I tried not to have too many expectations when we were heading into this new season of life with a newborn. This is not my first New Baby Rodeo, but it is my first time parenting a newborn while also parenting and homeschooling three older children, and I knew our world would look a little chaotic for a while after Nico’s arrival. I predicted it would take some time to adjust. But I grossly underestimated how much time this would take, and how challenging the transition would be. Don’t get me wrong, this season has been wonderful in many ways, but it has not allowed me much free time for things like blogging. Even when those rare pockets of time have materialized, I’ve been too tired or distracted to write, or (more often) too on-edge with anticipation over when the next interruption would come.
Nico’s been with us for nearly two months, and I’m *just* now starting to feel a little more like my usual (organized, juggling all the balls) self. That itch to write and create is slowly reemerging, and I’m eager to return to this space with more regularity. Unfortunately those time and attention constraints are still complicating factors. So as much as I’d love to fully return to my usual posting schedule, that just isn’t a realistic option right now. Rather than conceding to my usual all-or-nothing approach, I’m settling for a compromise. For the next few months I hope to get a post up every Friday. I may toss in an additional post here and there, but one post per week is all I can realistically commit to for now. The goal is to get back to two posts (plus Saturday quotes) starting in January. Until then you can expect to see new posts from me each Friday. And what better place to begin than with some book reviews?!
My most recent Quick Lit post was back in August, so I have a backlog of books to share with you! Today I’m sharing a much-delayed September Quick Lit reviewing books that I read in August. There were a couple of winners in this batch, as well as some books that prompted some spicy opinions. Let’s get to them!
NONFICTION
Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It, by Jennie Allen: Feelings can be tricky things. All of us have them, but few of us are adept at knowing what to do with them. Some of us stuff or ignore our emotions, others of us give our emotions complete reign over our actions; some (raises hand) have a mental awareness of our emotions but struggle to actually FEEL them. In this book, Christian author and teacher Jennie Allen explores this area that she admittedly has not yet mastered. Blending psychology and Biblical insight, Jennie leans into her own story of starting to recognize and manage her emotions as she helps readers identify the truth of our emotions (most notably that they are God-given but NOT our ultimate authority) and start proactively feeling, specifically in the context of community.
This book was a mixed bag for me. While I recognize that some segments of Christianity have taught (and may continue to teach) the dangers of emotionality, resulting in generations of believers engaged in emotional suppression, it seems our culture has swung too far in the opposite direction and that we are all spending way TOO MUCH time in our feelings these days. To that end, this book is a few decades too late to have much relevance. I enjoyed hearing the stories of individuals growing in emotional health, and I found the chapters on naming and sitting with feelings helpful, but the overall message of the book is unoriginal and repetitive.
One aspect of the “emotions” discussion that Jennie nails is the differentiation between emotions and pathologies. She is very clear on the distinction between emotions like anxiety and sadness and clinical diagnoses, such as depression. As someone who has walked through seasons of heavy depression that were not at all connected to my emotions, I very much appreciated her clarity in this.
Based on its rave reviews, I’m clearly in the minority in my impressions of this one. If you are a Christian looking for Biblical guidance in understanding your feelings, and you have zero experience with therapy or psychological study, this book might be helpful for you; personally, I mostly found it to be a redundant read.
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded to 3 Stars on Goodreads) // Book Format: Audiobook
Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design, by Hilary Morgan Ferrer and Amy Davison: Teaching our kids about sex and sexuality should not be complicated. At one time, it wasn’t. But cultural shifts in recent years have not only complicated these issues, they’ve also resulted in a generation that is being fed massive amounts misinformation about sexuality, and at shockingly young ages. As Christian parents, this is an issue we need to get right with our kids and I’m thankful for resources such as Mama Bear Apologetics to help us along the path.
With this follow up to the original Mama Bear Apologetics book—which makes theology accessible and applicable for parents—the Mama Bear team addresses a range of issues related to God’s design for gender, sex, marriage, and family, and empowers parents to address these issues with our kids. After establishing some basics related to a Biblical world view (particularly as it relates to sexuality), the book informs parents of the harmful types of things our kids are being taught by pop culture and in school (shifts in language and morality in the sexual agenda, new standards for sex ed in schools, new definitions of sexual identities and expressions, etc.) and touches on some specific topics that can trip families—even Christian families—up (pornography, purity culture, and same-sex attraction).
Not much of the information in this book was new to me, but I appreciated the wholistic approach to a challenging topic and came away feeling even better equipped to talk about these issues with my kids. I’m saddened by the need for this book but grateful that Christian mamas are stepping up to the task of educating our kids in a manner that honors the Lord and His design. (This is a great adult companion to the Foundation Worldview course on God’s Design that I’m doing with the kids this year.)
My Rating: 4.5 Stars (Rounded to 4 Stars on Goodreads) // Book Format: Audiobook
The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t, by Erin Loechner: Erin Loechner was a six-figure influencer and one of the OG bloggers on the forefront of all things social media. And then she gave it all up, walking away from over a million followers to adopt a low-tech lifestyle. In this book that documents the ins and outs of a low-tech life, Loechner teaches families how we can be freed from the perils of tech obsession—not just through bandaid fixes like parental control apps or limited screen time, but by getting rid of tech ALTOGETHER.
Relying on the industry secrets she learned in her years as an influencer, Loechner flips the script to show how we can utilize proven secrets of engagement (such as gamification, building momentum through “autoplay,” tapping into the network effect, and cracking our kids’ “delight algorithms”) to start logging off and opting out. Throughout the book are LOG OFF sections with ideas for offline engagement, OPT OUT callouts for swapping technology with alternative methods, DM sections with advice from other low-tech families, and SELFIE callouts with questions for reflection.
This book makes an excellent companion to Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation: while that book highlights the harms of too much screen time and social media, this book is a more practical guide for fully turning away from technology harm. I love Loechner’s unique and creative take of using industry secrets for OPTING OUT. I don’t know that our family is ready to completely get rid of our technology (though I wish we had the courage to do so!), but I came away with some excellent ideas and motivations for further limiting our screen usage. I especially love the practical suggestions for making our home so appealing that kids will not desire to turn towards technology for their entertainment, information, and relational needs.
There is so much discussion happening around the issue of tech, especially with kids, and I’m glad. This is is one of the most prominent and important issues facing parents (and all of society) today, and the more voices speaking into it, the better!
My Rating: 4.5 Stars (Rounded to 4 Stars on Goodreads) // Book Format: Audiobook
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION
The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown: A ship carrying hundreds of carefully packaged robots is destroyed in a hurricane, and only one robot is spared. When robot Roz gets her first glimpse of the world, she finds that she has come to life on a remote wild island. Her programming tells her nothing about how to survive in this wilderness, but despite not knowing who she is or what her purpose may be, she manages to adapt to her environment—even surviving a raging storm, vicious bear attacks, and ostracism from the island’s animal inhabitants.
Roz eventually becomes part of her wild surroundings, and even the once-hostile animals on the island begin to warm to Roz, especially once she becomes the unexpected adopted mother of a young goose. Roz and the animals settle into a nice life together until one day a group of antagonistic robots descend upon the island, intent on removing Roz from the only home she has ever known.
This was our first read-aloud of the school year, and the kids and I all enjoyed the book’s endearing characters and lovely illustrations. Roz the robot is a delight, and I especially adored (and related to) her awkward transition into motherhood. I had a harder time latching onto the story, which felt unevenly paced (slow but mostly pleasant for the first 75% then whipping into a frenetic climax just as the book seemed to be drawing to a nice conclusion). This didn’t bother my kids, who all loved the book, but it kept the novel from being a personal favorite. Many reviews draw comparisons to Wall-E which I also did not enjoy, so perhaps robot stories just aren’t my thing.
I will say that this worked very well as a read-aloud: just the right length, nice short chapters, a good mix of characters (for whom I loved reading the voices), engaging illustrations, and plenty of discussable themes (found family, survival, and the dichotomy between nature and technology). I had no idea when choosing this book that it was being made into a movie. We saw it on opening weekend and LOVED it; it was quite a bit different from the book and I enjoyed it much more!
My Rating: 3.5 Stars (Rounded to 4 Stars on Goodreads) // Charleston’s Rating: 5 Stars // Book Format: Print
Winterborne Home for Mayhem and Mystery, by Ally Carter: After a lifetime spent bouncing from one horrible foster home to the next, April finally found her happy ending at Winterborne Home. Four best friends, a wealthy (if somewhat grumpy) guardian, a healthy mix of freedom and security. . . what more could a girl want? But when a masked figure breaks into Winterborne Home and new facts emerge about April’s birth parents, her perfect world comes crashing down. Soon April and the other Winterborne orphans are once again on their own, tasked with puzzling out a decades-old mystery and forced to choose where their loyalties lie.
This sequel to Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor is very much a continuation of the first novel, but a little darker and more adventurous. The kids and I were happy to have answers to many of the open questions posed in book one while getting to spend more time with these characters we’d come to love. This book does not end on a huge cliffhanger, but it does leave a potential opening for a third book that we would certainly read.
We did a mix of read-aloud and audiobook with this and weren’t thrilled with the narration (but DID like that the audiobook let us continue our reading in the car and get to the exciting climax more quickly!).
My Rating: 4 Stars // Charleston’s Rating: 5 Stars // Book Format: Audiobook & Kindle
ADULT FICTION
The Unwedding, by Ally Conde: Ellery and her husband Luke were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary at the luxurious Broken Point resort in Big Sur, California—at least, that was the plan before Luke unexpectedly asked Ellery for a divorce. With the extravagant vacation already paid for, and Ellery unable to stomach the idea of Luke enjoying the getaway with his new love, she has decided to go it alone in the hopes that this retreat will provide healing from both her divorce and other past traumas. . . though her hopes for healing are dashed upon learning that there is a wedding scheduled at Broken Point during her stay.
The weekend takes yet another shocking turn when the body of the groom is found floating in the resort pool, just before a huge mudslide takes out all roads leading to and from their location, and a storm knocks out their internet and power. The guests and staff are left to fend for themselves, and when another member of the wedding party dies and more go missing, Ellery feels as though the world is crashing down around her. She is desperate to solve the murder and return home to her three children, but it may already be too late.
This is a difficult book to review: it starts out strong, with powerfully introspective themes of grief and trauma and healing. Much of the divorce plot line appears to be autobiographical, and Condie speaks beautifully into the internal pain of a broken marriage and the challenges one faces in attempting to move on. The novel also has a great sense of place and strong setup.
Unfortunately, the mystery completely fizzles at the halfway point, with more and more convoluted twists being thrown in. There are too many unrealized characters, too many strange stereotypes, too much meandering, too many plot holes, and too many poor decisions made by our would-be amateur sleuths. The conclusion is anticlimactic, and at that point I was no longer invested enough in the mystery to care.
I wish that this novel had received a tighter edit because it could have been excellent. Instead it is mostly forgettable.
My Rating: 3 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
The Woman in the Library, by Sulari Gentil: Four strangers are united when a woman’s scream pierces the silence of the Boston Public Library. As security guards investigate the source of the scream, patrons are asked to wait for the all-clear and Australian author Freddie becomes acquainted with her three table mates—one of whom, she informs us from the beginning, is a killer. A murder has taken place in the library and soon at least one other person is dead and more have been wounded. Soon, Freddie is racing agains the clock to uncover the murderer who may or may not be her newfound love interest with a fractured past.
What at first appears to be a fairly straightforward whodunit quickly reveals itself to be something more when the opening chapter concludes and we are introduced to two new characters: Hannah, the “author” of this mystery, and Leo, her beta reader who is providing feedback on the novel. Leo continues to offer his input at the end of each chapter, and many of his ideas go on to be incorporated into the story. But Leo’s tips grow increasingly disturbing and we as readers realize there is more than one mystery afoot within the pages of this book.
I’m such a sucker for the book-within-a-book concept, and I loved the execution of this one. The “woman in the library” storyline is engaging enough (albeit with a few too many convoluted plot twists) but I was truly absorbed by the writer/reader dynamic and loved seeing how this could potentially play out in the real writing world. How much influence do editors and beta readers have on an author’s work? When might an author accept critiques and when (or why) might she choose to push back? These were just a few of the fascinating questions I found myself asking as I read, and that were answered differently by the MANY writers present within each level of the narrative (not just Hannah and Freddie, but also the protagonist of Freddie’s novel as well as several side characters). I also loved seeing the US through an Australian writer’s eyes and was intrigued by the commentary on American customs and culture.
Many reviewers found the ending confusing or unsatisfying. While things do tie up rather neatly and end rather anticlimactically, I liked the ending that is conclusive with just enough left open to prompt some doubt (and make for good book club fodder).
My Rating: 4 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
Same Time Next Summer, by Annabel Monaghan: Sam has spent the last decade getting over her high school boyfriend, Wyatt, who broke her heart when they were teens. Now, at thirty, her life is perfectly buttoned up: she has a good job (never mind that she expects to be fired at any minute), the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack, and a loving (if quirky) family. But when Sam and Jack arrive in Long Island to scout out wedding venues, she is shocked to discover that Wyatt is also back in town. Sam is instantly transported to the summer when she was seventeen and she was certain that free-spirited Wyatt was her future. Now she must reconcile her past and future as she questions the path she’s chosen and everything about who she was and who she’s become.
This is a fairly standard romance with a familiar trope (reconnecting with a childhood sweetheart), and I probably would have skipped it altogether if not for the author’s debut (Nora Goes Off Script) which was a surprising hit. This book has the same comfortable tone as that first book but lacks its originality and depth. Sam, Wyatt, and Jack are all underdeveloped and the backstory reads very YA in a way that annoyed rather than charmed me. I also struggled with some thematic elements, including cheating (and cheating-adjacent behavior), and I had a hard time buying into Sam’s complete ignorance of who Wyatt has become in their twelve years apart. (I can’t say more about this without wading into spoiler territory, but it’s a huge plot point that made zero sense to me.)
I definitely didn’t hate this book, as I found the beach setting and sweet-not-spicy romance very much to my taste, but I don’t know that it deserves the attentions it’s gotten and has me on the fence about digging into Monaghan’s third book. (Update: since writing this review I went on to read and LOVE Monaghan’s latest. Stay tuned for that review and if you’re on the fence on which of her titles to pick first I’d start there!)
My Rating: 3 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore: One early August morning, summer camp counselor Louise wakes to discover that one of her preteen campers is missing. And not just any camper: the missing girl is Barber Van Laar, daughter of the prestigious family who owns the camp and surrounding lands. It’s not the first time a Van Laar child has gone missing: fourteen years earlier—in 1961—Barbar’s older brother, Bear, vanished from the family’s summer home on the camp property. His body was never found, and though the Van Laar family felt certain they’d found the individual responsible for his disappearance, few members of law enforcement, the family’s staff, or residents of the neighboring blue-collar town were satisfied with the case’s supposed resolution.
As the story unfolds, we follow both disappearances—Bear’s in 1961 and Barbara’s in 1975—through the eyes of several characters, from the children’s mother and her camp counselor to Barbara’s best friend and one young detective who is on Barbara’s case. And as the investigations continue, we explore issues of class, privilege, gender roles, marriage, parenthood, and the cyclical nature of tragedy and injustice.
This book was everywhere this summer and I worried it was being overhyped. How wrong I was! If anything, it hasn’t gotten ENOUGH buzz! This is my favorite type of novel, one that has it all: a layered story, a mishmash of genres (historical fiction, slow-burn mystery, complicated family), powerful themes, multiple perspectives, alternating timelines, and an interesting setting. I loved spending time at this 1970s summer camp in the Adirondacks (even if the experience was an unsettling one), and while few of the characters are likable, they are well-drawn and multidimensional, and their interconnecting stories had me hooked for the full 500 pages (not an easy feat for me, as I read this at 9 months pregnant and was having trouble focusing on ANY books, let alone long ones!).
Apparently some readers have taken issue with the book’s ending but I found it brilliant, only adding to the fantastic reading experience. This was easily my favorite book of the summer and will be in my Top Five favorites of the year.
My Rating: 5 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
Thanks for being here today! I’m looking forward to hearing what YOU have been reading lately, let me know in the comments. I’ll be back with another round of book reviews in a couple of weeks!
