Women Are Scary, by Melanie Dale

     Women are Scary is ostensibly a book about how to find, make, and keep female friends while managing to be a mother at the same time.  What it ends up being is a humorous memoir about the difficulties that mothers have trying to maintain adult friendships.  Which, as most moms get, is a tough thing to do.

     I'm still not quite sure what to make of this book.  It starts off very funny, but the style started to wear on me after a while.  The author is a blogger, and while I'm sure her writing style is perfect for a blog, I think there just isn't enough substance here to be worthy of a full length book.  The premise is interesting, but you can't buy this book thinking it's going to be full of awesome relationship advice.  For moms out there, truly, I think we know who makes a good fit for us and who doesn't.  It all comes down to the time that we have for socializing.

     This book is valuable if you just want a good bubble-bath kind of a read that's going to cheer you up at the end of a long day full of too much spit-up and not enough adult conversation.  This book is going to remind you that you are fulfilling a very important God-given role, and that you are not the only one who doesn't channel June Cleaver every day.  

     I also appreciate this book because it acknowledges all mothers equally - adoptive, birth, "working", "stay-at-home" and every other label that society has put upon us.  It also has some incredible suggestions for simple charitable works that mothers can do while on play-date outings with each other.  I'll be looking into some of these ideas myself, and the book is worth a read if only for those suggestions.

     Three out of Five Stars

Disclaimer:  I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Don't Give Up, Don't Give In, by Louis Zamperini and David Rensin

  This is the book I've been waiting for since I finished Laura Hillenbrand's biography of Louis Zamperini, Unbroken.   I loved that book, but it seemed to me that the real story of heroism came after the war, when Zamperini was able to overcome the atrocities that he was subjected to.  

     This book, which was finished just before Zamperini passed away, tells that story.  I felt on reading Unbroken that it glossed over the power of God in Zamperini's life.  Don't Give Up gets more into how instrumental Zamperini's faith was in helping him overcome post traumatic stress and its symptoms.  As his son writes in this book, "miracles happened to [Zamperini] to demonstrate the power of God in his life."  And that's the story that I think most people don't get to hear about outside of this book.

  
     More than just a testament to Zamperini's faith, this book also tells the lessons that he learned throughout his life's journey.  How do you forgive someone who has deeply hurt you?  How do you stay positive enough to weather the bad times?  How can you maintain your self respect and dignity at all times?  These questions and more are answered in this book.  And in providing us with his wisdom gained through years of unspeakable trial and a life given in service to humankind, I think Louis Zamperini has shown himself to be the kind of hero our society desperately craves.

     I highly recommend this book not just to those interested in Zamperini's story, but also to anyone who feels that there should be more to life than what they have. Life is not meant to be simply survived, but lived.  And Louis Zamperini understood that.


Five out of Five Stars

Bug Swamp's Gold, by Billie H. Wilson

     Bug Swamp's Gold, by Billie H. Wilson, is a memoir of a young girl's experiences growing up during the 1930s and 1940s in rural South Carolina.  I appreciated this book for the great gift that it must be to the author's family.  There are so many fantastic stories of the lives, loves, and losses of one family during a trying time in our nation's history.  Billie Wilson's family is blessed indeed to have a grandmother who had the time, talent, and determination to turn her memories into this book.  This book must be a treasure to them.

     The author writes with such love of family members who have since passed from this world to the next.  And the portrayal of one small corner of this world, Bug Swamp, is a reminder of what makes this country great.  Despite the Great Depression, despite the atrocities of the War, one family's daily experiences - the small things in life - become the most important things in the world.  Life is made of a thousand small moments, and Bug Swamp's Gold is a testament to that.  Life during the Depression and the War was anything but easy.  However, the love that weaves its way through these family members proves to be strong enough to withstand anything this fallen world throws their way.  And for a small girl - for anyone regardless of age - that love makes all the difference in the world.

     I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in personal accounts of the effect the Great Depression had on rural families.  It also provides an interesting childhood perspective of the World War II homefront.    I would also like to both thank and congratulate the author for her work on this memoir.  It's a tough feat, and the end result is a jewel that her family will cherish for generations to come.



Disclaimer:  I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Three out of Five Stars

Growing Up Amish, by Ira Wagler

          I picked up this book because like so many of us, I've got a natural curiosity about the Amish.  And no wonder - they've managed to stay in control of their culture while the rest of us feel like our culture is controlling us.  I know more than a few people - including myself - who've often thought of the Amish with a certain wistfulness for days gone by.

          This book surprised me, though.  I knew it wasn't going to give me an account of paradise in Amish country.  You can't expect that from an author who chose to leave the religion of his childhood.  What the book did was make me regard the Amish from a legalistic religious perspective.  Christians are meant to understand the Bible from a post-New Testament perspective, believing that Christ's sacrifice covers all repented sins.  The laws of the Old Testament are important, absolutely, but are not meant to supersede the sacrifice of the cross.  From my understanding, the author became so boxed in by the rules of the Amish that he could not recognize the forgiving power of God until someone pointed it out to him.  And that's dangerous stuff.

          I don't know if that is the experience of every Amish person, but it did leave me with food for thought.  It does make me want to study the culture more.  And I am grateful to the author for sharing his story with us.  He leaves us with a message that God will be there for the repentant, no matter what. 

          That's a message which is important to all of us, regardless of denomination.

Three out of Five Stars

This Star Won't Go Out - The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl

I will start this review by saying that I don't know how to write a review of a book like this.  I found this book through John Green's most excellent The Fault inOur Stars.  And I'm so glad I did.

John Green accomplishes an impossible task in The Fault in Our Stars.  He somehow is able to humanize an unhumanizable (yes, that's a word) subject - childhood cancer.  And he does so in a beautifully written fictional narrative that I highly recommend. 

But Esther Grace Earl quite literally gives us her magnum opus - her diaries, poems, prose, blogs - her life.  And through her, we see life's beauty.  We see God's greatest gift of love as it pours out through the heart of a young lady whose star shines brightly even now, four years after her death from thyroid cancer.

As a child, I read a few books that stand out in my mind as being "cancer books."  But This Star Won't Go Out is not a cancer book.  It's a book of love.  It's a book of kindness, of creativity, of the exuberance of a teenager.  Who also happens to be terminally ill.  And through her love and her relationships with the people around her, we learn that our weaknesses do not have to define us.  We learn that God's love triumphs, even in the most painful circumstances.

I know that everyone will take something different from this book.  But whatever gift you are given as you turn that last page, it will leave you with a different outlook on your life.  Don't let the subject matter frighten you.  Just read it.  You'll be glad you did.

Five out of Five Stars