because I realized I had never memorized it and knew only a little about the creed and the Council of Nicaea.
When I heard people making claims about the council and the creed saying that it was where people of power got to decide what books would be in the Bible or claiming that the council was evidence that the church has never agreed about anything, I knew that I needed to learn a little more about what actually went on there.
To the first argument, THIS is also a good, succinct explanation about how the Council of Nicaea was not a council to pick the books of the Bible (Kruger is a New Testament scholar and an expert in how the Bible was canonized). The Council was about articulating what the Church believed about the divinity of Jesus.
Historical Context
I thought Kevin DeYoung did a really good job of explaining the history and context of the Council and acknowledging the intentions behind the differing views.
“We learn something about heresy by examining Arius’s logic: heresy almost always involves denying one truth in an attempt to safeguard another truth.”
In Egypt, 318 AD, Arius publicly declared his theological views on the divinity of Christ.
“The issue in Arius’s mind was not how a man could be God but how God could become a man. Arius wanted to protect monotheism and the unity of God. He saw himself as defending the majesty and sovereignty of God the Father.”
“The issue was how to understand the Son’s begottenness. Arius argued that begetting implies a beginning…. Arius’s famous phrase was ‘there was a time when he was not.’”
So the Council met to better articulate what we believe about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the end, Arianism was condemned and the divinity of Jesus upheld.
One of the key words in the creed is homoousios which was the term they landed on to describe how the Son was of the ‘same essence’ as the Father.
It should be noted that the original creed was overwritten in 381, but the theology remained the same:
“The Council of Constantinople (381) didn’t simply repeat or revise the Creed of Nicaea (325). In fact, Nicaea’s creed is largely forgotten. In one sense, Constantinople established a “new” creed, probably taken from a liturgical formula that had developed since the original council. At the same time, it is important to recognize that the bishops at Constantinople did not see themselves as writing a new creed but merely expanding and reestablishing the orthodox truth affirmed in 325… Even though the words didn’t come directly from Nicaea, the theology did.”
I will say that I think it could have been helpful to have some sort of diagrams or maps to help visualize what groups were located where, etc.
Solid Doctrine or Right Living?
If you’re wondering about creeds in general, I thought it was interesting that DeYoung reminds us how different Roman religion was in the ancient world compared to what Jesus taught. Roman religion cared far less about doctrines and focused more on cultic rituals of sacrifices, experiences, civic virtue, and the practices done in temples.
It can’t be overstated that for Christians— what we believe (our doctrines) are of utmost importance. Right doctrine (orthodoxy) should lead to right living (orthopraxy) but we can’t have one without the other.
“To be sure, the apostolic message exhorted people to live godly lives but only in conjunction with a robust message about sin, salvation, incarnation, resurrection, atonement, reconciliation, and eternal life. Any gospel that denies these essentials or ignores them or skips over them to get to something else or leads people to doubt them or does not deal straightforwardly with them is, in effect, a different gospel. The Christian faith is more than a doctrine to be believed, but it is never less.”
This is forefront in my mind because having read Alisa Childer’s book, Another Gospel?, and watching a video from The New Evangelicals (linked in previous linked review), it is clear that Progressive Christianity has chosen leniency and ‘freedom’ in doctrine and it truly changes the gospel message and everything about what Jesus taught.
Here are just a few verses that remind us that right doctrine is not just a modern convention or a tactic invented for control or power, it was understood by Jesus’s disciples as essential to the faith:
“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2:42)
“but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone…” (Eph 2:19-20)
“so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.” (1 Tim 1:3)
“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called ‘knowledge,’ for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Tim 6:20)
“He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it… This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.” (Titus 1:9, 13)
“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.” (Rom 16:17)
“‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” (John 14:15)
Having established the importance of the creed (the first of its kind), DeYoung spends the next chapters taking specific phrases from the creed, explaining why it was included or the principle of truth that it was articulating:
Only Begotten; One Substance; For Us and for Our Salvation; Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son; One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; One Baptism for the Remission of Sins
[If you are interested in the doctrine of the Trinity and how we can believe this doctrine, I would recommend this narrative, logic-focused book called Monothreeism that explores how believing the Trinity makes as much sense as believing in our own existence.]
Church Unity and False Teachers
I won’t go into all of them, but one that stuck out to me was the one holy catholic and apostolic church. Again, because of the claims of Progressive Christianity.
Progressives often condemn conservative Christians for sacrificing unity in the church by holding to traditional doctrine. Conservatives are being the divisive ones, not progressives, they say.
But DeYoung rightly states
“The oneness of the church is not a call to discount doctrine and to foster institutional unity at all costs… Paul celebrated unity in the midst of diversity, but that diversity was not theological.”
Ephesians 4:1-16 describes the unity of the church including that it is called to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all”.
As the verses earlier stated— sound doctrine is important and at the center of what binds Christians together in Christ because it is about Christ and his work on the cross.
We don’t have councils to make up new doctrine, “new threats to the faith merit new efforts to delineate truth from error” and The Nicene Creed, which has stood the test of time, is an example of when better articulating the doctrine taught in Scripture keeps the Church unified in what matters most.
We are warned about false teachers. And I think a lot of Christians get false teachers mixed up with pagans. Those who practice other religions are not the false teachers, those are just pagans. The false teachers are in the church, twisting God’s words. They are masquerading as light; they are often subtle and hard to detect.
This helpful article delineates the patterns of false teachers: question what God says, defy or reject what God says, and offer a ‘better’ alternative that appeals to natural appetites.
The way we protect against false teachers is by guarding the deposit of sound doctrine that Jesus taught and entrusted the apostles to uphold. Jesus told them he would send the Holy Spirit to help them understand everything he had already been teaching them so we can trust what they say.
That is why ‘apostolic’ is important and the basis for which the New Testament books had authority.
I can’t help but also think of Gavin Ortlund’s book— Finding the Right Hills to Die On— which is a book about theological triage. He seeks to consider a gradation system on issues that are top tier, nonnegotiable doctrines (i.e. what is stated in the Nicene Creed), down to the lowest tier issues that are matter of opinion (i.e. what worship musical instrumentation should be).
He writes to give a good reminder not to let your passion for truth and upholding solid doctrine cause you to lose humility or care for others’ hearts. These things are not opposed to one another. To be upholding truth and following Jesus’s teachings and example should also look like humility and love. Humility and love, when practiced, should not be void of truth and the light of salvation as taught by Jesus.
To be a unified, global church does not require our worship services to look the same or even our baptism practices to be identical, but it does require theological unity in salvific doctrines.
Summary Statements
I really liked that he included six statements of summary— our takeaways from looking at the Nicene Creed. I’m including them simplified here, but he gives a little bit more explanation in the book
1. The Nicene Creed stresses the importance of believing the right thing
2. The history of the Nicene Creed teaches us that new statements (and modified statements) are often necessary to combat new errors
“The Nicene Creed is a creedal floor, not a creedal ceiling…”
3. The Nicene Creed models for us the central importance of the Trinity
4. The Nicene Creed underscores the importance of “religion” for Christian life and worship
“Christians have gotten into a bad habit of making ‘religion’ the bad guy opposite the good guy of the gospel. If religion means man-made worship or man’s attempt to earn God’s favor on his own, then Christianity has no place for religion. But usually when people talk about being ‘spiritual but not religious,’ they mean that they want a faith that is unencumbered by doctrinal boundaries, sacred rites, and the institution of the church with its authority structure and obligations.”
5. The Nicene Creed is not embarrassed to view Christianity with a soteriological focus
“Sometimes you hear people say that modern evangelicals invented this salvation-focused gospel… or that medieval people were scared into believing in a God of judgment because the church wanted to control them… but we see right here in the fourth century that the church conceived of the Christian faith as irreducibly about sin and salvation, about judgment and forgiveness, about how we can be saved from the human problem that is sin and death.”
6. The Nicene Creed points us to the future… it deliberately ends on a note of expectation and hope
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book. You can probably read it in one or two sittings and it will bring clarity and transparency to some of the doctrines you may have started wondering why you adhere to or recite.
It’s not meant to be exhaustive, but the ancient creeds the Church has upheld has not done so for no apparent reason or for nefarious purposes. We have creeds that affirm what God’s Word already revealed and if you haven’t been taught the ‘why’ then you should read the book.
And definitely, if you think the Council of Nicaea was a power struggle about choosing the books of the Bible, you should do some more research about that, including reading this book.
This is a low commitment, high reward kind of read.
I hope DeYoung continues to put out these short books that help the average church-goer to see the foundation of the church as it pertains to Scripture instead of a set of traditions with no real meaning.
**Received a copy via Crossway Publishers in exchange for an honest review**
informative
medium-paced
“They need to see that there are many ways to be brave; many ways to be caring and compassionate; many ways to be adventurous and creative; many ways to be strong.”
I always thought I’d be a boy-mom because girls were too complex and hard to share a bathroom with. And of course, because I can control that, I had two girls. After having girls, the thought of raising boys felt foreign and hard and gross to share a bathroom with. So of course, because I can control that, I had twin boys. Because if boys are difficult, we might as well do two at once.
Needless to say, having two girls and two boys, I see the differences between boys and girls every day— the way they play, the way the interact with others, the way they handle conflict or injury, the connections they make, the things they observe.
While some negative reviewers gave up on the book claiming it to be too gendered or sexist, I find that claim obvious and unfounded respectively. ‘Obvious’ because there are so many biological differences between boys and girls. It doesn’t make one gender better or smarter than another. It’s just biology. (Generally speaking) Boys learn differently than girls whether we like it or not. Boys’ brains function differently than girls’ whether we like it or not.
“The male brain is wired for activity; the female brain is biased toward personal connections.”
This book acknowledges those differences like this and seeks to help parents love their boys best by recognizing their biology and helping nurture them into the men they will be.
‘Unfounded’ because this doesn’t make it sexist. And it doesn’t make it outdated. It makes it curated to the realities of boys and how we can nurture their nature.
Especially in terms of how boys learn best, it reminded me a lot of the book The War Against Boys by Christina Sommers. If you’re interested in the education system and the challenges boys face and the realities of how this influences their futures, this book would also be a good read.
Now, is this the only book you’ll need to parent well and understand everything about your child? No. And it’s not trying to be. Let this one be one of many. No one book can cover everything you need as a parent to love and teach your child everything they need to know. HERE are all the parenting books I’ve read and reviewed if any of them pique your interest.
I would also say that this book is not full of groundbreaking information and advice. You’ve probably heard a lot of it before. You probably observe a lot of it already. For me, it was a lot of ‘oh yeah, I’ve seen the boys do that or react that way.’
I’m not sure if I totally agree with everything they put forth. I’m still processing some of it, especially in terms of how we engage emotions and feelings. In some ways I wonder if they make too much of that. While I want to make sure my boys have the words they need to express their feelings and understand their emotions, I don’t want to dwell too much on what they’re feeling without directing those feelings towards truth.
They mention allowing boys to “express the fullness of his heart” and I’m not entirely sure what that means. My boys often throw fits and execute a lot of whining to express the fullness of their hearts and I’m not sure always allowing that is appropriate or good for them.
They also talk about being careful not to shame our sons. I’ve pondered this concept of shame quite a bit and maybe I get hung up on it because I’m looking at it a different way.
If my boys do something wrong, I want them to know it’s wrong and to feel some gravity from the weight of their choice and how it might affect others. I think feeling shame for our sin is right— as long as we are directing them to forgiveness in Christ and the one who lifts the burden of their sin. Shame that leads to repentance and reconciliation, not in a domineering way but in a way that recognizes the human condition and the divine remedy.
And so it gets a little murky at times to know when you’re crossing the line of right shame into wrong shame.
So the things surrounding emotions and shame are things I may diverge a little bit on what they wrote in this particular book— and that could just be that though they mention God and sin periodically in the book, their focus is not necessarily a spiritual one in every way and so some of the language that I might use with my kids wasn’t provided here.
I am definitely a ‘list’ person but I also started to get a little overwhelmed by all the lists they suggest for different things because how many lists can I realistically utilize or create? I like the idea of lists and think they’re helpful but I’m not in an organizational place right now to add a bunch of lists.
However, even if you don’t totally align with their parenting style or methods, I think the book provides a lot of good topics to think about and ponder. To decide how you’re going to parent the variety of circumstances or facets of boys.
From the start they recognize that while boys are different than girls, not all boys are the same. They have different personalities, interests, and tendencies.
“We don’t offer a black-and-white list of do’s and don’ts for raising boys; instead, we create a framework that will help you engage, guide, and walk with the boy you love throughout his life…”
They divide their book in three parts:
- The way of the boy: developmental view (differences between 5 different age groups 2-4 through 18-22)
- The mind of the boy: neurology and physiology (how the brain works, how they learn, etc)
What I liked here was when they went through common mistakes caregivers make that push up against the way a boy’s brain works:
“Common mistakes many caregivers make with boys: confining them, verbally or emotionally flooding them, sparring with them, rescuing them, squelching them, shaming them, guilt-tripping them, and sabotaging them.”
- The heart of the boy: emotional, spiritual, moral development (how to nurture their heart, father and mother’s different relationship with a son, rite and rituals)
What I liked here was the idea of creating some sort of rite of passage for a boy ‘entering into manhood’. There is a lot of flexibility here in tailoring it to your son’s interests and personality but the idea of including other men in their life to help send him forward with the right mindset of what it means to a be a godly man in this world can be very grounding and helpful for a boy in shaping his identity and place in the world.
“Before a boy steps into his teenage years, he needs to have a handle on key character traits such as compassion, honesty, self-control, discernment, respect for self and others, personal responsibility, the courage to do what is right, and the strength to stand up for personal convictions.”
“Though environmental influences (primarily family and culture), life experiences, socialization, and inherited genetic personality traits directly influence who a boy is, we cannot overlook his essential nature. And we can’t nurture out the nature (nor would we want to.)"
One thing I’m glad they talk about is how in today’s world our boys are outright told or at the very least made to feel like just being male is a negative thing- men are violent and they hurt and dominate and females need to be hyperaware of all males.
There is some wisdom to have in females interacting with males in certain contexts, but the idea that to be male is to be a danger is not something I ever want my boys to grow up feeling the weight of.
There is so much out there right now that is an attempt to make males more female. Their aggression and confidence and strength are portrayed as negative things.
“At their core, boys are not calm, quiet, or neat. As they face the world, they are told more often than not that who they are is not who they need to be.”
And in truth, they totally can be negative if used improperly. But nurturing boys’ nature is to help them see that these traits are good and can help you serve and protect others. As with all traits— they can be used for good or bad.
I’ll recommend here the book Reclaiming Masculinity. And before you get triggered by the word ‘masculinity’ it is not a book championing rugged wilderness men who wrestle bears and flex their muscles all the time. It’s a book describing the principles of what godly (not traditional) masculinity looks like, and it’s very helpful in combating the label ‘toxic masculinity’ which is a term that I think we will see is very damaging to young boys growing up in this world and trying to figure out how they belong.
“Helping boys grow and mature into men means providing an environment that acknowledges and supports them in their maleness, not one that demands they be different.”
I thought it was interesting when they said:
“With boys, most rebellion and trouble stem from one of two sources: an impaired expression of what is going on emotionally inside their hearts or an immature attempt to answer their heart’s core questions… When boys can’t articulate what’s really going on in their hearts, of when they come up empty in their core questions, they often resort to behavior that can be completely irrational.”
The heart’s core questions that they list are: ‘do I have what it takes?’, ‘am I the real deal?’(I’m not sure what this one means), and ‘do I matter?’.
So when we’re struggling with rebellious kids, we help them understand what they might be feeling (and direct it to truth) or we help them answer the core questions. The last one is important for both boys and girls— everyone wants to know that they matter and caregivers play a huge role in helping children answer that question.
I also liked how at the end of each chapter they had a section about putting the principles into practice with some tips on how to actually integrate the information into real life.
I think I still would have loved some more specific examples, but I understand that to do that for all the different age groups would make the book so much longer.
In that way, this may be a good book to read with a group of caregivers who have kids in varying age groups and help each other through the different stages and share experiences of what you’ve done that has or has not worked.
Again, the book is not prescriptive but allows for a lot of attuning to your specific child so no two families will look the exact same in terms of how they parent their boys and that’s fine, but to have others going through it speak into each other’s experiences can be really helpful.
At the end of the book they have a section that covers 15 ‘hot topics’ like spanking, homosexuality, pornography, ADD, abuse, etc. They just give one or two pages per topic with a brief discussion.
That is followed by a list of further resources, including where to find a list of movies to watch with your boys and some books that aid in teaching boys about the changes happening in their bodies.
Recommendation
This is a good book and reference book to have as you raise boys from toddlers to adults and seek to nurture their natures and help them discover what it means to be a man in the world.
Even if you won’t agree with everything they say, I’d still recommend it because it will bring up areas that you will need to know how to parent and so it will offer a perspective and help you think through what works with your own family.
There are ways that you need to parent and teach boys and girls differently. You just do. It’s not sexist, it’s loving because it understands that God loves diversity and created males and females differently and we want to help our children be who God created them to be.
If you are interested in a girl-specific book, one that I would recommend is Raising Worry-Free Girls that addresses some of the struggles girls might have— again, I wish it went without saying, but none of these books are meant to be exhaustive. They have a focus and that’s why you should read more than one.
I would also recommend Raising Confident Kids in a Confusing World by Ed Drew.
And another one I recommend that I haven’t finished reading yet but is written by a dad of all boys— Habits of a Household —which is about creating good rhythms in your home from morning through play, work, meals, bedtime and everything in between!
I always thought I’d be a boy-mom because girls were too complex and hard to share a bathroom with. And of course, because I can control that, I had two girls. After having girls, the thought of raising boys felt foreign and hard and gross to share a bathroom with. So of course, because I can control that, I had twin boys. Because if boys are difficult, we might as well do two at once.
Needless to say, having two girls and two boys, I see the differences between boys and girls every day— the way they play, the way the interact with others, the way they handle conflict or injury, the connections they make, the things they observe.
While some negative reviewers gave up on the book claiming it to be too gendered or sexist, I find that claim obvious and unfounded respectively. ‘Obvious’ because there are so many biological differences between boys and girls. It doesn’t make one gender better or smarter than another. It’s just biology. (Generally speaking) Boys learn differently than girls whether we like it or not. Boys’ brains function differently than girls’ whether we like it or not.
“The male brain is wired for activity; the female brain is biased toward personal connections.”
This book acknowledges those differences like this and seeks to help parents love their boys best by recognizing their biology and helping nurture them into the men they will be.
‘Unfounded’ because this doesn’t make it sexist. And it doesn’t make it outdated. It makes it curated to the realities of boys and how we can nurture their nature.
Especially in terms of how boys learn best, it reminded me a lot of the book The War Against Boys by Christina Sommers. If you’re interested in the education system and the challenges boys face and the realities of how this influences their futures, this book would also be a good read.
Now, is this the only book you’ll need to parent well and understand everything about your child? No. And it’s not trying to be. Let this one be one of many. No one book can cover everything you need as a parent to love and teach your child everything they need to know. HERE are all the parenting books I’ve read and reviewed if any of them pique your interest.
I would also say that this book is not full of groundbreaking information and advice. You’ve probably heard a lot of it before. You probably observe a lot of it already. For me, it was a lot of ‘oh yeah, I’ve seen the boys do that or react that way.’
I’m not sure if I totally agree with everything they put forth. I’m still processing some of it, especially in terms of how we engage emotions and feelings. In some ways I wonder if they make too much of that. While I want to make sure my boys have the words they need to express their feelings and understand their emotions, I don’t want to dwell too much on what they’re feeling without directing those feelings towards truth.
They mention allowing boys to “express the fullness of his heart” and I’m not entirely sure what that means. My boys often throw fits and execute a lot of whining to express the fullness of their hearts and I’m not sure always allowing that is appropriate or good for them.
They also talk about being careful not to shame our sons. I’ve pondered this concept of shame quite a bit and maybe I get hung up on it because I’m looking at it a different way.
If my boys do something wrong, I want them to know it’s wrong and to feel some gravity from the weight of their choice and how it might affect others. I think feeling shame for our sin is right— as long as we are directing them to forgiveness in Christ and the one who lifts the burden of their sin. Shame that leads to repentance and reconciliation, not in a domineering way but in a way that recognizes the human condition and the divine remedy.
And so it gets a little murky at times to know when you’re crossing the line of right shame into wrong shame.
So the things surrounding emotions and shame are things I may diverge a little bit on what they wrote in this particular book— and that could just be that though they mention God and sin periodically in the book, their focus is not necessarily a spiritual one in every way and so some of the language that I might use with my kids wasn’t provided here.
I am definitely a ‘list’ person but I also started to get a little overwhelmed by all the lists they suggest for different things because how many lists can I realistically utilize or create? I like the idea of lists and think they’re helpful but I’m not in an organizational place right now to add a bunch of lists.
However, even if you don’t totally align with their parenting style or methods, I think the book provides a lot of good topics to think about and ponder. To decide how you’re going to parent the variety of circumstances or facets of boys.
From the start they recognize that while boys are different than girls, not all boys are the same. They have different personalities, interests, and tendencies.
“We don’t offer a black-and-white list of do’s and don’ts for raising boys; instead, we create a framework that will help you engage, guide, and walk with the boy you love throughout his life…”
They divide their book in three parts:
- The way of the boy: developmental view (differences between 5 different age groups 2-4 through 18-22)
- The mind of the boy: neurology and physiology (how the brain works, how they learn, etc)
What I liked here was when they went through common mistakes caregivers make that push up against the way a boy’s brain works:
“Common mistakes many caregivers make with boys: confining them, verbally or emotionally flooding them, sparring with them, rescuing them, squelching them, shaming them, guilt-tripping them, and sabotaging them.”
- The heart of the boy: emotional, spiritual, moral development (how to nurture their heart, father and mother’s different relationship with a son, rite and rituals)
What I liked here was the idea of creating some sort of rite of passage for a boy ‘entering into manhood’. There is a lot of flexibility here in tailoring it to your son’s interests and personality but the idea of including other men in their life to help send him forward with the right mindset of what it means to a be a godly man in this world can be very grounding and helpful for a boy in shaping his identity and place in the world.
“Before a boy steps into his teenage years, he needs to have a handle on key character traits such as compassion, honesty, self-control, discernment, respect for self and others, personal responsibility, the courage to do what is right, and the strength to stand up for personal convictions.”
“Though environmental influences (primarily family and culture), life experiences, socialization, and inherited genetic personality traits directly influence who a boy is, we cannot overlook his essential nature. And we can’t nurture out the nature (nor would we want to.)"
One thing I’m glad they talk about is how in today’s world our boys are outright told or at the very least made to feel like just being male is a negative thing- men are violent and they hurt and dominate and females need to be hyperaware of all males.
There is some wisdom to have in females interacting with males in certain contexts, but the idea that to be male is to be a danger is not something I ever want my boys to grow up feeling the weight of.
There is so much out there right now that is an attempt to make males more female. Their aggression and confidence and strength are portrayed as negative things.
“At their core, boys are not calm, quiet, or neat. As they face the world, they are told more often than not that who they are is not who they need to be.”
And in truth, they totally can be negative if used improperly. But nurturing boys’ nature is to help them see that these traits are good and can help you serve and protect others. As with all traits— they can be used for good or bad.
I’ll recommend here the book Reclaiming Masculinity. And before you get triggered by the word ‘masculinity’ it is not a book championing rugged wilderness men who wrestle bears and flex their muscles all the time. It’s a book describing the principles of what godly (not traditional) masculinity looks like, and it’s very helpful in combating the label ‘toxic masculinity’ which is a term that I think we will see is very damaging to young boys growing up in this world and trying to figure out how they belong.
“Helping boys grow and mature into men means providing an environment that acknowledges and supports them in their maleness, not one that demands they be different.”
I thought it was interesting when they said:
“With boys, most rebellion and trouble stem from one of two sources: an impaired expression of what is going on emotionally inside their hearts or an immature attempt to answer their heart’s core questions… When boys can’t articulate what’s really going on in their hearts, of when they come up empty in their core questions, they often resort to behavior that can be completely irrational.”
The heart’s core questions that they list are: ‘do I have what it takes?’, ‘am I the real deal?’(I’m not sure what this one means), and ‘do I matter?’.
So when we’re struggling with rebellious kids, we help them understand what they might be feeling (and direct it to truth) or we help them answer the core questions. The last one is important for both boys and girls— everyone wants to know that they matter and caregivers play a huge role in helping children answer that question.
I also liked how at the end of each chapter they had a section about putting the principles into practice with some tips on how to actually integrate the information into real life.
I think I still would have loved some more specific examples, but I understand that to do that for all the different age groups would make the book so much longer.
In that way, this may be a good book to read with a group of caregivers who have kids in varying age groups and help each other through the different stages and share experiences of what you’ve done that has or has not worked.
Again, the book is not prescriptive but allows for a lot of attuning to your specific child so no two families will look the exact same in terms of how they parent their boys and that’s fine, but to have others going through it speak into each other’s experiences can be really helpful.
At the end of the book they have a section that covers 15 ‘hot topics’ like spanking, homosexuality, pornography, ADD, abuse, etc. They just give one or two pages per topic with a brief discussion.
That is followed by a list of further resources, including where to find a list of movies to watch with your boys and some books that aid in teaching boys about the changes happening in their bodies.
Recommendation
This is a good book and reference book to have as you raise boys from toddlers to adults and seek to nurture their natures and help them discover what it means to be a man in the world.
Even if you won’t agree with everything they say, I’d still recommend it because it will bring up areas that you will need to know how to parent and so it will offer a perspective and help you think through what works with your own family.
There are ways that you need to parent and teach boys and girls differently. You just do. It’s not sexist, it’s loving because it understands that God loves diversity and created males and females differently and we want to help our children be who God created them to be.
If you are interested in a girl-specific book, one that I would recommend is Raising Worry-Free Girls that addresses some of the struggles girls might have— again, I wish it went without saying, but none of these books are meant to be exhaustive. They have a focus and that’s why you should read more than one.
I would also recommend Raising Confident Kids in a Confusing World by Ed Drew.
And another one I recommend that I haven’t finished reading yet but is written by a dad of all boys— Habits of a Household —which is about creating good rhythms in your home from morning through play, work, meals, bedtime and everything in between!
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
I usually start my book review with a quote from the book that I like. I didn’t do that with this one: 1) because I decided to just read it as if I was sitting at one of his shows, not wanting to be distracted by writing anything down and 2) it’s so anecdotal that to reduce it any of his bits to quotes feels like you miss too much.
If you’ve seen him live or watched one of his Netflix specials (do it) then reading this book will feel a lot like the show. You can hear his voice and delivery as you read, the same straight-faced humor about weird jobs, his dad being a clown, the dynamics between him and his wife, and his love of McDonalds.
I think my favorite part of the book were the blank pages he included to give us a break every now and then. In one of his bits about how ‘books are the key to smart,’ he mentions how he wished books had more of that so I applaud that he got to see that dream come to fruition.
This book is part memoir, part funny story-telling. He says from the very beginning that there is not really an overarching message:
“This book is never trying to say anything even close to important… you can open it to any random chapter you want and you’ll be just fine. There isn’t any real order. No rhyme or reason behind much of anything.”
And I would say he delivered on that. In a good way! It’s an easy, enjoyable read that will make you smile. It’s something you can come back to and read part or all of again whenever you just want something light and funny to escape from the chaos of the day.
There is a little bit of overlap with what has been in his shows but there were lots of new stories or details and background to previously mentioned moments that kept it fresh. There are even pictures— although I wish they would have been in color so you could see them better.
The first time I watched Nate Bargatze was with friends when he performed at our local comedy club, The Funny Bone. There were like 50 people there. The second time was a slightly bigger audience in the college town of Ames, Iowa. The third was a bigger audience at a bigger venue, and the last time was the Wells Fargo Arena— the biggest venue in Des Moines and it was packed.
It’s been fun to see his success and his audience grow. What’s even better is that he did it without resorting to using profanity, sexual innuendo, or controversial material. It’s just relatable stories about his life that connects with people and allows us to watch his comedy with our families.
I wish more comics had the same principles because it shows that you don’t have to be raw, raunchy, or explicit to be hilarious!
I’m surprised by people who give this negative reviews if they’ve seen his shows before. If you haven’t, then you might be underwhelmed by the book. If you have, you should understand that the underwhelm is part of his schtick. He’s not dramatic or over-the-top or super expressive or loud. He’s just a normal guy talking about normal stuff. He’s just a friend pointing out the humorous parts of ordinary lives.
It appears that the main qualms people have with this book, other than if they thought it was boring (it wasn’t), were basically two-fold:
First, he talked about God and faith, mostly in relation to his dad. I just read Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (the Olympian)’s book and people were upset she talked about faith too. Which is really wild to me. For Sydney’s book it was the primary objective. What Nate does with it is not even close to how explicitly Sydney delivers the gospel and yet people’s feathers are ruffled by it. As if a comedian isn’t allowed to ‘bring religion’ into anything. For a culture obsessed with identity a lot of people really want to limit what can be allowed to shape a person.
Second, he mentions his dad’s abusive mother and her deathbed scene where he apologizes for not being a better son or trying harder to include her in the family. It’s a very short part but readers who had experienced abuse were really turned off by the way it was described as if he was the problem, not the abusive mother. I can see how that puts a bad taste in your mouth when you’ve dealt with abuse and manipulative people— why should he be the one to apologize?
I’m not entirely sure why he included that in the book— perhaps to share the tenderness of his father’s heart and his desire for reconciliation in his life?— and I think it could be argued that this wasn’t the right place to put it. I’m sure there is a lot more to the story and information that wasn’t shared that may speak into the dissonance for us. He chose not to go into all that, which makes sense to me, and I’m not going to use that moment to tear apart his entire book.
I will say that the chapter on Vanderbilt threw me a little bit. Maybe if I listened to his podcast more I would have heard him mention Vandy more— it hasn’t really been in his shows that I can remember. So to hear his passion for Vandy and read an entire chapter about it felt like seeing a new facet of Bargatze that I hadn’t known was there— the sports fanatic Nate.
I can see how some might not care about that and you wouldn’t really be missing much to skip over that one. That’s the freedom of the book— you can pick and choose what you want to read when you want to read it.
I think it’s cool that Nate decided to write a book. It’s an accomplishment, especially for someone who’s never read one before. I mean there’s part of me that laments how easy it is for famous people to get a book published when all of us nobodies are sitting on a story we can’t get in front of anyone, but I am happy for him and his success.
It looks like he’s most likely stepping off the stand-up track to pursue movie-making. I would venture to guess that his time will be spent wrapped up in that rather than more book writing, but I believe this book achieved what Nate wanted it to achieve. I’m pretty much here for anything he does or will do because I think he’s a funny guy and a good dude and I appreciate his willingness to hold the line of clean comedy even when he gets pushback about it.
Stay strong, man!
Recommendation
I totally recommend it.
Also, shoutout to P.P. Hopefully I can hear the story behind your name sometime.
If you’ve seen him live or watched one of his Netflix specials (do it) then reading this book will feel a lot like the show. You can hear his voice and delivery as you read, the same straight-faced humor about weird jobs, his dad being a clown, the dynamics between him and his wife, and his love of McDonalds.
I think my favorite part of the book were the blank pages he included to give us a break every now and then. In one of his bits about how ‘books are the key to smart,’ he mentions how he wished books had more of that so I applaud that he got to see that dream come to fruition.
This book is part memoir, part funny story-telling. He says from the very beginning that there is not really an overarching message:
“This book is never trying to say anything even close to important… you can open it to any random chapter you want and you’ll be just fine. There isn’t any real order. No rhyme or reason behind much of anything.”
And I would say he delivered on that. In a good way! It’s an easy, enjoyable read that will make you smile. It’s something you can come back to and read part or all of again whenever you just want something light and funny to escape from the chaos of the day.
There is a little bit of overlap with what has been in his shows but there were lots of new stories or details and background to previously mentioned moments that kept it fresh. There are even pictures— although I wish they would have been in color so you could see them better.
The first time I watched Nate Bargatze was with friends when he performed at our local comedy club, The Funny Bone. There were like 50 people there. The second time was a slightly bigger audience in the college town of Ames, Iowa. The third was a bigger audience at a bigger venue, and the last time was the Wells Fargo Arena— the biggest venue in Des Moines and it was packed.
It’s been fun to see his success and his audience grow. What’s even better is that he did it without resorting to using profanity, sexual innuendo, or controversial material. It’s just relatable stories about his life that connects with people and allows us to watch his comedy with our families.
I wish more comics had the same principles because it shows that you don’t have to be raw, raunchy, or explicit to be hilarious!
I’m surprised by people who give this negative reviews if they’ve seen his shows before. If you haven’t, then you might be underwhelmed by the book. If you have, you should understand that the underwhelm is part of his schtick. He’s not dramatic or over-the-top or super expressive or loud. He’s just a normal guy talking about normal stuff. He’s just a friend pointing out the humorous parts of ordinary lives.
It appears that the main qualms people have with this book, other than if they thought it was boring (it wasn’t), were basically two-fold:
First, he talked about God and faith, mostly in relation to his dad. I just read Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (the Olympian)’s book and people were upset she talked about faith too. Which is really wild to me. For Sydney’s book it was the primary objective. What Nate does with it is not even close to how explicitly Sydney delivers the gospel and yet people’s feathers are ruffled by it. As if a comedian isn’t allowed to ‘bring religion’ into anything. For a culture obsessed with identity a lot of people really want to limit what can be allowed to shape a person.
Second, he mentions his dad’s abusive mother and her deathbed scene where he apologizes for not being a better son or trying harder to include her in the family. It’s a very short part but readers who had experienced abuse were really turned off by the way it was described as if he was the problem, not the abusive mother. I can see how that puts a bad taste in your mouth when you’ve dealt with abuse and manipulative people— why should he be the one to apologize?
I’m not entirely sure why he included that in the book— perhaps to share the tenderness of his father’s heart and his desire for reconciliation in his life?— and I think it could be argued that this wasn’t the right place to put it. I’m sure there is a lot more to the story and information that wasn’t shared that may speak into the dissonance for us. He chose not to go into all that, which makes sense to me, and I’m not going to use that moment to tear apart his entire book.
I will say that the chapter on Vanderbilt threw me a little bit. Maybe if I listened to his podcast more I would have heard him mention Vandy more— it hasn’t really been in his shows that I can remember. So to hear his passion for Vandy and read an entire chapter about it felt like seeing a new facet of Bargatze that I hadn’t known was there— the sports fanatic Nate.
I can see how some might not care about that and you wouldn’t really be missing much to skip over that one. That’s the freedom of the book— you can pick and choose what you want to read when you want to read it.
I think it’s cool that Nate decided to write a book. It’s an accomplishment, especially for someone who’s never read one before. I mean there’s part of me that laments how easy it is for famous people to get a book published when all of us nobodies are sitting on a story we can’t get in front of anyone, but I am happy for him and his success.
It looks like he’s most likely stepping off the stand-up track to pursue movie-making. I would venture to guess that his time will be spent wrapped up in that rather than more book writing, but I believe this book achieved what Nate wanted it to achieve. I’m pretty much here for anything he does or will do because I think he’s a funny guy and a good dude and I appreciate his willingness to hold the line of clean comedy even when he gets pushback about it.
Stay strong, man!
Recommendation
I totally recommend it.
Also, shoutout to P.P. Hopefully I can hear the story behind your name sometime.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“I’m going to the Wilde Trials. For two weeks, it will be me, the forest, and these fifteen people. One of whom is a bully, another who used to be my best friend, a third who used to be my boyfriend, and a fourth who is annoyingly loyal to said ex-boyfriend. Great.”
I mean. Yeah. This book is wild.
I read Reed’s debut novel, The Rosewood Hunt, and enjoyed that one a lot (for a YA novel). Unfortunately, her second novel, a similar world to the first book (even mentions Rosetown), didn’t hit me the same.
I did like that there was less swearing than the first book and more positive familial relationships, however, I think the biggest downside for me was that the plot of the book would have been much better in a dystopian or sci-fi setting rather than a realistic modern-day world.
The whole book centers around The Wilde Trials which is an invitation-only event for seniors at a private ‘rich people’ high school in which they compete for a $600,000 prize. But they go out in the forest, sleep in an abandoned estate and compete in dangerous challenges and there is not a single adult around.
At first it didn’t seem like a big deal, but the more the story progressed the more outlandish the situation became. Fifteen high school seniors supervised by three college kids in the wilderness? There wasn’t even a medical team on hand just in case an accident happened.
Not to mention, a kid had literally just died during the last trials (the main character’s ex-boyfriend’s brother so it’s a big plot point). The author is very clear about how the school ‘fixed’ a lot of things— which largely meant walling off a section of the estate and putting caution tape around it— but just saying ‘its safer now’ a hundred times, doesn’t actually mean it’s safer. There’s no way a school already in hot water for an unexplained death can legally run the trials with no supervision or medical team. That’s insane.
One of the challenges they are climbing up a cliff face. Yes, they get harnesses and the ropes were installed by 'professional climbers.' But the contestants are responsible for clipping themselves into the harnesses and no one is there watching. One of the ropes is almost frayed through (well, because, sabotage) but don’t they realize that adult supervision prevents sabotage and keeps a lot of accidents from being serious?
If this was a different world, something dystopian or sci-fi, then it would be more understandable that these kids are competing in potentially fatal challenges without adults. I don’t know entirely why it would be more acceptable, it just would.
In the last challenge the prize money was literally bagged up and placed throughout the forest for the competitors to find and bring back as part of the challenge. Who in their right mind would send out $600,000 in cash with 18-21 year olds into a forest with no adults and expect that it would all come back alright?!
Oh, and by the way, the main character didn’t even tell her parents she was going out there and competing. They had no idea. Sure, she’s 18 years old and legally an adult, but this is a school-sanctioned event. Parents being unaware of a student participating in two-week long trials in the woods with no adult supervision is also ridiculous.
Oh, and by the way, the college kids in charge of the whole thing? Well one of them decides to change up what the challenges are last minute. Because of course they would have the freedom to make up whatever they want and one of them could just change everything and decide to not tell the other ‘supervisors’ and there’s no problem.
I wanted to like the book. I like that the main character, Chloe, wants to win because her younger sister has cancer and her parents can’t afford the medical bills because they paid to send her to a private high school. It’s a good heroic premise.
I liked that she was being blackmailed about a secret which kept her from bringing the saboteur to attention. That was something that made a little sense and added some mystery.
I don’t mind that there is the romantic thread of her and her ex-boyfriend competing with each other where they absolutely hate each other but you know they most likely don’t and will probably end up together again. I don’t even mind that I predicted part of the ending at only 5% of the way through the book. Some of those things are to be expected in a YA novel.
But I just could not get past the ridiculousness and insanity of the whole situation. Because so much of the plot and the suspense of the book revolved around the trials and the outcome of the trials. The implausibility of everything wrecked the tension. I like high stakes, but I want the stakes to make sense.
For example, the YA novel Heist Royale is about teenagers in the modern day world competing in dangerous missions in which there isn’t a lot of oversight or rules. But it takes place in the context of the thieving, dishonest, dangerous world. So it works. The setting and context of The Wilde Trials does not work.
I like the seven traits that they structured the trials around:
“The seven traits the trials are based on each year are strength, collaboration, wit, ambition, fortitude, agility, and adaptability.”
I think in a different context these traits could have been fleshed out more and really been showcased in the trials and in the character development creating a deeper experience and invoking more investment from the readers.
There was definitely potential to the idea behind this book; it just fell short.
It probably makes me a boring adult. Maybe young adults— the target audience— reading this book will have no qualms with the lack of adults. That’s fine. I understand that my interest in YA books tends to be more particular than most. I’m okay with that.
You can discern if my concerns match your concerns or if you are hyped up for the adult-free zone of The Wilde. Go crazy.
Recommendation
I’m sure there are people who might like this book, but the outlandish context and execution of the trials was too over-the-top for me to stay engaged with the story and the characters.
This was a book I was happy to get over with.
I did like her first book so it’s possible I’ll give this author another chance, but this book will definitely make me more wary of her next one.
Unless you are more into the romance and teenage relationship side of things, I would not recommend this one.
[Content Advisory: 29 f-words, 34 s-words, 5 b-words; a few prominent characters are LGBTQ and in relationships; a teenage couple has sex in the back of a car but it’s not described]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
I mean. Yeah. This book is wild.
I read Reed’s debut novel, The Rosewood Hunt, and enjoyed that one a lot (for a YA novel). Unfortunately, her second novel, a similar world to the first book (even mentions Rosetown), didn’t hit me the same.
I did like that there was less swearing than the first book and more positive familial relationships, however, I think the biggest downside for me was that the plot of the book would have been much better in a dystopian or sci-fi setting rather than a realistic modern-day world.
The whole book centers around The Wilde Trials which is an invitation-only event for seniors at a private ‘rich people’ high school in which they compete for a $600,000 prize. But they go out in the forest, sleep in an abandoned estate and compete in dangerous challenges and there is not a single adult around.
At first it didn’t seem like a big deal, but the more the story progressed the more outlandish the situation became. Fifteen high school seniors supervised by three college kids in the wilderness? There wasn’t even a medical team on hand just in case an accident happened.
Not to mention, a kid had literally just died during the last trials (the main character’s ex-boyfriend’s brother so it’s a big plot point). The author is very clear about how the school ‘fixed’ a lot of things— which largely meant walling off a section of the estate and putting caution tape around it— but just saying ‘its safer now’ a hundred times, doesn’t actually mean it’s safer. There’s no way a school already in hot water for an unexplained death can legally run the trials with no supervision or medical team. That’s insane.
One of the challenges they are climbing up a cliff face. Yes, they get harnesses and the ropes were installed by 'professional climbers.' But the contestants are responsible for clipping themselves into the harnesses and no one is there watching. One of the ropes is almost frayed through (well, because, sabotage) but don’t they realize that adult supervision prevents sabotage and keeps a lot of accidents from being serious?
If this was a different world, something dystopian or sci-fi, then it would be more understandable that these kids are competing in potentially fatal challenges without adults. I don’t know entirely why it would be more acceptable, it just would.
In the last challenge the prize money was literally bagged up and placed throughout the forest for the competitors to find and bring back as part of the challenge. Who in their right mind would send out $600,000 in cash with 18-21 year olds into a forest with no adults and expect that it would all come back alright?!
Oh, and by the way, the main character didn’t even tell her parents she was going out there and competing. They had no idea. Sure, she’s 18 years old and legally an adult, but this is a school-sanctioned event. Parents being unaware of a student participating in two-week long trials in the woods with no adult supervision is also ridiculous.
Oh, and by the way, the college kids in charge of the whole thing? Well one of them decides to change up what the challenges are last minute. Because of course they would have the freedom to make up whatever they want and one of them could just change everything and decide to not tell the other ‘supervisors’ and there’s no problem.
I wanted to like the book. I like that the main character, Chloe, wants to win because her younger sister has cancer and her parents can’t afford the medical bills because they paid to send her to a private high school. It’s a good heroic premise.
I liked that she was being blackmailed about a secret which kept her from bringing the saboteur to attention. That was something that made a little sense and added some mystery.
I don’t mind that there is the romantic thread of her and her ex-boyfriend competing with each other where they absolutely hate each other but you know they most likely don’t and will probably end up together again. I don’t even mind that I predicted part of the ending at only 5% of the way through the book. Some of those things are to be expected in a YA novel.
But I just could not get past the ridiculousness and insanity of the whole situation. Because so much of the plot and the suspense of the book revolved around the trials and the outcome of the trials. The implausibility of everything wrecked the tension. I like high stakes, but I want the stakes to make sense.
For example, the YA novel Heist Royale is about teenagers in the modern day world competing in dangerous missions in which there isn’t a lot of oversight or rules. But it takes place in the context of the thieving, dishonest, dangerous world. So it works. The setting and context of The Wilde Trials does not work.
I like the seven traits that they structured the trials around:
“The seven traits the trials are based on each year are strength, collaboration, wit, ambition, fortitude, agility, and adaptability.”
I think in a different context these traits could have been fleshed out more and really been showcased in the trials and in the character development creating a deeper experience and invoking more investment from the readers.
There was definitely potential to the idea behind this book; it just fell short.
It probably makes me a boring adult. Maybe young adults— the target audience— reading this book will have no qualms with the lack of adults. That’s fine. I understand that my interest in YA books tends to be more particular than most. I’m okay with that.
You can discern if my concerns match your concerns or if you are hyped up for the adult-free zone of The Wilde. Go crazy.
Recommendation
I’m sure there are people who might like this book, but the outlandish context and execution of the trials was too over-the-top for me to stay engaged with the story and the characters.
This was a book I was happy to get over with.
I did like her first book so it’s possible I’ll give this author another chance, but this book will definitely make me more wary of her next one.
Unless you are more into the romance and teenage relationship side of things, I would not recommend this one.
[Content Advisory: 29 f-words, 34 s-words, 5 b-words; a few prominent characters are LGBTQ and in relationships; a teenage couple has sex in the back of a car but it’s not described]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing
Minor: Sexual content
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
“All of us want to know who we are, why we are here, and what’s going to make us happy and fulfilled. We want to have a purpose, a strong sense of identity, and clarity about how we are supposed to spend our days.”
“When I left Rio, I thought I was leaving behind the biggest challenge of my life. I had no idea that the next two years would be even harder. And to reach joy, I had to go through trials too big for me to face on my own.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead running on a track.
Scratch that, I would most definitely be caught dead if I was running on a track because I’m a firm believer that running— especially my hardest— would kill me. My knees and legs hurt just thinking about what Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone does for fun. So no, I didn’t read this book to help me get off the starter blocks better or get my legs over hurdles in a graceful way—I pulled a hamstring just writing that sentence—but her story did really resonate with me and it was a true joy to read.
Because even though she’s a 4-time gold medal Olympian with world records, she’s just like you and me. She struggles with fear, anxiety, identity, and the desire to find meaning and purpose in life.
This book chronicles not only her literal races and Olympic experiences, but the race the author of Hebrews refers to: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (12:1)
Far Beyond Gold is Sydney’s story that beyond her gold medals, she found freedom and life she never knew existed and now could never live without. And she wants you to know about it too.
I think this would be a great book for people who compete in track and field but also for young people in general. She is transparent about her physical and emotional struggles but also real life things like navigating dating relationships, food, and social media. I think it would be an inspiring read for a lot of young women to see that you don’t have to capitulate to cultural ideals for sex and fame and appearances.
It’s interesting reading the negative reviews on this book because they largely all say the same things: too much Jesus; it was preachy; too much about her faith journey and not enough insights on her career.
But man! To take Jesus out of this book would be completely missing the point. She wrote to show how HE is the center of her life— not running, not winning. That’s the ‘beyond’ part. She can’t tell her story without Jesus, the catalyst for her life transformation, the basis of her character, the strength for each day and each race.
I appreciated her candidness in sharing truth. Because it was genuine. She didn’t just put in bite-sized pieces that appease the masses without making them feel uncomfortable. No, she is overflowing with love and praise for her Savior and she should shout it from the mountaintop.
“When I left Rio, I thought I was leaving behind the biggest challenge of my life. I had no idea that the next two years would be even harder. And to reach joy, I had to go through trials too big for me to face on my own.”
I wouldn’t be caught dead running on a track.
Scratch that, I would most definitely be caught dead if I was running on a track because I’m a firm believer that running— especially my hardest— would kill me. My knees and legs hurt just thinking about what Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone does for fun. So no, I didn’t read this book to help me get off the starter blocks better or get my legs over hurdles in a graceful way—I pulled a hamstring just writing that sentence—but her story did really resonate with me and it was a true joy to read.
Because even though she’s a 4-time gold medal Olympian with world records, she’s just like you and me. She struggles with fear, anxiety, identity, and the desire to find meaning and purpose in life.
This book chronicles not only her literal races and Olympic experiences, but the race the author of Hebrews refers to: “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (12:1)
Far Beyond Gold is Sydney’s story that beyond her gold medals, she found freedom and life she never knew existed and now could never live without. And she wants you to know about it too.
I think this would be a great book for people who compete in track and field but also for young people in general. She is transparent about her physical and emotional struggles but also real life things like navigating dating relationships, food, and social media. I think it would be an inspiring read for a lot of young women to see that you don’t have to capitulate to cultural ideals for sex and fame and appearances.
It’s interesting reading the negative reviews on this book because they largely all say the same things: too much Jesus; it was preachy; too much about her faith journey and not enough insights on her career.
But man! To take Jesus out of this book would be completely missing the point. She wrote to show how HE is the center of her life— not running, not winning. That’s the ‘beyond’ part. She can’t tell her story without Jesus, the catalyst for her life transformation, the basis of her character, the strength for each day and each race.
I appreciated her candidness in sharing truth. Because it was genuine. She didn’t just put in bite-sized pieces that appease the masses without making them feel uncomfortable. No, she is overflowing with love and praise for her Savior and she should shout it from the mountaintop.
“Along the way, I’m going to show you how I came to recognize my fears and how you can spot the same anxiety in your life, then respond by going to the one who can set you free. I pray my story will point you in his direction and show you that no matter who you are or what you do, God is calling you to trust him, to let go of the struggle to define yourself or live up to other people’s expectations. He wants you, no matter who you are, to find your identity in him and his Son, Jesus Christ.”
Her Career
On the track side of things, Sydney is known for running the 400m hurdles. In fact, she holds the world record for this event (50.37 seconds). She won gold at the 2020 Olympics and then at the 2022 World Championship. After this book went to publishing, she won gold again in the 2024 Olympics, breaking her own previous world record.
"It’s widely considered one of the most grueling events in the sport, often referred to as “the man killer.” Because of the hurdles, you have to master the technique required to clear the barrier every fourteen or fifteen steps without losing balance or velocity. And the length is just long enough to demand extraordinary endurance while being short enough to require superior speed.”
She has also won gold for participating in the 4x400 m relay in 2020 and 2024.
Her career began as a teen and has only progressed from there. I suppose it’s not really a surprise: both her parents were track stars and her brothers also ran track. It was her destiny in a lot of ways.
But her own competitiveness and the pressure to succeed created a growing and debilitating fear of failure.
“It wasn’t enough just to be a runner; I had to be a winner. I viewed victories as value… I convinced myself that I was put on this earth to win. And in order to receive love and respect from others, I had to finish first. If I didn’t, what good was I?”
I imagine the pressure and anxiety and fear she felt is what a lot of young actors and actresses face as well. They have achieved something great, and yet are treated beyond their years or have expectations put on them that they are not ready to bear.
“Inside, I felt like I still needed good role models to help me through all these wild changes, yet everyone was already looking at me differently, expecting me to share wisdom I did not yet possess.”
I think Caitlin Clark probably feels the same weight. We see these young people in the spotlight and they’ve done great things, but then we look to them for wisdom or to portray something beyond where they are and feel disappointed when they misstep or misspeak.
They are young and still figuring out their identity, still learning how the world works. We can definitely admire their work and achievements, but we should watch how we burden them with our needs or expectations that they should not be responsible for.
“Everything that had once seemed to be my peace quickly became my nightmare. I couldn’t fix myself. I couldn’t let go of my fear, anxiety, and need for approval on my own.”
Sydney shares the struggles she faced in relationships, during Covid and how that affected her training and Olympic hopes, and her mental health. She’s looking in hindsight now, but it’s perceptive of her to realize that when she sought help for her anxiety and depression, she wasn’t treating the root of the problem.
“I knew I needed to overhaul my life, change how I thought about my worth and my purpose, but everywhere I went for help I was getting only temporary solutions for my problems. Remedies for the symptoms of anxiety and sleepless nights, not the disease of self-focus and a misplaced identity.”
In many cases medication is wise to help us, but in so many cases there is a problem that sinks deeper into every fiber of our being and cannot be remedied by a pill, but a Person. Who bears the weight of our sin and our failures and gives us hope for tomorrow, a future.
To piggy-back off the Covid thing, I thought it was really interesting to hear how Covid impacted her ability to train. She was living in LA at the time and the stay-at-home order closed down tracks. A hurdler can only practice so much in a studio apartment.
To also think of the anxiety all of those Olympic athletes must have suffered under the duress of Covid testing that could so easily end their chances to compete.
“Each day, we endured multiple rounds of testing, knowing that if we got a positive, our Olympic dreams were over. I became hyperaware of my body. Am I showing any symptoms? Am I feeling tired, congested, or lightheaded? Twice a day, I had to take a COVID-19 test. Those were always nerve-racking, facing the possibility that we had flown all the way to Tokyo just to not be able to compete.”
We all can share ways that Covid influenced our lives— for starters, my twins were born in 2020 and spent almost two months in the NICU where my daughters were not allowed to visit. But I’m always interested to hear how others were impacted and how they grew during those times. I hope the next time stay-at-home orders are on the table, our 2020 experiences can better speak into future decisions, weighing people’s quality of life above uncertainties.
Her Faith
I’ve read many memoirs and heard many faith stories. Sydney’s is the real deal. She very explicitly shares the gospel message. And she shares the thoughts she had had about Jesus and the Bible that we’ve probably all thought at one point and brings good counsel.
“With an overemphasis on the judgment part of the gospel, I often didn’t value God’s other characteristics, such as love, grace, and forgiveness.”
“There were days where I would just sit on my dorm bed looking at a Bible, not knowing what I was reading. I was searching for any sort of comfort or solace. It never came. Not because God wasn’t there but because I wasn’t truly seeking him. I was seeking a Band-Aid, something to cover the pain, something to pass the time just to get me to the next thing planned. That’s not how God works, though”
“I’d always seen the Bible as a self-help book. Open it and get a boost of encouragement. Some practical tips for the day. A mantra for Mondays when you’re irritable... all the uncertainty, as well as my newfound hunger to understand the Bible, was slowly teaching me that I wasn’t the center of the universe. God had a plan that was way bigger than my running, my relationships, and even my family’s health. The Bible wasn’t a road map to the best version of my life; it was a road map to God. And my job was to trust, obey, and be patient. Talk about a reality check. In a culture that teaches that we are to live our truths and do whatever makes us happy, God was completely tearing down those ideologies for me.”
"Not only did Jesus want my present, he also wanted my future. With him at the helm of my life, I could take my eyes off things of this world and my past infractions and look forward to a glorious future in his presence. A massive weight was lifted. I was never meant to lead my own life. I had tried that up to this point, and it landed me in the most unfortunate places. Surrendering to God was not giving up my freedom; it was finding it."
She also avoids preaching a prosperity gospel that says, once you find Jesus all your problems go away and you always find health, wealth, and success. That is not the true gospel. Jesus actually promises us that we will have hardship and pain. Health, wealth, and success are never guaranteed. But nonetheless, we have all we need in Christ.
"God may have track victories in my future, or he may not. All I can do is be faithful with today. I can work hard. And perhaps more importantly, I can enjoy the process.I see that running is God’s plan for my life. He gave me this gift. He gave me a platform. I tell people all the time, there is a responsibility that comes with that. No matter who you are or what you do, what is in your heart pours out. How you present yourself is a representation of who you serve, whether God or other people."
"I’d learned that in racing, and in life, God gives you exactly what you need to run the race he has for you. He gives grace and help to all those who look to him, not themselves, for strength, courage, peace, and joy."
Her career could be over at any moment. She may suffer an irreparable injury. She may lose a loved one. But Sydney knows that her hope is not in her ability to win. It’s not in the people who love her most. It’s in the God who holds the world together, who calls us his own, and who has plans better than any we could come up with on our own. His race is always best because it goes far beyond gold. It takes fear and it turns it into faith. It takes captives and sets them free.
Other Negative Reviews
Besides people being annoyed by Sydney’s confident and evident faith (because how dare she?!), there were a couple other themes I noticed.
A few reviewers thought she wrote her memoir too early and she should have waited until more of her career had happened. If she had waited another year, she’d have had the 2024 Olympics to include.
But no one knows the future. It’s clear that God had laid it on her heart to use her platform to share the Good News of life and freedom for all who call on the name of the Lord. Share it while you can! We don’t know what tomorrow holds, we don’t know how many days we have left.
Plus, who says you can only write one book? Now that she has shared this, maybe she’ll write one with more details about her coach Bobby Kersee who also coached Allyson Felix and Flo Jo. Or maybe she won’t because it’s none of our business. I don’t know.
Some reviewers commented on the ordinariness of her life and how her ‘trials’ weren’t really that big a deal. I guess they were looking for stories of things hardly anyone has ever endured?
I mean, I would argue that not many people have endured the training she has, but even so, doesn’t that make her story more relatable and useful for us ‘normal’ people? We are a fickle people, the way we treat the ‘elite’ or the ‘famous.’ We put them on pedestals, place our own expectations on them, complain about their privilege or how they are or are not using their platform, complain that they had it too easy, or that they just could never understand what it’s like to be us. And then when we find out they’re just normal people with struggles just like us, we’re bored, unimpressed, and looking for the next ‘AMAZING’ thing.
We need to stop comparing our hardships with others. Everyone battles fear and anxiety—Olympian or not— and she shares how Christ freed her from that. That’s not a training or therapy reserved for the elite- that’s a remedy for every normal run-of-the-mill person. She wrote this book, not to raise herself higher, but to bring something down to us.
Do we only care about ‘the most’ extraordinary people/lives? Those are the only ones worth knowing and learning from? Are we really going to read this book and say- hey, cool story, but why don’t you go experience something more life-threatening or what we’ve ‘agreed’ to be super hard things, and THEN we’ll give you the time of day’? Is that how you would want someone to treat your story and what has shaped you? Is that how we measure value?
We may not have death around the corner or extreme emotional or physical challenges that constitute ‘major hardship’, but we all still have to go through every day. We all still have our struggles. We all still hunger for purpose and meaning and identity. We all still matter. You don’t have to wait to experience the highest highs or the lowest lows to matter. In the everyday, the mundane, you matter, and that’s why Sydney wrote this book. Because she knows you need the freedom of Christ in the everyday and the mundane. She knows we need the freedom from our own aimless stumbling.
Recommendation
There will always be people that put down books that preach the name of Jesus.
But I hope you are willing to listen to Sydney share her story and the freedom from fear she has found in her life. She wrote this book for you, I hope you’re open to hearing from her.
Is it a literary masterpiece? No. Is it a story of epic proportions? Depending how you feel about the Olympics, maybe not. But it’s genuine. It’s real. It’s hope. It’s truth. And I think we could all use a little bit more of that!
"It’s not about what medals I win or how history will remember my career. It’s far beyond gold. It’s about glorifying God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, through whom the Spirit works to bring redemption to those lost in sin."
challenging
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“The police will presume one of two things: tragic accident or foul play. And if they discover I am not who I say I am, they’ll certainly lean toward the latter. Should they learn my true identity, they’ll know doubt charge me based solely on the circumstantial evidence already in hand.”
I think my thoughts of this book are going to be a bit skewed because it was a nostalgic setting for me.
The book begins with a missing person on the Pipiwai Trail on Maui, a trail that leads to a huge waterfall. I’ve visited Maui twice and hiked this trail both times. It was beautiful! This trail, the Road to Hana, and Maui in general hold a special place in my heart. It was really unique to read a book that was set in such a specific and not-so-traveled place that I’ve actually been to.
[Picture in my original post to prove it!]
There is some content in this book that is a bit hard to read and I’m sure could be a trigger for many readers. The main character, Kati, and her daughter, Zoe, have escaped to the secluded town of Hana. There are clues that her husband, Jeremy, was violent and abusive emotionally and physically. Katie and Zoe have assumed new identities and lived off-grid to avoid being found by Jeremy again.
“We cannot put anything past Jeremy’s vengeful family and their motley army of well-compensated minions.”
In the second half of the book we get more flashbacks to Kati’s previous life and the abuse she suffered not only from Jeremy, but in childhood from her own mother as well, who would often tell her she wished Katie was never born.
Katie isn’t a super likeable character in the book. Corleone frames her as an unreliable narrator type of character, which is not my favorite. She partakes of drugs and alcohol frequently enough that her gaps in memory are not super shocking or worrisome to her.
Yet, when you think of everything she’s been through, of course she’s going to be a bit messed up. I’m not sure we really see much character development for Kati as the story is more of the thriller variety than how Kati overcomes the trauma of her life to make something new.
The person who goes missing at the beginning of the book is Eddie, Kati’s new fiance. Not too long after that Zoe disappears too. Zoe and her mother have a pretty contentious relationship which doesn’t help either character’s likeability. The strained relationship makes Zoe’s appearance look like a potential runaway situation rather than a kidnapping.
Katie is sure Jeremy has found them again but as she discovers more about Eddie’s life, she realizes she never really knew him and there could be more players in this conflict than just her own past.
At times the plot felt a little convoluted and I lost track of who knew what when and what the important details were that I should be remembering for ‘solving the mystery.’
The twists were mostly surprising but I’m not sure I’d call them satisfying.
I think the overall vibe of this book for me was more 'sad’ than anything else. Sad for the characters, sad for the ending. The solution doesn’t have much redemption or hope.
The beginning of the book starts slow but picks up in the second half. Unfortunately, this book needed more than good pacing to save it.
I loved the initial premise and the title ‘Falls to Pieces’ with the waterfall and disappearance and previous life in ruins—all factors of a good concept— but it just wasn’t my favorite execution.
One thing that this book inspired was thinking about the Hawaiian islands in general. The wildfires in Lahaina happened during the writing of the book. Covid is mentioned in the book and how it was nice to not have all the tourists around for awhile.
It just made me very curious to know more about how the locals feel about tourism on their islands. I know tourism is a major aspect of their economy and brings a lot of jobs. However the book alluded to the fact that a lot of the tourism (hotels and such) are owned by non-Islanders/non-locals. That locals are pushed out of their homes.
“‘Transnational corporations are the ones exploiting Native Hawaiian culture, values, and traditions, all while crowded beaches and commercial tour boating destroy the shorelines and coastal fishing. It’s horrific.’”
I have a lot of questions now about how their economy works. Who benefits? Who gets taken advantage of? What would an actual better way of doing it be? What do locals want? Would ‘locally-owned only’ tourism be workable and able to sustain economic ups and downs? Do locals want tourists to stop coming all together? What benefits do tourists bring? Do Hawaiians like sharing their culture with us or is it a ‘well, what else can we do to make a living but really we’d rather you leave’ kind of situation?
I’m headed back to Maui this summer and now I’m wondering if my presence on the island is burdening the people.
Another aspect that was integral to the plot of the story was casinos. I didn’t realize that Vegas was called the ‘ninth island’ of Hawaii as there is a large and growing Hawaiian population there and a lot of Hawaiians who visit there regularly. In the book, one of the characters wants to build a casino on the islands. It is currently illegal to gamble and there are no casinos.
They saw an opportunity to create something akin to the casinos on Native American reservations for the locals of Hawaii. If this is a real consideration currently in Hawaii amongst certain groups, I hope they really consider the affects of inviting that environment onto their islands.
I understand this is a complex issue. This was my high school debate speech topic, and in the last 20 years my stance has only been affirmed by new evidence, but I’ll spare you all my arguments. I think Hawaii is a beautiful place and I do think there should be a conversation about how to keep the locals from being trampled by outside companies coming and doing business, but I would hate to see an environment like that which accompanies casinos taint their islands.
One other side note: the book mentions the island of Lanai: “Today, 98 percent of it is owned by the tech billionaire who founded Oracle.” The very first time we went to Maui, we were actually booked to go to Lanai. But then, shortly before our trip, it got purchased by the Oracle guy who decided to do a bunch of renovations. Our trip got moved to Maui, which was still awesome. But I do remember how baffled we were to discover the circumstances of our itinerary change!
Recommendation
I loved the setting, reminiscing about my time there, and learning about life in Hawaii, but there’s not much else to rave about with this book. With all the swearing and other content and lack of character development or redemption, this is a book I’ll label ‘not for me.’
I think there are readers who can enjoy it if those things don’t bother them, but generally speaking I’d say there’s probably a better book out there for you than this one.
[Content Advisory: 61 f- words, 40 s-words; sexual and emotional abuse, domestic violence]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
I think my thoughts of this book are going to be a bit skewed because it was a nostalgic setting for me.
The book begins with a missing person on the Pipiwai Trail on Maui, a trail that leads to a huge waterfall. I’ve visited Maui twice and hiked this trail both times. It was beautiful! This trail, the Road to Hana, and Maui in general hold a special place in my heart. It was really unique to read a book that was set in such a specific and not-so-traveled place that I’ve actually been to.
[Picture in my original post to prove it!]
There is some content in this book that is a bit hard to read and I’m sure could be a trigger for many readers. The main character, Kati, and her daughter, Zoe, have escaped to the secluded town of Hana. There are clues that her husband, Jeremy, was violent and abusive emotionally and physically. Katie and Zoe have assumed new identities and lived off-grid to avoid being found by Jeremy again.
“We cannot put anything past Jeremy’s vengeful family and their motley army of well-compensated minions.”
In the second half of the book we get more flashbacks to Kati’s previous life and the abuse she suffered not only from Jeremy, but in childhood from her own mother as well, who would often tell her she wished Katie was never born.
Katie isn’t a super likeable character in the book. Corleone frames her as an unreliable narrator type of character, which is not my favorite. She partakes of drugs and alcohol frequently enough that her gaps in memory are not super shocking or worrisome to her.
Yet, when you think of everything she’s been through, of course she’s going to be a bit messed up. I’m not sure we really see much character development for Kati as the story is more of the thriller variety than how Kati overcomes the trauma of her life to make something new.
The person who goes missing at the beginning of the book is Eddie, Kati’s new fiance. Not too long after that Zoe disappears too. Zoe and her mother have a pretty contentious relationship which doesn’t help either character’s likeability. The strained relationship makes Zoe’s appearance look like a potential runaway situation rather than a kidnapping.
Katie is sure Jeremy has found them again but as she discovers more about Eddie’s life, she realizes she never really knew him and there could be more players in this conflict than just her own past.
At times the plot felt a little convoluted and I lost track of who knew what when and what the important details were that I should be remembering for ‘solving the mystery.’
The twists were mostly surprising but I’m not sure I’d call them satisfying.
I think the overall vibe of this book for me was more 'sad’ than anything else. Sad for the characters, sad for the ending. The solution doesn’t have much redemption or hope.
The beginning of the book starts slow but picks up in the second half. Unfortunately, this book needed more than good pacing to save it.
I loved the initial premise and the title ‘Falls to Pieces’ with the waterfall and disappearance and previous life in ruins—all factors of a good concept— but it just wasn’t my favorite execution.
One thing that this book inspired was thinking about the Hawaiian islands in general. The wildfires in Lahaina happened during the writing of the book. Covid is mentioned in the book and how it was nice to not have all the tourists around for awhile.
It just made me very curious to know more about how the locals feel about tourism on their islands. I know tourism is a major aspect of their economy and brings a lot of jobs. However the book alluded to the fact that a lot of the tourism (hotels and such) are owned by non-Islanders/non-locals. That locals are pushed out of their homes.
“‘Transnational corporations are the ones exploiting Native Hawaiian culture, values, and traditions, all while crowded beaches and commercial tour boating destroy the shorelines and coastal fishing. It’s horrific.’”
I have a lot of questions now about how their economy works. Who benefits? Who gets taken advantage of? What would an actual better way of doing it be? What do locals want? Would ‘locally-owned only’ tourism be workable and able to sustain economic ups and downs? Do locals want tourists to stop coming all together? What benefits do tourists bring? Do Hawaiians like sharing their culture with us or is it a ‘well, what else can we do to make a living but really we’d rather you leave’ kind of situation?
I’m headed back to Maui this summer and now I’m wondering if my presence on the island is burdening the people.
Another aspect that was integral to the plot of the story was casinos. I didn’t realize that Vegas was called the ‘ninth island’ of Hawaii as there is a large and growing Hawaiian population there and a lot of Hawaiians who visit there regularly. In the book, one of the characters wants to build a casino on the islands. It is currently illegal to gamble and there are no casinos.
They saw an opportunity to create something akin to the casinos on Native American reservations for the locals of Hawaii. If this is a real consideration currently in Hawaii amongst certain groups, I hope they really consider the affects of inviting that environment onto their islands.
I understand this is a complex issue. This was my high school debate speech topic, and in the last 20 years my stance has only been affirmed by new evidence, but I’ll spare you all my arguments. I think Hawaii is a beautiful place and I do think there should be a conversation about how to keep the locals from being trampled by outside companies coming and doing business, but I would hate to see an environment like that which accompanies casinos taint their islands.
One other side note: the book mentions the island of Lanai: “Today, 98 percent of it is owned by the tech billionaire who founded Oracle.” The very first time we went to Maui, we were actually booked to go to Lanai. But then, shortly before our trip, it got purchased by the Oracle guy who decided to do a bunch of renovations. Our trip got moved to Maui, which was still awesome. But I do remember how baffled we were to discover the circumstances of our itinerary change!
Recommendation
I loved the setting, reminiscing about my time there, and learning about life in Hawaii, but there’s not much else to rave about with this book. With all the swearing and other content and lack of character development or redemption, this is a book I’ll label ‘not for me.’
I think there are readers who can enjoy it if those things don’t bother them, but generally speaking I’d say there’s probably a better book out there for you than this one.
[Content Advisory: 61 f- words, 40 s-words; sexual and emotional abuse, domestic violence]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Domestic abuse
Minor: Rape