I NEED TO TALK ABOUT "THE HIRED GIRL" BY LAURA AMY SCHLITZ. This was SUCH a cute book and so well done, it reminded me why I loved reading books when I was younger written in diary form. It follows a girl, Joan, who runs away from home at 14 and gets taken in by a Jewish family as one of their hired girls. She knows nothing about Judaism and she begins to learn, while also exploring her own religious beliefs (although religion is a theme in the novel it's not in a trying to convince you who is right kind of way). I felt like I was reading the thoughts of a 14 year old girl and it made me laugh and cry and swoon. CANNOT RECOMMEND ENOUGH. I didn't see the ending coming at all, and while it's not a thriller or anything like that, the story kept me so engaged because I really felt like I was reading about someones life. 10/10 five stars someone read this so I can talk to them about it.

I got to 50% before I DNFed. Unfortunately, I just think this isn't my thing. It's simultaneously a fantasy world and a dystopian world, but I almost can't place it dystopian wise, and for fantasy, it was...fairly boring. The book starts with a giant traveling scene which is just always slow and rough. 2 stars because it's pretty evident it's great for some, it's just not for me.

I HAD TO READ THIS BOOK FOR UNDERGRAD AND IT WAS DUMB AND I HATED IT!!!!

I'm sure this book will be helpful for lots of people, and I really appreciate that Allen makes a disclaimer where she talks about how there's no shame in taking medication and how God gives us medication to help us through the hard stuff. However, if you've been in and out of therapy for a long time (like myself) a lot of what you'll read in here isn't new. That doesn't make it inherently bad or anything, it's just not what I needed or wanted. I had hoped for something a little deeper, but I'm really loving normalizing these mental health conversations in the church.