Amy

This was actually my second time reading this, and I remember loving it the first time. But it didn't hit me as much on second reading. It may be that I'm at a different place in my own life or that conceptions of spiritual life have changed since I first read it and so this book is less revolutionary. But I still appreciate Susan Isaacs's honest story of her life and bringing God to her counseling sessions.

Although I still think The Eyre Affair is the best of the Thursday Next books, the series continues to delight me. What I especially enjoy is that the more you are immersed in this world, the more it makes sense. Time travel and bookjumping, mind worms and multiple Thursdays–all are more comprehensible the more time you spend in Thursday's world. I also love the little details that reference back to previous novels; they make me want to go back and look for those clues.

This book shares the stories of several African-American inventors, most of whom haven't been given a lot of wide recognition, told in a surrounding fictional story of a brother and sister who are moving into a new house. As they work with a neighbor to fix and clean the house, the neighbor connects what they are doing with stories of inventors. For example, turning on a lightbulb leads to a conversation about inventors who worked with electricity. I really enjoyed this structure and learning about these inventors. The children's story was a little contrived at times, but overall, it worked well.

I can never quite explain Jasper Fforde books to other people; unless they've read The Eyre Affair, it is hard to fully grasp the Ffordian universe. And because I love Thursday Next and her world, I was skeptical that I would enjoy a sequel that featured a different main character and a different manifestation of that world. But I shouldn't have doubted. The remaking of the Book World allowed for new adventures that wouldn't have worked in the Great Library, and this self-doubting version of Thursday was a relatable character whom I enjoyed in different ways. Another gem.

This is very firmly in the “fine” category. It was an approachable book with a few interesting points, but nothing really stands out from it. In fact, I felt like the majority of the book was quoting other writers. The premise is good: that we are all broken people, and our brokenness can be used to build community. There just wasn't anything particularly special about the way this book conveyed that idea.

I've read and loved the rest of the books in the Thursday Next series, but somehow in my earlier readings of the series, I never made it all the way to this one. And starting out, I really didn't think I was going to like it – I thought that Fforde had jumped the shark a bit. But as usual, the further along I made it into the book and the more absorbed into the Nextian universe, the more I enjoyed it. I wouldn't say this is my favorite in the series, but I ended up liking it much more than expected.

However, one of my favorite things about this series is the world-building that Fforde has done, and there were a number of inconsistencies from previous books that threw me off. For example, in First Among Sequels, a major plot point is that Friday wants to prevent the invention of time travel. Then in this book, the dis-invention of time travel is presented as more of a mistake from another time traveler. It's almost as if Fforde regretted that he wrote out the ChronoGuard, so he reinvented his own book's history to make up for it. In addition, my favorite of the Thursday Next books are the ones that involve both the Outland and the BookWorld, so I also was missing the BookWorld in this one.

This is the third book in Jasper Fforde's Chronicles of Kazam series. I don't generally gravitate towards fantasy (but I'm reading through Fforde's entire bibliography), but I actually enjoyed the first two books pretty well, I think because they were light on the strange creatures and peril and more about the relationships between the characters and the main character finding her strength. This third book, on the other hand, takes Jennifer Strange on a (not a) quest into a neighboring kingdom, meaning she is leaving behind the characters from the previous books that I enjoyed, and is mostly strange creatures and peril. It also ends with a pretty major cliffhanger, which I'm guessing Fforde is planning to address in future books, but these future books haven't arrived yet.

As a person who helps lead youth, I liked the idea of a book that encourages youth to rebel against low expectations. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything particularly helpful or useful in this book. It seemed to be challenging teens to rebel against low expectations around things like morality or laziness, rather than challenging them to tackle the larger injustices of the world. The book is more than 10 years old, so it might just be out of date.

This is one of those books that I so desperately wanted to like. It's what Code Switch calls the rep sweats: when you feel like you need to like something because it features characters who look like you. And although the central characters are a generation off from my life, I still connected with the Japanese culture represented in their stories and a mixed-race marriage and kids. But unfortunately, the writing just didn't keep up with the promise of the story. Central plot points were rushed, and characters were described rather than developed. It was a quick read, and I loved the descriptions of life in Japan. But I unfortunately wouldn't recommend.

This is definitely a book I need to slow down and read with a notebook beside me. Jose Humphreys shares so much wisdom in this book from a humble perspective of a leader at an impactful church. The writing is approachable yet with a lot of depth, and the stories he shares are relevant and connected to the topic at hand. This is a book that I would want anyone to read who doesn't understand the role of community development in the full gospel.

At first, I didn't think I was getting much out of this book. There wasn't any particular day that really stood out to me, and I felt like I have heard a lot of the messages before. But as I approached day 100 and I thought about my life over the previous few months, I realized that there was something about reading every single day that I could be brave, that I should be brave, that I was brave helped me to feel brave and be brave. I needed the reminders over and over again. I also really enjoy Annie F. Downs's voice, honesty, and approachable writing. I would do the 100 days again.

This is a tricky book to review. It has a nice writing style that draws the reader in. It is an interesting concept, of traveling the world to different places to immerse in the languages. A lot of the descriptions of places, and particularly food, made me wish I could travel there right now. And I learned a lot about language acquisition. But there was something lurking in the attitude behind the adventure that sort of irked me. I also realize that this was an experiment for Christine Gilbert and her family, so I don't want to judge them too harshly; however, the way Gilbert approached her experience in China in particular bothered me. There can be really cool things that come out of dropping into a new place without knowing what to expect and figuring it out as you go, but it seemed like their family dropped into Beijing and then were shocked by the pollution and cold, which essentially trapped them in their apartment and they didn't actually experience life in China. Then the cultural barriers they experienced frustrated them so much that they just suddenly left. Cultural adjustment is always going to be difficult, but from the start, they could have had a much better understanding of even the climate they were moving into, and maybe that would have led to different choices and they could have had a better experience. And instead of seeing it that way, it seemed like Gilbert was just soured on China for the rest of time. I think there's some really interesting storytelling coming through that experience, but again, it was just sort of tainted for me by the attitude behind it.

This book is presented as a standalone story from the world of A Wrinkle in Time. But in reality, looking at the publication date, it just seems to be an early draft of a portion of A Wind in the Door. So if you've read Wind, you don't need to read this book. That being said, I do think the story depicted is one of the most interesting parts of Wind, so I think if you can set aside expectations that it's an original story, it's an OK book for kids. However, I'm not really sure who the audience for this book is. It's written in a lower reading level than Wrinkle or Wind, so it seems like it's maybe for a younger audience who aren't ready for the other books. But I'm not sure it makes enough sense on it's own if you don't know the characters already from Wrinkle.

I had Cinda Johnson as a professor in graduate school and heard a little bit about her daughter's story and that they had written a book together, so this book has been on my list for a long time before I finally read it. It is an extraordinary story, particularly in the way that it is written, alternating between Linea's (the daughter) and Cinda's (the mother) perspectives as Linea experiences learning she has bipolar as she goes through a series of episodes. It is definitely a difficult book to read because of the reality portrayed, but I think it's important and worthwhile.

Whew, this was a difficult one to read, mostly for the reasons Lewis wrote himself in the afterword of this edition: “I find its chief faults to be those two which I myself least easily forgive in the books of other men: needless obscurity, and an uncharitable temper.” I see how this book was a way for Lewis to wrestle out his own faith journey, but if one is not generally a philosopher, it is difficult to relate to all of the various allegorical figures the main character, John, interacts with.

I've never read any of Christine Caine's full books, but I thought a devotional of her writings might be a good place to start. I'm not so sure that was right. I wasn't particularly affected by the one-page reflections, and I wonder if I need to read her longer writing to feel the impact. Overall, this was just OK for me.

I was expecting the compelling stories about living with allergies, which Sandra Beasley definitely delivers. What I was pleasantly surprised by was the additional research and information Beasley shares about allergies in general: what others experience, what doctors have found, the sociological implications, etc. This is both an interesting memoir and an informative book for those personally affected by allergies or who know others living with allergies.

I don't know why, but I thought this was going to be a cookbook (and there are some recipes at the end), but the main part of the book is explaining how Michelle Obama implemented the White House kitchen garden, what they grew there, and the impact that community gardens anywhere have. The book is organized by season and includes looks into things like beekeeping and school gardens. It was a very approachable but not over-simplified book and definitely made me want to plant some things on my balcony or look into getting a community garden plot.

It's always a good sign to me when I just can't stop talking about things I learn while reading a book. It's also a good sign when a book makes me want to change my life, or at least understand something about my life better. The Omnivore's Dilemma made my want to find a small, closed-loop farm where I could buy all my food from now on. Alas, I haven't quite gotten there, but I am much more aware of what I eat and where it comes from, even as someone who was very thoughtful about the environmental impact of my food before reading the book. The writing is thorough but approachable, and I enjoyed the structure of the book looking at three different food systems.

I think I love long-form journalism. Although I wasn't as blown away by this book as I was by The Omnivore's Dilemma, I did really appreciate this, especially the deep dive into “nutrionism.” I don't think any of the final suggestions were new to me, but it was interesting to read about how the Western diet has broken food down into its component parts – and perhaps not to our benefit.

I love Lauren Graham. And I love that she stretched herself and wrote a novel, which I had heard was pretty good. And it was...fine. It seemed to be semi-autobiographical perhaps, so I enjoyed imagining Graham as Franny. But there wasn't much too the plot, and I couldn't really point to a climax of the story. The characters were OK but not super well-developed or memorable. Overall, I would consider this a good vacation read.

I am so torn about this book. It is exceptionally well-written, which is I'm sure what makes it a classic and keeps people reading it. But the narrator was such a frustrating character to me. As I read the book, I kept telling people, I'm really enjoying reading this book, but I don't like it! I don't know if I've ever read another book that I would say that about. There is no book without the main character's obsession with Rebecca and Rebecca's influence over her husband and all the people in their lives. And yet that obsession, self-doubt, and misinterpretation of everything going on was so frustrating to read. Ugh! I don't know what to think of this.