I personally usually stay away from both religious nonfiction and self-help books. However, like many I picked this one up after Bishop Mariann Budde called out the Trump administration in sermon. 

I found this to be both inspiring and gut punching. There is one quote that made me tear up because it made me think directly about my experience with my church. 

"Knowing our failings all too well, I can easily understand why so many choose to leave the church and the faith. What convinces any of us to stay within our faith tradition when new insights and personal maturation cause us to question what we had once accepted as true, or when spiritual leaders or entire communities fail us?"

This was a punch right to my heart. I like many millennials feel failed by my church community. I was born, baptized, raised, and confirmed into the United Methodist church. I have watched as church has split in two (United Methodist vs Global Methodist) from afar as why would I go back to a church that was not there when I needed them? 

I, nor my parents,  have not stepped foot in the church I was raised in since 2020. At first it was because of COVID and then it was because Nana got cancer and we could not risk the COVID exposure at church. 

To this day, no one at the church I once called home and spent Wednesday evenings and Sundays at as a child and teen has reached out to any of us to ask why we don't attend anymore. Not one person reached out to us when Nana passed from cancer. 

So yeah, I like many millennials feel failed by and forgotten by spiritual leadership and community. 

If you are someone that has a strained relationship with religion or if you are religious and enjoy religious nonfiction, I highly recommend you pick this up. 

This is not the self-help preachy kind of book. This is the kind of self-help book that really gets it. With essays on staying and starting,  this one really struck a cord with me. 

Very poignant essays, but a few felt skim able.

Least favorite plot device added in

Within 10 minutes of starting this audiobook, I knew that I wanted a physical copy. 

I think I may reread this one soon once I have the physical copy so that I can be more thorough in my review and add some quotes that hit really hard. 

Omar El Akkbar focuses on the western empire, neoliberalism, and how both affect Palestine. He also adds in some blurbs of context from his life in Canada and the US as well as his job as a journalist. 

Excellent memoir on audio

I’m really struggling with my rating for this one. 

My initial thoughts are that I loved some of it, but not all of it. 

The one year time jump was sudden and I kind of feel like it wasn’t needed. What happened during that one year just felt like a short recap, which didn’t feel needed either. It just didn’t flow well. 

The relationship between Rose and Fionn really just felt like a sexual one? We didn’t get much relationship building for them on the page besides murders and injury recovery. I feel like I wasn’t given much to root for them as a couple? It’s almost like I was just rooting for them to kill better instead? Even their early friendship seemed blah?

I wish that like the other two were kind of set in their own timelines, that this one was well.  Obviously there has to be some kind of match up due to the visit to Hartford but I felt like we were just given the same plot from a different POV just to add pages. 

I agree with others that this felt more drawn out than the others and it could’ve been edited it down. 

I think Fionn is still my favorite brother? I’ll think about it. 

Overall,  I wish the ending to this series was more just about Fionn and Rose and didn’t include as much of the other two couples. I wanted more building of their friendship to relationship. 

Thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for a review.

DNF @ 37%

I really thought this horror would be right up my alley with sibling relationships and a bit of supernatural horror, but I just can’t get into it. 

The changing of perspectives every chapter is startling  and we don’t even get to know each of the siblings well before we’re pulled to another POV. 

37% in and I still don’t understand the history of Calla’s nightmares or what they are. 

37% in and it felt like three separate story lines that weren’t working. One sibling has nightmares and issues at work. One has issues at school, with friends, and got into some trouble when his friends ditched him. The other one is just…there?

37% and 14 chapters in, the characters could have been more settled and defined. For so much description, there is not much clarity. 

Both the murder and supernatural scenes felt cartoony and seemed too short for how overly descriptive the rest of the book was. 

One of my friends gave this five stars so obviously it works for some people but the writing style and character development/POV change is not working for me. 

In River Sing Me Home, we follow Rachel as she goes from Barbados to British Guiana  (now Guyana) to Trinidad and Tobago in order to reunite with her children after the Emancipation Act of 1834 is announced. Rachel’s slave master has other plans for Rachel and the other slaves on the plantation and she takes the opportunity to slip away in hopes of reuniting with her five children.

River Sing Me Home had me in a vice grip as I found myself unable to put this down and wanting to know what came next. Would Rachel reunite with her children? Would she get caught and be taken back? Would she be able to make it to the next island?

Rachel’s story is both heartbreaking and full of hope. There are reunions, but also different types of loss. 

Shearer clearly did her research here as the story is based off of a real woman and her story. While this topic can be sad and oppressive, Shearer managed to navigate the fine line of giving the reader historical context of this oppressive topic and giving a strong character to hope for. 

This was a great debut and I look forward to picking up whatever Eleanor Shearer writes next.