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shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)
“Right now, she and I are in a battle of wills, and she thinks she’s going to win, but she forgot that I was with a man for almost twenty years who tried to break me, to make me bend to his will. And even on our last day together, I still rebelled.”
This book is a bit twisted and keeps you hooked until the end.
How convenient would it be for two women (strangers) to murder each other’s dastardly husbands?
I was immediately invested in the story knowing the premise and reading the very first chapter. It begins at the scene of a crime, victims shot and house ablaze. Our main character has called the police to report the crime and confesses to being the perpetrator.
The first line of the book is this: “Guilty people run away from the scene of a crime, and that is what Tasha Jenkins was doing as the Gingells’ house burned.”
After that brief scene we are thrust back in time several months to figure out what has led up to this crime. And is Tasha really guilty?
Tasha is the victim of years of abuse from her husband. We don’t want to see her as a criminal! So there must be some sort of explanation to exonerate her even if she’s confessing, right?
Or is there more to Tasha than meets the eye? Could the right storm of circumstances cause a person to act so out of character?
We must find out! And to the author’s credit… we really don’t know the whole story of that night until the last few pages.
Despite the somewhat frequent swearing, I still found this book to be very engaging and suspenseful. It’s not an action-packed thriller, but the stakes feel high and the characters seem unpredictable. With short chapters you’ll find this book very hard to put down!
Brief Summary
This book is marketed as similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Strangers on a Train. I haven’t seen it, but I found a trailer for it and I can see the similarities.
Not So Perfect Strangers is the story of a happenstance encounter in D.C. between Madison, a rich white lady married to a lobbyist, and Tasha, a middle-class black lady married to a controlling and abusive man.
Tasha has just attempted to leave her abuser, only to have to return because her teenage son, Ghalen, wouldn’t leave with her when it came down to it.
Madison has just confirmed her suspicions that her husband is cheating on her with someone from work.
Madison accosts Tasha outside of a hotel as Tasha is leaving town and Madison is fleeing her husband, needing a ride to a ‘safe house.’ Seeing Madison as a version of herself, how could Tasha not help another woman in distress?
What she thinks was an innocent encounter turns Tasha’s world upside-down when Madison’s crazy comes out.
‘We both hate our husbands, why don’t we just swap murders. I’ll kill yours if you kill mine!’ is Madison’s proposition.
Tasha has suffered a lot of abuse, but arranging her husband’s murder is a step or two too far.
Except that Madison follows through and expects Tasha to uphold her end of the deal that she never technically agreed to. And if she doesn’t come through, Madison might just be crazy enough to come after her son to get her way…
Race and Gender Politics?
The blurb on Goodreads for this book says that it ‘flips the script on race and gender politics.’ I’m not really sure what that means and I haven’t decided if it’s accurate.
I mean… their husbands are scum and the rich white lady is taking advantage of the down-and-out black woman. That doesn’t seem like a unique situation in terms of race and gender politics right?
Perhaps there’s more to be said about this.
I guess there is the aspect that women helping each other may not always be the best course of action if one of them is a psychopath. Or there is the fact that domestic abuse and misogyny does not discriminate across different races or socioeconomic classes. Plus there is the idea that the females in the book are running the show, but this is fairly typical because most books with female leads function that way.
Personally, I was just here for a good story and I think most readers will read it without getting wrapped up in whatever script this book claims to be flipping. However, I can see how this may make a good book club pick if you’d like to delve into these issues further and dissect the tropes used or not used more deeply.
Abuse
I found the aspect of an abusive relationship interesting to read about in this fictional setting.
We are privy to some of the conversations between Tasha and her therapist. This book does a pretty good job of describing what an abusive relationship is like and what it often means or takes to leave an abuser.
It felt honest and transparent and pretty realistic.
I wonder what women who are in similar situations may think reading this book, if they would find it helpful in some ways?
I feel compelled to share a couple nonfiction books on this topic in case others may want some real-life resources:
Trauma Bonds by Alexis Taiwo (She shares her own story of abuse and desires to help women recognize the prisons they may find themselves in and give them courage to get out.)
In my review for Trauma Bonds I give links to a lot of other resources as well.
Is It Abuse?: A Biblical Guide to Identifying Domestic Abuse and Helping Victims by Darby A. Strickland. (This book comes highly recommended; it is on my TBR list so I haven’t read or reviewed it yet, but hopefully in the next few months I will)
Called to Peace Ministries is an organization that has helped hundreds of women across the country to navigate their situations and help and support them. Each woman who calls in is assigned an advocate who talks with them and can help them plan to leave.
Recommendation
If you can get past the swearing, I would definitely recommend this book. It is hard to put down and it’s a story that will probably stay with you longer than you’d think.
This blurb on the back of the book is accurate: “A gripping, twisted ride! You think you know what’s happening, but you don’t!”
Also this author has written books in other genres under a few different pen names (Shelly Stratton & Shelly Ellis), and I think I’m going to have to see what else she’s written! She knows how to weave a story and the writing style was very good.
[Content Advisory: somewhat frequent swearing; instances of physical and sexual abuse that are not overly descriptive]
**Received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
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This book is a bit twisted and keeps you hooked until the end.
How convenient would it be for two women (strangers) to murder each other’s dastardly husbands?
I was immediately invested in the story knowing the premise and reading the very first chapter. It begins at the scene of a crime, victims shot and house ablaze. Our main character has called the police to report the crime and confesses to being the perpetrator.
The first line of the book is this: “Guilty people run away from the scene of a crime, and that is what Tasha Jenkins was doing as the Gingells’ house burned.”
After that brief scene we are thrust back in time several months to figure out what has led up to this crime. And is Tasha really guilty?
Tasha is the victim of years of abuse from her husband. We don’t want to see her as a criminal! So there must be some sort of explanation to exonerate her even if she’s confessing, right?
Or is there more to Tasha than meets the eye? Could the right storm of circumstances cause a person to act so out of character?
We must find out! And to the author’s credit… we really don’t know the whole story of that night until the last few pages.
Despite the somewhat frequent swearing, I still found this book to be very engaging and suspenseful. It’s not an action-packed thriller, but the stakes feel high and the characters seem unpredictable. With short chapters you’ll find this book very hard to put down!
Brief Summary
This book is marketed as similar to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Strangers on a Train. I haven’t seen it, but I found a trailer for it and I can see the similarities.
Not So Perfect Strangers is the story of a happenstance encounter in D.C. between Madison, a rich white lady married to a lobbyist, and Tasha, a middle-class black lady married to a controlling and abusive man.
Tasha has just attempted to leave her abuser, only to have to return because her teenage son, Ghalen, wouldn’t leave with her when it came down to it.
Madison has just confirmed her suspicions that her husband is cheating on her with someone from work.
Madison accosts Tasha outside of a hotel as Tasha is leaving town and Madison is fleeing her husband, needing a ride to a ‘safe house.’ Seeing Madison as a version of herself, how could Tasha not help another woman in distress?
What she thinks was an innocent encounter turns Tasha’s world upside-down when Madison’s crazy comes out.
‘We both hate our husbands, why don’t we just swap murders. I’ll kill yours if you kill mine!’ is Madison’s proposition.
Tasha has suffered a lot of abuse, but arranging her husband’s murder is a step or two too far.
Except that Madison follows through and expects Tasha to uphold her end of the deal that she never technically agreed to. And if she doesn’t come through, Madison might just be crazy enough to come after her son to get her way…
Race and Gender Politics?
The blurb on Goodreads for this book says that it ‘flips the script on race and gender politics.’ I’m not really sure what that means and I haven’t decided if it’s accurate.
I mean… their husbands are scum and the rich white lady is taking advantage of the down-and-out black woman. That doesn’t seem like a unique situation in terms of race and gender politics right?
Perhaps there’s more to be said about this.
I guess there is the aspect that women helping each other may not always be the best course of action if one of them is a psychopath. Or there is the fact that domestic abuse and misogyny does not discriminate across different races or socioeconomic classes. Plus there is the idea that the females in the book are running the show, but this is fairly typical because most books with female leads function that way.
Personally, I was just here for a good story and I think most readers will read it without getting wrapped up in whatever script this book claims to be flipping. However, I can see how this may make a good book club pick if you’d like to delve into these issues further and dissect the tropes used or not used more deeply.
Abuse
I found the aspect of an abusive relationship interesting to read about in this fictional setting.
We are privy to some of the conversations between Tasha and her therapist. This book does a pretty good job of describing what an abusive relationship is like and what it often means or takes to leave an abuser.
It felt honest and transparent and pretty realistic.
I wonder what women who are in similar situations may think reading this book, if they would find it helpful in some ways?
I feel compelled to share a couple nonfiction books on this topic in case others may want some real-life resources:
Trauma Bonds by Alexis Taiwo (She shares her own story of abuse and desires to help women recognize the prisons they may find themselves in and give them courage to get out.)
In my review for Trauma Bonds I give links to a lot of other resources as well.
Is It Abuse?: A Biblical Guide to Identifying Domestic Abuse and Helping Victims by Darby A. Strickland. (This book comes highly recommended; it is on my TBR list so I haven’t read or reviewed it yet, but hopefully in the next few months I will)
Called to Peace Ministries is an organization that has helped hundreds of women across the country to navigate their situations and help and support them. Each woman who calls in is assigned an advocate who talks with them and can help them plan to leave.
Recommendation
If you can get past the swearing, I would definitely recommend this book. It is hard to put down and it’s a story that will probably stay with you longer than you’d think.
This blurb on the back of the book is accurate: “A gripping, twisted ride! You think you know what’s happening, but you don’t!”
Also this author has written books in other genres under a few different pen names (Shelly Stratton & Shelly Ellis), and I think I’m going to have to see what else she’s written! She knows how to weave a story and the writing style was very good.
[Content Advisory: somewhat frequent swearing; instances of physical and sexual abuse that are not overly descriptive]
**Received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
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“We cannot will ourselves into finding joy in motherhood because we cannot will ourselves into the obedience or love God requires of us. If we’re to find true, lasting joy in our motherhood journey, what we need is the work of Jesus Christ.”
All mothers of any kind should read this book— not just because it’s beautifully designed and just feels good to hold and read— but because Emily and Laura are able to transparently articulate the thoughts, desires, needs, struggles, and fears of motherhood from the small things to the big things and bring gospel hope into each and every one of them!
These two women, who are also sisters-in-law, have a whole Risen Motherhood ministry including a WEBSITE and a PODCAST. I’ve seen articles posted on social media here and there but have not really been a committed follower of their stuff. Therefore, I cannot tell you if anything in this book is a duplicate of other things they’ve written. However, truth is still good to take in more than once, yeah?
I’ve read many books on being a woman and/or a mother so in some respects, some of the information didn’t feel new, but I think the topics they structured their chapters around were really good. They were specific and relatable and things I wouldn’t have been able to easily point out as an area I needed the gospel spoken into in my life.
We hear the phrase ‘preach the gospel to yourself’ a lot. I use it myself. But sometimes we don’t really know how to do this. Emily and Laura do a phenomenal job demonstrating how to take a struggle and view it through the lens of the gospel.
They do this by categorizing the gospel message into four sections: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation.
Creation tells us what God’s original design was and how it reflects his character. The way things should be before they were tainted by sin.
The Fall exposes the ways sin affects our lives, our choices, our bodies, our relationships, etc. We can see how sin and brokenness creates divisions, pain, heartaches, and struggles.
Redemption is the reminder that Jesus made a way for reconciliation. Through his death and resurrection he defeated sin so that we may have forgiveness and experience his love and the power of the Holy Spirit he sent us. This is where the power to find joy and hope in all areas of motherhood is found. We need help and He is it.
Consummation is our ultimate future hope where God promises to restore everything. Even though we have the Holy Spirit’s power to overcome our struggles and our sin, we won’t be completely free from its pull and its affects until Jesus returns. Earth is not our home. Curating and striving for perfect lives here is impossible, but our joy and hope is anchored in that which is to come for those who trust in Him.
With each chapter topic they:
- Expose the message the culture is telling us
- Contrast what culture says vs what the Gospel says using the four sections listed above
- Give examples of how this looks in real life
- End with a few discussion/reflection questions
“If you trust in Christ, the power that raised him from the dead is the same power in your daily life. The Holy Spirit provides what you need to be patient, kind, loving, long-suffering, faithful, and gentle toward your husband, children, and others around you. He allows you to see that motherhood isn’t just made up of long days and tedious work— motherhood is made up of a million tiny moments for worship. All of life is growing in Christlikeness, sharing God’s love, and seeing Christ’s kingdom established here on Earth.”
What topics do they talk about?
Risen Motherhood is…
… Recognizing our hearts’ rebellion to God’s design and God’s help and resisting the cultural message that we just have to try harder and be better.
“We are now our own biggest problem, and most of the time, we live in denial of how rebellious our hearts truly are. We raise our voice when we feel unheard. We defend when we feel wronged. We worry when we lose control. The dragon whispers deceptions in our ears: ‘Try harder. Be better. Maintain control. Find the willpower within.’”
… Not putting our hope in our circumstances but enduring every transition, using it as a time of refinement and trusting that God is working.
“Our goal in life is not simply to survive this current hard thing in hopes that it will be our last. Rather, we endure whatever God has for us to the very end, believing God’s promises even when we can’t see the outcome.”
… Offering our husbands the same unconditional love we give more easily to our children, not seeing them only in comparison or in reference to the unattainable standard we’ve constructed from social media, our friends, and whatever podcast we’ve just listened to.
“Rather than looking at everything he’s doing wrong, begin finding everything he’s doing right. Let Christ’s love in you be stronger than any misunderstanding, bigger than any feelings of resentment, louder than your desire for justice, and greater than your own prideful heart.”
… Trusting God with our moments of monotony that there is nothing too small to bring God glory and work out his purposes.
“It might be mundane to fold laundry, but it’s extraordinary to do it patiently with joy and a heart of love. It might be mundane to sit on the couch and read another book to a whiny four-year-old, but it’s extraordinary to show kindness and mercy to an undeserving sinner. It might be mundane to fill the fridge with groceries, but it’s extraordinary to praise God for his provisions. Our everyday moments might be ordinary, but when we accomplish them while displaying the fruit of the Spirit, they reflect our extraordinary Savior.”
… Understanding that no matter how much research or planning we do, we cannot curate the perfect birth experience. There is no failure or achievement; there is no perfection. There are groans in childbearing, pains and struggles with broken bodies, but the best delivery is yet to come.
“Remarkably, it was through the very thing by which we’re cursed that God sent our Savior, who would eventually deliver us… Jesus came through the curse to break the curse.”
… Accepting the sacrifice we make with our bodies when we bring life into the world and care for our children. Being a mom is not free of cost, and our bodies will show evidence of that. Obsessing over our post-partum bodies distracts us from loving others and focusing on our heart attitudes.
“Jesus certainly understands what it means to be scarred, stretched, and marred, even shedding blood so he could give life to others.”
… Withholding judgment and criticism from other moms who make different food choices than we do and understanding that health is a good gift that we are to steward without caring more about what goes into our stomach than what goes into our hearts.
“Because of Christ’s work, we don’t find our identity in special food rules or diets. We still want to be wise stewards of our bodies, but we know we are not set apart or made more godly by avoiding certain foods, nor should we feel ashamed or embarrassed by what’s in our refrigerators.”
… Identifying when we’re holding our personal preferences too tightly so that it hurts relationships with people who make different choices than we do. There are times we need to confront a sinful word or deed in love, but peace in relationships is not built on getting everyone to affirm and put into practice the same choices we make.
“We’re not in competition; we’re in community.”
… Treating traditions humbly, not allowing our disappointments with the outcomes or the attitudes of our kids to dictate our worth. Traditions are fun, but we can’t let the pressure to make ‘Instagram-worthy’ memories (or ourselves) become our focus.
“God didn’t design traditions to impress others; he designed them to remember and to celebrate his work.”
… Seeking wisdom, guidance, and encouragement not just from like-minded mom friends but in our Christian communities— the church. We miss out on a God-given provision and support system when we isolate ourselves to just the people who are in the same stage of life or mindset that we are in.
“The church is where we encourage each other while we wait for Jesus to return. It’s the family tasked with praying for us and helping us live like Jesus. Even when we don’t feel it or experience it on the first try, the truth is that Jesus loves his bride, the church, so much that he’s coming back for her. We should love her too.”
… Serving others— both our own families and people in our community; striking a balance between saying yes and stepping out and saying no and staying in.
“For believers, engaging in service is not optional. Christ commands us to love him and love others, and that includes serving the vulnerable, the needy, the stranger, and the hard to love… Yet at the same time, as moms, we have a critical ministry opportunity with our children and families. This means, at times, we have to say no to valuable or worthwhile opportunities and causes in order to care well for those God has placed closest to us.”
… Seeing our limitations and not living for more ‘me-time’ and the version of self-care that the culture promotes as an antidote to the stresses of life.
“Self-care strategies are limited and temporary… We will always need more, new, and different types of self-care. God provides the only unlimited well of refreshment in Christ.”
… Trusting God with the future and outcome of our children’s health and future— especially when we are mothers of children with disabilities or differences. Their futures are not dependent on us to research enough, advocate enough, and care diligently enough, though those are all good things. Sanctification is here; God’s glory is here; God’s ultimate restoration is coming.
“If you are a mother facing the challenges of a child with differences, there is a purpose: God is working in your child’s life and through their challenges to display his glory— and he is working in you too.”
… Taking responsibility with teaching our kids the truths of the Bible regardless of school choice and knowing that no ‘right choice’ in school— public, private, home, etc— is a path to salvation or otherwise. We make our decisions in faith and make adjustments as we feel led to best help and guide our children.
“Scripture helps us see that while wise school choices are good, a method or institution doesn’t have the power to send our children down the right path for eternity.”
Other Comments
I related with pretty much everything Emily and Laura shared in this book. It’s clear that they put in the hard work of serious self-reflection. They took common struggles in motherhood, shared their own transparent experiences and thoughts and went a step further to explore their motives and their fears.
So many times I had ‘aha’ moments where they articulated the whys and hows that are behind my own thoughts and actions, convicting me that in a lot of areas I’m not living out of the gospel truths.
I thought it was also insightful when they used the phrase ‘felt needs.’ A felt need means that something feels important and necessary to us, but it may not actually be a ‘need.’ We don’t always know what we need and our feelings dictate a lot more in our lives than they probably should.
We can still acknowledge our desires and our wants, but when we see the work of Christ in the gospel message we start to see how our actual needs are supplied in Christ and the things we think we need don’t last or satisfy fully.
I hadn’t heard that phrasing before and thought it was a good thing to ponder.
I loved the repetition of the gospel message because if we’re going to be applying it throughout our days, we need to be familiar with it. It needs to become second-nature to adjust our daily perspective through this lens.
I like how their last chapters are encouragements to get into the Word. There is no better book than the Bible to make us more like Christ. Risen Motherhood is a great launching point in giving us a framework to look at our own lives, but true transformation comes from the very words of God.
For learning how to study the Bible they recommend Jen Wilkin’s book Women of the Word (which I haven’t read yet). They gave a link in their book for Bible study tools on their website but unfortunately the link didn’t work for me and a quick search on their website didn’t turn up anything.
Some other options would be to check out The Daily Grace Co. Bible studies.
The book You Can Handle the Truth helps you learn how to study your Bible for yourself.
Angie Smith’s book Seamless takes you through the entire Bible seeing the themes and the Bible as one big story.
You could also check out R.C. Sproul’s book Knowing Scripture (which I also haven’t read but comes highly recommended)
However, this book does have its limitations. It was never meant to be an exhaustive book on motherhood. There are plenty more struggles we will encounter that they didn’t bring up. But the gospel principles can still be applied.
It does seem to be geared more towards mothers with littles rather than teenagers. The anecdotes shared may not resonate as much with moms who are beyond pregnancies, snack plates, or Christmas activities. But again, the gospel principles can be applied wherever you are.
Post-partum bodies equates to any body-image. Marriage and mundane moments are life-long endeavors. We may not be having to decide whether or not to serve with little ones in tow, but serving at any stage of life usually involves a familial sacrifice of some kind.
Some reviewers have felt it excludes moms who don’t stay at home. I’m not sure I felt this but I don’t work outside the home so my perspective is different. They did not share topics specifically related to the workplace but I’m not sure I see how the topics discussed only apply to stay-at-home moms.
The overall point is that I think this book will help get your mind understanding how to identify the cultural message of any struggle of motherhood and seeing how sin affects it and how we need Christ to endure or overcome it.
And even if you feel like you’re not the target audience for this book, perhaps it will equip you to speak truth into moms in your life who ARE in this stage of life.
Recommendation
Whether you are a biological mom, a foster mom, or an adoptive mom, this book will speak truth into the struggles of your motherhood and point you to the only Person who is enough.
As moms we need each other to put into practice this ‘preaching of the gospel’ into each other’s lives. Ask each other- What was God’s intention for this? How is this affected by sin? How does the power of Christ enable me to obey and follow God’s original design for this? How does our future hope change my perspective on this?
This book will help us center our lives on God and what he wants for us, not in our own ability to be ‘good moms’ in the eyes of our culture.
“We need a risen motherhood, transformed by the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We need his shed blood if we’re going to shed our guilt and failures. We need his fullness to fill us where we are empty. We need his sacrifice and hurt so we can sacrifice for others until it hurts. We need his wounds to cure our wounds. We need his atonement to atone once and for all our sins. We need his death to give us life.”
Sidenote: Laura Wifler also wrote a children’s book called Like Me to teach your kids about disabilities and open up a dialogue with them about diversity, empathy, and God’s love for everyone. If you’re interested, I featured it on one of Shelf Reflection’s Story Time videos HERE.
Second Sidenote: Emily and Laura- I live in your area and if you would like to be friends I’m game. I love what you guys do- keep up the great work of sharing the freeing message of the Gospel to all us mothers doing our best out here!
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All mothers of any kind should read this book— not just because it’s beautifully designed and just feels good to hold and read— but because Emily and Laura are able to transparently articulate the thoughts, desires, needs, struggles, and fears of motherhood from the small things to the big things and bring gospel hope into each and every one of them!
These two women, who are also sisters-in-law, have a whole Risen Motherhood ministry including a WEBSITE and a PODCAST. I’ve seen articles posted on social media here and there but have not really been a committed follower of their stuff. Therefore, I cannot tell you if anything in this book is a duplicate of other things they’ve written. However, truth is still good to take in more than once, yeah?
I’ve read many books on being a woman and/or a mother so in some respects, some of the information didn’t feel new, but I think the topics they structured their chapters around were really good. They were specific and relatable and things I wouldn’t have been able to easily point out as an area I needed the gospel spoken into in my life.
We hear the phrase ‘preach the gospel to yourself’ a lot. I use it myself. But sometimes we don’t really know how to do this. Emily and Laura do a phenomenal job demonstrating how to take a struggle and view it through the lens of the gospel.
They do this by categorizing the gospel message into four sections: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation.
Creation tells us what God’s original design was and how it reflects his character. The way things should be before they were tainted by sin.
The Fall exposes the ways sin affects our lives, our choices, our bodies, our relationships, etc. We can see how sin and brokenness creates divisions, pain, heartaches, and struggles.
Redemption is the reminder that Jesus made a way for reconciliation. Through his death and resurrection he defeated sin so that we may have forgiveness and experience his love and the power of the Holy Spirit he sent us. This is where the power to find joy and hope in all areas of motherhood is found. We need help and He is it.
Consummation is our ultimate future hope where God promises to restore everything. Even though we have the Holy Spirit’s power to overcome our struggles and our sin, we won’t be completely free from its pull and its affects until Jesus returns. Earth is not our home. Curating and striving for perfect lives here is impossible, but our joy and hope is anchored in that which is to come for those who trust in Him.
With each chapter topic they:
- Expose the message the culture is telling us
- Contrast what culture says vs what the Gospel says using the four sections listed above
- Give examples of how this looks in real life
- End with a few discussion/reflection questions
“If you trust in Christ, the power that raised him from the dead is the same power in your daily life. The Holy Spirit provides what you need to be patient, kind, loving, long-suffering, faithful, and gentle toward your husband, children, and others around you. He allows you to see that motherhood isn’t just made up of long days and tedious work— motherhood is made up of a million tiny moments for worship. All of life is growing in Christlikeness, sharing God’s love, and seeing Christ’s kingdom established here on Earth.”
What topics do they talk about?
Risen Motherhood is…
… Recognizing our hearts’ rebellion to God’s design and God’s help and resisting the cultural message that we just have to try harder and be better.
“We are now our own biggest problem, and most of the time, we live in denial of how rebellious our hearts truly are. We raise our voice when we feel unheard. We defend when we feel wronged. We worry when we lose control. The dragon whispers deceptions in our ears: ‘Try harder. Be better. Maintain control. Find the willpower within.’”
… Not putting our hope in our circumstances but enduring every transition, using it as a time of refinement and trusting that God is working.
“Our goal in life is not simply to survive this current hard thing in hopes that it will be our last. Rather, we endure whatever God has for us to the very end, believing God’s promises even when we can’t see the outcome.”
… Offering our husbands the same unconditional love we give more easily to our children, not seeing them only in comparison or in reference to the unattainable standard we’ve constructed from social media, our friends, and whatever podcast we’ve just listened to.
“Rather than looking at everything he’s doing wrong, begin finding everything he’s doing right. Let Christ’s love in you be stronger than any misunderstanding, bigger than any feelings of resentment, louder than your desire for justice, and greater than your own prideful heart.”
… Trusting God with our moments of monotony that there is nothing too small to bring God glory and work out his purposes.
“It might be mundane to fold laundry, but it’s extraordinary to do it patiently with joy and a heart of love. It might be mundane to sit on the couch and read another book to a whiny four-year-old, but it’s extraordinary to show kindness and mercy to an undeserving sinner. It might be mundane to fill the fridge with groceries, but it’s extraordinary to praise God for his provisions. Our everyday moments might be ordinary, but when we accomplish them while displaying the fruit of the Spirit, they reflect our extraordinary Savior.”
… Understanding that no matter how much research or planning we do, we cannot curate the perfect birth experience. There is no failure or achievement; there is no perfection. There are groans in childbearing, pains and struggles with broken bodies, but the best delivery is yet to come.
“Remarkably, it was through the very thing by which we’re cursed that God sent our Savior, who would eventually deliver us… Jesus came through the curse to break the curse.”
… Accepting the sacrifice we make with our bodies when we bring life into the world and care for our children. Being a mom is not free of cost, and our bodies will show evidence of that. Obsessing over our post-partum bodies distracts us from loving others and focusing on our heart attitudes.
“Jesus certainly understands what it means to be scarred, stretched, and marred, even shedding blood so he could give life to others.”
… Withholding judgment and criticism from other moms who make different food choices than we do and understanding that health is a good gift that we are to steward without caring more about what goes into our stomach than what goes into our hearts.
“Because of Christ’s work, we don’t find our identity in special food rules or diets. We still want to be wise stewards of our bodies, but we know we are not set apart or made more godly by avoiding certain foods, nor should we feel ashamed or embarrassed by what’s in our refrigerators.”
… Identifying when we’re holding our personal preferences too tightly so that it hurts relationships with people who make different choices than we do. There are times we need to confront a sinful word or deed in love, but peace in relationships is not built on getting everyone to affirm and put into practice the same choices we make.
“We’re not in competition; we’re in community.”
… Treating traditions humbly, not allowing our disappointments with the outcomes or the attitudes of our kids to dictate our worth. Traditions are fun, but we can’t let the pressure to make ‘Instagram-worthy’ memories (or ourselves) become our focus.
“God didn’t design traditions to impress others; he designed them to remember and to celebrate his work.”
… Seeking wisdom, guidance, and encouragement not just from like-minded mom friends but in our Christian communities— the church. We miss out on a God-given provision and support system when we isolate ourselves to just the people who are in the same stage of life or mindset that we are in.
“The church is where we encourage each other while we wait for Jesus to return. It’s the family tasked with praying for us and helping us live like Jesus. Even when we don’t feel it or experience it on the first try, the truth is that Jesus loves his bride, the church, so much that he’s coming back for her. We should love her too.”
… Serving others— both our own families and people in our community; striking a balance between saying yes and stepping out and saying no and staying in.
“For believers, engaging in service is not optional. Christ commands us to love him and love others, and that includes serving the vulnerable, the needy, the stranger, and the hard to love… Yet at the same time, as moms, we have a critical ministry opportunity with our children and families. This means, at times, we have to say no to valuable or worthwhile opportunities and causes in order to care well for those God has placed closest to us.”
… Seeing our limitations and not living for more ‘me-time’ and the version of self-care that the culture promotes as an antidote to the stresses of life.
“Self-care strategies are limited and temporary… We will always need more, new, and different types of self-care. God provides the only unlimited well of refreshment in Christ.”
… Trusting God with the future and outcome of our children’s health and future— especially when we are mothers of children with disabilities or differences. Their futures are not dependent on us to research enough, advocate enough, and care diligently enough, though those are all good things. Sanctification is here; God’s glory is here; God’s ultimate restoration is coming.
“If you are a mother facing the challenges of a child with differences, there is a purpose: God is working in your child’s life and through their challenges to display his glory— and he is working in you too.”
… Taking responsibility with teaching our kids the truths of the Bible regardless of school choice and knowing that no ‘right choice’ in school— public, private, home, etc— is a path to salvation or otherwise. We make our decisions in faith and make adjustments as we feel led to best help and guide our children.
“Scripture helps us see that while wise school choices are good, a method or institution doesn’t have the power to send our children down the right path for eternity.”
Other Comments
I related with pretty much everything Emily and Laura shared in this book. It’s clear that they put in the hard work of serious self-reflection. They took common struggles in motherhood, shared their own transparent experiences and thoughts and went a step further to explore their motives and their fears.
So many times I had ‘aha’ moments where they articulated the whys and hows that are behind my own thoughts and actions, convicting me that in a lot of areas I’m not living out of the gospel truths.
I thought it was also insightful when they used the phrase ‘felt needs.’ A felt need means that something feels important and necessary to us, but it may not actually be a ‘need.’ We don’t always know what we need and our feelings dictate a lot more in our lives than they probably should.
We can still acknowledge our desires and our wants, but when we see the work of Christ in the gospel message we start to see how our actual needs are supplied in Christ and the things we think we need don’t last or satisfy fully.
I hadn’t heard that phrasing before and thought it was a good thing to ponder.
I loved the repetition of the gospel message because if we’re going to be applying it throughout our days, we need to be familiar with it. It needs to become second-nature to adjust our daily perspective through this lens.
I like how their last chapters are encouragements to get into the Word. There is no better book than the Bible to make us more like Christ. Risen Motherhood is a great launching point in giving us a framework to look at our own lives, but true transformation comes from the very words of God.
For learning how to study the Bible they recommend Jen Wilkin’s book Women of the Word (which I haven’t read yet). They gave a link in their book for Bible study tools on their website but unfortunately the link didn’t work for me and a quick search on their website didn’t turn up anything.
Some other options would be to check out The Daily Grace Co. Bible studies.
The book You Can Handle the Truth helps you learn how to study your Bible for yourself.
Angie Smith’s book Seamless takes you through the entire Bible seeing the themes and the Bible as one big story.
You could also check out R.C. Sproul’s book Knowing Scripture (which I also haven’t read but comes highly recommended)
However, this book does have its limitations. It was never meant to be an exhaustive book on motherhood. There are plenty more struggles we will encounter that they didn’t bring up. But the gospel principles can still be applied.
It does seem to be geared more towards mothers with littles rather than teenagers. The anecdotes shared may not resonate as much with moms who are beyond pregnancies, snack plates, or Christmas activities. But again, the gospel principles can be applied wherever you are.
Post-partum bodies equates to any body-image. Marriage and mundane moments are life-long endeavors. We may not be having to decide whether or not to serve with little ones in tow, but serving at any stage of life usually involves a familial sacrifice of some kind.
Some reviewers have felt it excludes moms who don’t stay at home. I’m not sure I felt this but I don’t work outside the home so my perspective is different. They did not share topics specifically related to the workplace but I’m not sure I see how the topics discussed only apply to stay-at-home moms.
The overall point is that I think this book will help get your mind understanding how to identify the cultural message of any struggle of motherhood and seeing how sin affects it and how we need Christ to endure or overcome it.
And even if you feel like you’re not the target audience for this book, perhaps it will equip you to speak truth into moms in your life who ARE in this stage of life.
Recommendation
Whether you are a biological mom, a foster mom, or an adoptive mom, this book will speak truth into the struggles of your motherhood and point you to the only Person who is enough.
As moms we need each other to put into practice this ‘preaching of the gospel’ into each other’s lives. Ask each other- What was God’s intention for this? How is this affected by sin? How does the power of Christ enable me to obey and follow God’s original design for this? How does our future hope change my perspective on this?
This book will help us center our lives on God and what he wants for us, not in our own ability to be ‘good moms’ in the eyes of our culture.
“We need a risen motherhood, transformed by the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We need his shed blood if we’re going to shed our guilt and failures. We need his fullness to fill us where we are empty. We need his sacrifice and hurt so we can sacrifice for others until it hurts. We need his wounds to cure our wounds. We need his atonement to atone once and for all our sins. We need his death to give us life.”
Sidenote: Laura Wifler also wrote a children’s book called Like Me to teach your kids about disabilities and open up a dialogue with them about diversity, empathy, and God’s love for everyone. If you’re interested, I featured it on one of Shelf Reflection’s Story Time videos HERE.
Second Sidenote: Emily and Laura- I live in your area and if you would like to be friends I’m game. I love what you guys do- keep up the great work of sharing the freeing message of the Gospel to all us mothers doing our best out here!
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“Space is the hottest place you can freeze to death.”
Randall Munroe creates delightful books. He must just have the best time combing through questions, figuring them out, and illustrating them. What a fun career!
I’ve already read What If? (volume 1) and How To? which were both informative yet useless in the best way.
What If? 2 takes on more questions from fans of Munroe’s work.
Questions like:
- How many pigeons would it take to raise a person in a chair to the height of Australia’s Q1 skyscraper?
- How many calories does Mario burn a day?
- At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to be able to read them all in one lifetime?
- What if Mercury (the planet) were entirely made up of Mercury?
- How many people would it take to build Rome in a day?
- Which has a greater gravitational pull on me: the Sun or spiders?
- How many toasters do I need to heat my house?
A bonus feature of this book that I liked were the sections: Weird and Worrying (where he just listed questions people asked that were too weird or worrying to answer) and the Short Answers (where he was able to answer the questions in a few sentences or small pictures.)
These were interspersed throughout the book and helped break up the longer, more ‘scientific’ chapters.
As usual, the best part of the book is Munroe’s comic illustrations to help visualize the questions/answers. They are hilarious. Munroe’s sense of humor is on point. Which seems surprising since he’s a ‘retired' roboticist. Right?
[If you want to see some samples of his drawings, you can view my ORIGINAL BLOG POST]
Of course, there are a lot of science-y words, equations, and entire sentences in this book that I shall never hope to understand, but since I’m not trying to replicate his words (which would mostly just be highly dangerous or impossible) we can just breeze past those without losing too much.
You don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy this book. You just have to be curious.
As I’ve said in reviews for his other books, I think every science teacher should own his books because I can see talking through some of these in a physics class would be really interesting and engaging for kids. I think the way Munroe talks about science and what we can learn from studying these things could inspire a lot of kids to pursue that kind of higher education.
What things can we learn? Well I’m glad you asked.
Here are just a few things I learned while reading this book:
- The book itself weighs the same amount as the electrons from two bottle-nose dolphins.
- There is a 50 square mile area of Yellowstone where, because of a mistake in drawing district lines, prosecuting a crime in this area requires that the jury come from an area with a population of 0.
- The most expensive way to fill a shoe box would be LSD, plutonium, or Micro SD cards…. or a check written out for a buttload of money.
- A cloud the size of a house contains about a liter of liquid water and would be the largest thing you could eat in one sitting.
- The sun sets later for taller people. By a full second. And if you’re near the equator at sea level, every extra inch of height corresponds to nearly a minute of extra daylight per year. Which would be great for my 6’7” tall husband if he didn’t avoid the sun so much.
- House dust is actually not mostly made up of dead cells. In other news… “You can’t inhale a person, but you can inhale a larger fraction of a person than I think anyone is really comfortable with.”
- If you crush sugar in the dark it emits flashes of light. Apparently Wint-O-Green Life Savers are the best way to try it and my mind was blown a bit by this.
- Plate tectonics regulates the earth’s temperature.
- You can turn Niagara Falls off. Also they have less water flowing at night and in the off-season.
- I learned about this terrifying story about spiders that I can’t unsee.
I was also inspired to investigate how taste buds work and how sunscreen works. Fun fact about sunscreen- if you put a layer of 50 SPF on and then a second layer, you go from letting in 1/50th of UV rays to 1/100th.
In summation:
Should you read this book?
Yes.
Will it remind you how impossible and absurd anything that happens in Star Wars is?
Yes.
But will you still enjoy yourself?
Yes. This is a rhetorical question.
AND you might just find yourself dropping some fun knowledge on your friends and saying “You just learned that.”
(Because like Munroe says, 'The more you know!' is a bit vague and open-ended...)
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Randall Munroe creates delightful books. He must just have the best time combing through questions, figuring them out, and illustrating them. What a fun career!
I’ve already read What If? (volume 1) and How To? which were both informative yet useless in the best way.
What If? 2 takes on more questions from fans of Munroe’s work.
Questions like:
- How many pigeons would it take to raise a person in a chair to the height of Australia’s Q1 skyscraper?
- How many calories does Mario burn a day?
- At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to be able to read them all in one lifetime?
- What if Mercury (the planet) were entirely made up of Mercury?
- How many people would it take to build Rome in a day?
- Which has a greater gravitational pull on me: the Sun or spiders?
- How many toasters do I need to heat my house?
A bonus feature of this book that I liked were the sections: Weird and Worrying (where he just listed questions people asked that were too weird or worrying to answer) and the Short Answers (where he was able to answer the questions in a few sentences or small pictures.)
These were interspersed throughout the book and helped break up the longer, more ‘scientific’ chapters.
As usual, the best part of the book is Munroe’s comic illustrations to help visualize the questions/answers. They are hilarious. Munroe’s sense of humor is on point. Which seems surprising since he’s a ‘retired' roboticist. Right?
[If you want to see some samples of his drawings, you can view my ORIGINAL BLOG POST]
Of course, there are a lot of science-y words, equations, and entire sentences in this book that I shall never hope to understand, but since I’m not trying to replicate his words (which would mostly just be highly dangerous or impossible) we can just breeze past those without losing too much.
You don’t have to be a scientist to enjoy this book. You just have to be curious.
As I’ve said in reviews for his other books, I think every science teacher should own his books because I can see talking through some of these in a physics class would be really interesting and engaging for kids. I think the way Munroe talks about science and what we can learn from studying these things could inspire a lot of kids to pursue that kind of higher education.
What things can we learn? Well I’m glad you asked.
Here are just a few things I learned while reading this book:
- The book itself weighs the same amount as the electrons from two bottle-nose dolphins.
- There is a 50 square mile area of Yellowstone where, because of a mistake in drawing district lines, prosecuting a crime in this area requires that the jury come from an area with a population of 0.
- The most expensive way to fill a shoe box would be LSD, plutonium, or Micro SD cards…. or a check written out for a buttload of money.
- A cloud the size of a house contains about a liter of liquid water and would be the largest thing you could eat in one sitting.
- The sun sets later for taller people. By a full second. And if you’re near the equator at sea level, every extra inch of height corresponds to nearly a minute of extra daylight per year. Which would be great for my 6’7” tall husband if he didn’t avoid the sun so much.
- House dust is actually not mostly made up of dead cells. In other news… “You can’t inhale a person, but you can inhale a larger fraction of a person than I think anyone is really comfortable with.”
- If you crush sugar in the dark it emits flashes of light. Apparently Wint-O-Green Life Savers are the best way to try it and my mind was blown a bit by this.
- Plate tectonics regulates the earth’s temperature.
- You can turn Niagara Falls off. Also they have less water flowing at night and in the off-season.
- I learned about this terrifying story about spiders that I can’t unsee.
I was also inspired to investigate how taste buds work and how sunscreen works. Fun fact about sunscreen- if you put a layer of 50 SPF on and then a second layer, you go from letting in 1/50th of UV rays to 1/100th.
In summation:
Should you read this book?
Yes.
Will it remind you how impossible and absurd anything that happens in Star Wars is?
Yes.
But will you still enjoy yourself?
Yes. This is a rhetorical question.
AND you might just find yourself dropping some fun knowledge on your friends and saying “You just learned that.”
(Because like Munroe says, 'The more you know!' is a bit vague and open-ended...)
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“Before leaving the Army, Vega had served in their most elite combat unit, where she had smashed through closed doors, glass ceilings, and preconceived notions. Wu had no doubt she was more than qualified for this assignment. Her only challenge would be dealing with Toro, whose loyalty was only to himself.”
I am a big fan of Maldonado’s Nina Guerrero series so I knew I had to read her newest book, A Killer’s Game.
The book started off a bit slow as it laid the groundwork for the rest of the book, but the pace picked up and Maldonado created, yet again, a suspenseful story with a tough and heroic female protagonist and a formidable opponent.
If you can get past the alphabet soup of organizations and abbreviations, you’ll really enjoy this high-stakes game of survival.
The basic premise is:
After capturing a hired assassin, Toro, who just killed (using a toxin) the right-hand man to a high profile politician the FBI/NYPD joint task force gets him to turn state’s evidence.
In order to take down the highest player in this mysterious ring they get Toro to bring FBI agent Daniela Vega into the group undercover. But things go south quickly and Toro and Vega are off-grid….
Until they show up in a ‘VR’ game on the dark-web— a contained, modern version of The Hunger Games— where this band of hired mercenaries have been led into a trap: a fight to the death in an underground bunker of mazes and puzzles where only one survives.
Can Vega’s team track her down before she becomes the next victim? Can she trust Toro to help her outsmart Nemesis, the game-maker?
With some of the puzzles it reminded me of Maldonado’s book, The Cipher. I enjoy plots that involve puzzles and riddles. Some of the puzzles in this book were good and I was even able to solve a few of them. I liked in the beginning when they cracked the cipher using the date-shift-code which would be easy enough to replicate on your own but still complicated to solve.
But then there were a few that were too simple: the one with the color circles is meant to be some sort of complicated logic puzzle but the clue they are given gives the answer away too easily and all you really need is one line to solve it - Ignore caution and go. Boom. Choose the green one. Simple. But even the way she wrote the characters thinking through it didn’t jive with how brilliant Vega was written to be.
I would have liked to see some more complex puzzles for her to solve.
A couple other plot points that I wish would have gotten an upgrade in the editing process were:
The parking garage fiasco. I feel like if you’re tailing a car and they go into an underground parking garage, you just expect that there could be a vehicle change but they seemed caught off guard that they followed the wrong car and never even anticipated a switch. It’s par for the course in literally every movie so I wish that would have been a little different.
And just the overall perception the FBI had of the bad guys as if they were surprised by the sophistication and covertness of their operation when in reality pretty much everything they did seemed pretty by-the-book when it comes to bad guys.
But those are just a few nit-picky things. I like really intelligent characters in books, but then I have high expectations for the complexity they take on and want the case to fully reflect their brilliance in how they perceive and solve things.
Even still, this book was still well-written and action-packed.
I’m looking forward to the next book in this series. We got a little background to Vega’s character and a brief look into her family, but I’m hoping to see more of that in the next one. Perhaps her brother will become a bigger player in the next one.
I was able to figure out who Nemesis was fairly early on, but it seems like a lot of readers couldn’t so I think the mystery will keep most people engaged until the last few pages.
Even though I knew who the killer was I still didn’t know how the ‘game’ was going to end or if they would be able to capture Nemesis so I appreciated that the suspense was action-based not just information-based.
I would definitely recommend this book— or any Maldonado book for that matter. Her experience in the FBI and law enforcement gives a lot of authenticity to the characters, plot, and dialogue. Plus her books are generally pretty clean with minimal swearing which I always appreciate as well.
Her books are good examples of how you can write a good thriller without a lot of unnecessary content.
Also, if you like the concept of characters stuck in a ‘game’ where they have to escape deadly traps and puzzles, you may enjoy these books (which I guess are mostly Ted Dekker books…)_:
House by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti (this and Skin are somewhat similar, they also have a supernatural aspect)
Skin by Ted Dekker
Play Dead by Ted Dekker (this one has an virtual game aspect)
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (It’s on my TBR; looks like this involves a mansion with secret passageways and puzzles/riddles)
[Content Advisory: 11 f-words, 19 s-words; no sexual content]
**Received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
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I am a big fan of Maldonado’s Nina Guerrero series so I knew I had to read her newest book, A Killer’s Game.
The book started off a bit slow as it laid the groundwork for the rest of the book, but the pace picked up and Maldonado created, yet again, a suspenseful story with a tough and heroic female protagonist and a formidable opponent.
If you can get past the alphabet soup of organizations and abbreviations, you’ll really enjoy this high-stakes game of survival.
The basic premise is:
After capturing a hired assassin, Toro, who just killed (using a toxin) the right-hand man to a high profile politician the FBI/NYPD joint task force gets him to turn state’s evidence.
In order to take down the highest player in this mysterious ring they get Toro to bring FBI agent Daniela Vega into the group undercover. But things go south quickly and Toro and Vega are off-grid….
Until they show up in a ‘VR’ game on the dark-web— a contained, modern version of The Hunger Games— where this band of hired mercenaries have been led into a trap: a fight to the death in an underground bunker of mazes and puzzles where only one survives.
Can Vega’s team track her down before she becomes the next victim? Can she trust Toro to help her outsmart Nemesis, the game-maker?
With some of the puzzles it reminded me of Maldonado’s book, The Cipher. I enjoy plots that involve puzzles and riddles. Some of the puzzles in this book were good and I was even able to solve a few of them. I liked in the beginning when they cracked the cipher using the date-shift-code which would be easy enough to replicate on your own but still complicated to solve.
But then there were a few that were too simple: the one with the color circles is meant to be some sort of complicated logic puzzle but the clue they are given gives the answer away too easily and all you really need is one line to solve it - Ignore caution and go. Boom. Choose the green one. Simple. But even the way she wrote the characters thinking through it didn’t jive with how brilliant Vega was written to be.
I would have liked to see some more complex puzzles for her to solve.
A couple other plot points that I wish would have gotten an upgrade in the editing process were:
The parking garage fiasco. I feel like if you’re tailing a car and they go into an underground parking garage, you just expect that there could be a vehicle change but they seemed caught off guard that they followed the wrong car and never even anticipated a switch. It’s par for the course in literally every movie so I wish that would have been a little different.
And just the overall perception the FBI had of the bad guys as if they were surprised by the sophistication and covertness of their operation when in reality pretty much everything they did seemed pretty by-the-book when it comes to bad guys.
But those are just a few nit-picky things. I like really intelligent characters in books, but then I have high expectations for the complexity they take on and want the case to fully reflect their brilliance in how they perceive and solve things.
Even still, this book was still well-written and action-packed.
I’m looking forward to the next book in this series. We got a little background to Vega’s character and a brief look into her family, but I’m hoping to see more of that in the next one. Perhaps her brother will become a bigger player in the next one.
I was able to figure out who Nemesis was fairly early on, but it seems like a lot of readers couldn’t so I think the mystery will keep most people engaged until the last few pages.
Even though I knew who the killer was I still didn’t know how the ‘game’ was going to end or if they would be able to capture Nemesis so I appreciated that the suspense was action-based not just information-based.
I would definitely recommend this book— or any Maldonado book for that matter. Her experience in the FBI and law enforcement gives a lot of authenticity to the characters, plot, and dialogue. Plus her books are generally pretty clean with minimal swearing which I always appreciate as well.
Her books are good examples of how you can write a good thriller without a lot of unnecessary content.
Also, if you like the concept of characters stuck in a ‘game’ where they have to escape deadly traps and puzzles, you may enjoy these books (which I guess are mostly Ted Dekker books…)_:
House by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti (this and Skin are somewhat similar, they also have a supernatural aspect)
Skin by Ted Dekker
Play Dead by Ted Dekker (this one has an virtual game aspect)
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (It’s on my TBR; looks like this involves a mansion with secret passageways and puzzles/riddles)
[Content Advisory: 11 f-words, 19 s-words; no sexual content]
**Received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**
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“Corruption never stays in a box. It spreads because greedy men see easy money and there is an endless demand for gratification and the promise of a quick buck.”
If you enjoy reading Wikipedia, you’ll really love this book because that’s the writing style of it. If I had to make a completely arbitrary guess I would say that only 10% of the book is dialogue and most of it was in the last couple chapters.
It feels like a narration, reporting, or documenting of everything that happened. We get a few ‘he thought this’ or ‘he felt this’ statements but overall I don’t think we really feel anything about the characters. We’re just walking through a museum listening as the headphones tells us everything we need to know about the events we pass by.
I enjoy Grisham books. I’m not a superfan, but I’ve read several (before I started reviewing) and this didn’t feel like his ‘typical’ writing.
There was some courtroom drama towards the end but it wasn’t very intense. There were no surprises or climaxes. It felt like one long continuous straight line.
Goodreads says this book is a ‘sweeping saga’ of two families whose trajectories lead them to a showdown in the courtroom.
Sweeping and saga are the right words. It’s a long book and it spans from 1948 to 1986.
We get chapters with background on Biloxi, Mississippi and all the corruption that settled into town. We get chapters that detail baseball games and tournaments. Some that detail boxing matches and cockfights. Chapters detailing the litigation involved in the insurance claims after Hurricane Camille. Chapters on a string of jewelry shop thefts.
It’s a very broad telling.
Really, I think a better title for this book would be ‘Biloxi Vice: Will the Corruption Ever End?’
It’s actually a pretty depressing read because most of the book we’re just privy to all the gambling, drunkenness, fighting, drugs, prostitution, stripping, bribes, etc that are rampant in the town of Biloxi and how the police chief and the DA are all corrupt and elections are rigged so there’s no hope for change.
“Journalists often found it difficult to believe that such illegal activity was so openly accepted in a state so religiously conservative. They wrote articles about the wild and freewheeling ways in Biloxi, but nothing changed. No one with authority seemed to care. The prevailing mood was simply: ‘That’s just the Biloxi.’”
This may be the story of good vs evil but it seems like evil has the upper hand for most of it.
The basic premise is this: Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grow up together playing baseball, but Hugh follows in his dad’s footsteps and the father/son pair become the mafia in town. Keith follows in his dad’s footsteps and the father/son pair become lawyers— the beacon of justice and hope for change. They become enemies. Can the Rudy’s take down the Malco’s? And if they can… at what cost?
The book is divided into four parts:
The Boys
This part gives a ton of family context and background. Both from immigrant families and how they came to be where they are.
Keith “was a left-handed pitcher who threw hard but wild, and frightened batters with his lack of control.”
Hugh “was a right-handed pitcher who threw even harder and with more accuracy.”
It would be an interesting thing to ponder if these descriptions of their pitching style played out in other ways throughout their lives or if they are contradictory to their future personalities.
The Crusader
This is the part where Keith’s dad becomes the DA and goes on a mission to clean up the Coast.
“Jesse Rudy had an iron will and a strong moral compass and he played to win. he would battle the crooks to the bitter end, all the way to the ballot box. And his family would be at his side.”
But the mafia is not worried…
“‘You boys look worried. Need I remind you that the graveyard is full of politicians who promised to clean up the Coast?’”
The Prisoners
and
The Row
These last two parts are about putting key players in prison, some of the aftermath and the death row journey blah blah.
Death Row and Capital Punishment
Speaking of death row. While I’m still trying to figure out what the main moral of the story is, I can tell you that part of it has to do with capital punishment. Based on an interview Grisham had with someone he said he used to be pro-capital punishment but has since changed his mind. I think a lot of his books expose the failings of the criminal justice system and for him, this topic is one of them.
I would guess he is attempting to make the reader ponder their own views of capital punishment. There are currently 24 states with the death penalty.
I was going to write my thoughts about capital punishment but it got long-winded real fast.
There is a ton of things I don’t know about how the criminal justice system works. I know there are a lot of failings and that people have been mistreated in a lot of ways. Alabama, I’m looking at you. Having read Just Mercy, I was exposed to more. I’m guessing Mississippi is probably similar to Alabama.
Pondering what you think about capital punishment is an important thing. I’ll just say that I think my view is heavily influenced by Wayne Grudem’s Christian Ethics book and the verses Romans 13:1-6 and Genesis 9:6.
The Real Victims
One thing that bothered me about this book was the way women were or weren’t incorporated into this book. This book is very male-centric. Which I get— the main characters are men. The criminals are men. The lawyers are men.
But there are women in this story. And they’re lost in it. We don’t even get to know most of their real names. We only know their hooker names. None of them are significant characters. We never know what led them to that life or the mistreatment they endure.
I know they’re not all completely innocent, but in this story it just felt like there were all these women who were part of this stripping and prostitution segment as if it was normal or expected. They were expendable. They were just hookers, whores, skin. Used.
And there was no redemption or hope for them in this story.
I’ve gotten on my soapbox about sex-work and pornography before, so I won’t go deep into it here. I just think if we’re going to talk about the objectification of women, this is a pretty obvious starting point. You can learn more about that by reading: Taking Down Backpage or The Porn Problem.
Historical Pieces
This story’s plot and characters are completely fictional. However some of the events or places are historical. Here were a few that I found interesting.
The Dixie Mafia is a vague ‘character’ in the book. Though the people Grisham wrote were fictional, the group as a whole was real.
“Its members— the FBI was never certain who was a member, who was not, and how many claimed to be— were a loose assortment of bad boys and misfits who preferred crime over honest work. There was no established organization or hierarchy.”
According to Wikipedia, the ‘unofficial’ kingpin of The Dixie Mafia was a man named Mike Gillich Jr., who was from Croatian descent, grew up on Cadet Point, and became an entrepreneur of all matters of illegal stuff, making a name for himself on The Strip. It is clear that Grisham’s character Lance Malco is loosely based off of this man.
Hurricane Camille made landfall in August of 1969 and is one of only four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall on the contiguous United States.
“Her damage was so unbelievable that the National Weather Service retired her name.”
Second in intensity only to The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the damage in Mississippi caused by Camille was estimated at $950 million. In comparison Hurricane Katrina caused $30 billion.
Camille hit 20 miles east of where Katrina hit. Although Katrina wasn’t as intense as Camille, because the same area was more populated 36 years later, the damage was more.
In the book, of course, “Vice was perhaps the first industry to fully recover after the storm.”
Parchman jail seemed like a pretty bad prison so I looked up a little bit more about it. It is the only maximum security prison for men in Mississippi and the state’s oldest prison. It was the basis for the prison farm on the movie ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’. It is true that for many years the prisoners were essentially slaves again, working the fields.
Over the years some changes have been made, but sounds like there has always been a need for reform at that prison for conditions for the prisoners. Recently they finally installed A/C and updated some other things.
Recommendation
If you enjoy a really good Wikipedia rabbit hole about Biloxi and all its trappings, I would definitely recommend this book.
If you are looking for a heart-felt story of a decades-long friendship and its ups and downs, you won’t find that here. If you’re looking for a legal thriller with a couple twists and surprises, you won’t find that here.
It seems this book has garnered a lot of mixed reactions from Grisham fans and I think for good reason.
Personally, I didn’t find it super compelling and I felt so disconnected from the characters. We rarely heard their thoughts or even their voice. We weren’t down in the trenches, we were at a bird’s eye view.
Even when the ‘hero’ of the book died, it felt too matter-of-fact and I didn’t feel much emotion from any of the characters. The content was so broad and documentative.
At the same time, it’s a long book and I read it fast so in a weird way I must have enjoyed it to some degree or I think it would have taken me longer to get through. It could be that because of all the corruption I had to keep reading so I could get some sort of justice and see good win over evil.
All in all, if I hadn’t read this book, I don’t think I would have missed much. I think some people will still enjoy it, but just because you enjoy Grisham books, doesn’t mean you’ll like this one.
[Content Advisory: no f-words, 8 s-words; many instances of violence, sex, drugs, prostitution- no descriptions of sexual things]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
If you enjoy reading Wikipedia, you’ll really love this book because that’s the writing style of it. If I had to make a completely arbitrary guess I would say that only 10% of the book is dialogue and most of it was in the last couple chapters.
It feels like a narration, reporting, or documenting of everything that happened. We get a few ‘he thought this’ or ‘he felt this’ statements but overall I don’t think we really feel anything about the characters. We’re just walking through a museum listening as the headphones tells us everything we need to know about the events we pass by.
I enjoy Grisham books. I’m not a superfan, but I’ve read several (before I started reviewing) and this didn’t feel like his ‘typical’ writing.
There was some courtroom drama towards the end but it wasn’t very intense. There were no surprises or climaxes. It felt like one long continuous straight line.
Goodreads says this book is a ‘sweeping saga’ of two families whose trajectories lead them to a showdown in the courtroom.
Sweeping and saga are the right words. It’s a long book and it spans from 1948 to 1986.
We get chapters with background on Biloxi, Mississippi and all the corruption that settled into town. We get chapters that detail baseball games and tournaments. Some that detail boxing matches and cockfights. Chapters detailing the litigation involved in the insurance claims after Hurricane Camille. Chapters on a string of jewelry shop thefts.
It’s a very broad telling.
Really, I think a better title for this book would be ‘Biloxi Vice: Will the Corruption Ever End?’
It’s actually a pretty depressing read because most of the book we’re just privy to all the gambling, drunkenness, fighting, drugs, prostitution, stripping, bribes, etc that are rampant in the town of Biloxi and how the police chief and the DA are all corrupt and elections are rigged so there’s no hope for change.
“Journalists often found it difficult to believe that such illegal activity was so openly accepted in a state so religiously conservative. They wrote articles about the wild and freewheeling ways in Biloxi, but nothing changed. No one with authority seemed to care. The prevailing mood was simply: ‘That’s just the Biloxi.’”
This may be the story of good vs evil but it seems like evil has the upper hand for most of it.
The basic premise is this: Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grow up together playing baseball, but Hugh follows in his dad’s footsteps and the father/son pair become the mafia in town. Keith follows in his dad’s footsteps and the father/son pair become lawyers— the beacon of justice and hope for change. They become enemies. Can the Rudy’s take down the Malco’s? And if they can… at what cost?
The book is divided into four parts:
The Boys
This part gives a ton of family context and background. Both from immigrant families and how they came to be where they are.
Keith “was a left-handed pitcher who threw hard but wild, and frightened batters with his lack of control.”
Hugh “was a right-handed pitcher who threw even harder and with more accuracy.”
It would be an interesting thing to ponder if these descriptions of their pitching style played out in other ways throughout their lives or if they are contradictory to their future personalities.
The Crusader
This is the part where Keith’s dad becomes the DA and goes on a mission to clean up the Coast.
“Jesse Rudy had an iron will and a strong moral compass and he played to win. he would battle the crooks to the bitter end, all the way to the ballot box. And his family would be at his side.”
But the mafia is not worried…
“‘You boys look worried. Need I remind you that the graveyard is full of politicians who promised to clean up the Coast?’”
The Prisoners
and
The Row
These last two parts are about putting key players in prison, some of the aftermath and the death row journey blah blah.
Death Row and Capital Punishment
Speaking of death row. While I’m still trying to figure out what the main moral of the story is, I can tell you that part of it has to do with capital punishment. Based on an interview Grisham had with someone he said he used to be pro-capital punishment but has since changed his mind. I think a lot of his books expose the failings of the criminal justice system and for him, this topic is one of them.
I would guess he is attempting to make the reader ponder their own views of capital punishment. There are currently 24 states with the death penalty.
I was going to write my thoughts about capital punishment but it got long-winded real fast.
There is a ton of things I don’t know about how the criminal justice system works. I know there are a lot of failings and that people have been mistreated in a lot of ways. Alabama, I’m looking at you. Having read Just Mercy, I was exposed to more. I’m guessing Mississippi is probably similar to Alabama.
Pondering what you think about capital punishment is an important thing. I’ll just say that I think my view is heavily influenced by Wayne Grudem’s Christian Ethics book and the verses Romans 13:1-6 and Genesis 9:6.
The Real Victims
One thing that bothered me about this book was the way women were or weren’t incorporated into this book. This book is very male-centric. Which I get— the main characters are men. The criminals are men. The lawyers are men.
But there are women in this story. And they’re lost in it. We don’t even get to know most of their real names. We only know their hooker names. None of them are significant characters. We never know what led them to that life or the mistreatment they endure.
I know they’re not all completely innocent, but in this story it just felt like there were all these women who were part of this stripping and prostitution segment as if it was normal or expected. They were expendable. They were just hookers, whores, skin. Used.
And there was no redemption or hope for them in this story.
I’ve gotten on my soapbox about sex-work and pornography before, so I won’t go deep into it here. I just think if we’re going to talk about the objectification of women, this is a pretty obvious starting point. You can learn more about that by reading: Taking Down Backpage or The Porn Problem.
Historical Pieces
This story’s plot and characters are completely fictional. However some of the events or places are historical. Here were a few that I found interesting.
The Dixie Mafia is a vague ‘character’ in the book. Though the people Grisham wrote were fictional, the group as a whole was real.
“Its members— the FBI was never certain who was a member, who was not, and how many claimed to be— were a loose assortment of bad boys and misfits who preferred crime over honest work. There was no established organization or hierarchy.”
According to Wikipedia, the ‘unofficial’ kingpin of The Dixie Mafia was a man named Mike Gillich Jr., who was from Croatian descent, grew up on Cadet Point, and became an entrepreneur of all matters of illegal stuff, making a name for himself on The Strip. It is clear that Grisham’s character Lance Malco is loosely based off of this man.
Hurricane Camille made landfall in August of 1969 and is one of only four Category 5 hurricanes to make landfall on the contiguous United States.
“Her damage was so unbelievable that the National Weather Service retired her name.”
Second in intensity only to The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the damage in Mississippi caused by Camille was estimated at $950 million. In comparison Hurricane Katrina caused $30 billion.
Camille hit 20 miles east of where Katrina hit. Although Katrina wasn’t as intense as Camille, because the same area was more populated 36 years later, the damage was more.
In the book, of course, “Vice was perhaps the first industry to fully recover after the storm.”
Parchman jail seemed like a pretty bad prison so I looked up a little bit more about it. It is the only maximum security prison for men in Mississippi and the state’s oldest prison. It was the basis for the prison farm on the movie ‘O Brother Where Art Thou?’. It is true that for many years the prisoners were essentially slaves again, working the fields.
Over the years some changes have been made, but sounds like there has always been a need for reform at that prison for conditions for the prisoners. Recently they finally installed A/C and updated some other things.
Recommendation
If you enjoy a really good Wikipedia rabbit hole about Biloxi and all its trappings, I would definitely recommend this book.
If you are looking for a heart-felt story of a decades-long friendship and its ups and downs, you won’t find that here. If you’re looking for a legal thriller with a couple twists and surprises, you won’t find that here.
It seems this book has garnered a lot of mixed reactions from Grisham fans and I think for good reason.
Personally, I didn’t find it super compelling and I felt so disconnected from the characters. We rarely heard their thoughts or even their voice. We weren’t down in the trenches, we were at a bird’s eye view.
Even when the ‘hero’ of the book died, it felt too matter-of-fact and I didn’t feel much emotion from any of the characters. The content was so broad and documentative.
At the same time, it’s a long book and I read it fast so in a weird way I must have enjoyed it to some degree or I think it would have taken me longer to get through. It could be that because of all the corruption I had to keep reading so I could get some sort of justice and see good win over evil.
All in all, if I hadn’t read this book, I don’t think I would have missed much. I think some people will still enjoy it, but just because you enjoy Grisham books, doesn’t mean you’ll like this one.
[Content Advisory: no f-words, 8 s-words; many instances of violence, sex, drugs, prostitution- no descriptions of sexual things]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
Another great installment in the Stride series! Very suspenseful with some nice surprises! Kept me guessing til the very end.
Before I say anything else, allow me to calm your fears: There is a dog in this book that becomes a companion to Serena. I’m here to assure you, the dog does not die. I felt compelled to share this up-front because that could have been a deal-breaker for some of you!
Serena, Jonathan’s wife, plays a more central role in this book which I kind of liked. It helped me get to know her and her story a bit more.
There are two plot lines:
Serena, sober for 6608 nights and counting hits a low point when she is informed that her estranged mother has died. Estranged is a nice word. Her mother was abusive in a thousand ways but Serena still loves her in an incomprehensible way. This jarring news causes Serena to drink.
And there we have the ‘zero’ night where her sober days count begins anew.
The zero night is significant, not only for her fall from sobriety, but because while she is drunk that night she hallucinates something from a closed case a couple years ago. A case that hit a little too close to home and reminded her of her mom. This sends Serena back into the files to figure out what actually happened and to correct the case that she is beginning to believe she handled wrongly.
Meanwhile, Jonathan, recovered from the gunshot he acquired in Alter Ego, is brought back on the force to work an abduction of a woman who is still missing even after the ransom was paid by her husband. Her husband, a defense lawyer, knows he is a possible suspect. Can Stride and Maggie follow the evidence and get his wife back alive? And if they find her, can they prove what happened to her?
Comments
It was hard seeing Serena battling her demons and knowing the hold her mom had on her even after all the pain she caused. But it was also nice to see Cat and Jonny coming around Serena to support her and love her through it. That she was able to create a mother/daughter bond with Cat that both of them needed.
At first I thought the double plot-lines were going to be hard to keep straight or make the book seem disjointed, but that wasn’t the case. The ‘cases’ are very distinctive and since Serena is on one and Stride on the other, it’s not hard to remember what you’re reading about if you take breaks reading. Freeman does a good job of flowing everything together.
My only critique was that I wish a couple things at the end were shown a bit more dramatically than jumping forward and telling what happened in past tense.
One character introduced in this book is named Broadway and he’s very mysterious (in his illegal business). He seems like too big of an enigma, too big of a player, to just show up randomly in this book and slip away quietly into the night. I’m hoping he comes back up in the next book.
Recommendation
There is a bit of language and some of the content may be triggers for some who are trying to stay sober or who have encountered abuse, but overall I think this is a book most people will really enjoy. Everyone likes a thriller that’s a little unexpected!
This is part of a series, I’ve seen many reviewers say that this was their first read of the series and that they didn’t have trouble with it. I would agree that you can read this as a stand-alone, however I think it would behoove you to at least start back on book 6 or 7 (I didn’t like book 1).
I say this on every Freeman book I review, but if you haven’t read any of his books yet, I would definitely recommend you try them!
[Content Advisory: 20 f-words, 40 s-words; one brief sexual encounter; possible trigger warning for drinking after sobriety]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
Before I say anything else, allow me to calm your fears: There is a dog in this book that becomes a companion to Serena. I’m here to assure you, the dog does not die. I felt compelled to share this up-front because that could have been a deal-breaker for some of you!
Serena, Jonathan’s wife, plays a more central role in this book which I kind of liked. It helped me get to know her and her story a bit more.
There are two plot lines:
Serena, sober for 6608 nights and counting hits a low point when she is informed that her estranged mother has died. Estranged is a nice word. Her mother was abusive in a thousand ways but Serena still loves her in an incomprehensible way. This jarring news causes Serena to drink.
And there we have the ‘zero’ night where her sober days count begins anew.
The zero night is significant, not only for her fall from sobriety, but because while she is drunk that night she hallucinates something from a closed case a couple years ago. A case that hit a little too close to home and reminded her of her mom. This sends Serena back into the files to figure out what actually happened and to correct the case that she is beginning to believe she handled wrongly.
Meanwhile, Jonathan, recovered from the gunshot he acquired in Alter Ego, is brought back on the force to work an abduction of a woman who is still missing even after the ransom was paid by her husband. Her husband, a defense lawyer, knows he is a possible suspect. Can Stride and Maggie follow the evidence and get his wife back alive? And if they find her, can they prove what happened to her?
Comments
It was hard seeing Serena battling her demons and knowing the hold her mom had on her even after all the pain she caused. But it was also nice to see Cat and Jonny coming around Serena to support her and love her through it. That she was able to create a mother/daughter bond with Cat that both of them needed.
At first I thought the double plot-lines were going to be hard to keep straight or make the book seem disjointed, but that wasn’t the case. The ‘cases’ are very distinctive and since Serena is on one and Stride on the other, it’s not hard to remember what you’re reading about if you take breaks reading. Freeman does a good job of flowing everything together.
My only critique was that I wish a couple things at the end were shown a bit more dramatically than jumping forward and telling what happened in past tense.
One character introduced in this book is named Broadway and he’s very mysterious (in his illegal business). He seems like too big of an enigma, too big of a player, to just show up randomly in this book and slip away quietly into the night. I’m hoping he comes back up in the next book.
Recommendation
There is a bit of language and some of the content may be triggers for some who are trying to stay sober or who have encountered abuse, but overall I think this is a book most people will really enjoy. Everyone likes a thriller that’s a little unexpected!
This is part of a series, I’ve seen many reviewers say that this was their first read of the series and that they didn’t have trouble with it. I would agree that you can read this as a stand-alone, however I think it would behoove you to at least start back on book 6 or 7 (I didn’t like book 1).
I say this on every Freeman book I review, but if you haven’t read any of his books yet, I would definitely recommend you try them!
[Content Advisory: 20 f-words, 40 s-words; one brief sexual encounter; possible trigger warning for drinking after sobriety]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
[Would have been 4 but the ending made it a 3]
“‘In the four years the Lebensborn Society has been in existence, do you know how many girls have met one hundred percent of our criteria for genetic and aesthetic perfection?’ Dr Ebner paused, ‘One. One girl— you, Gundi.’”
This is a disturbing read.
Not because of the writing but because of the subject matter: Lebensborn Society circa WWII where the Germans sought to create perfect humans using a breeding process. It’s disturbing because of the indoctrination we know happened in Nazi Germany.
This book focuses on a unique facet of the war which differentiates it from so many other WWII novels and made it interesting to read, but unfortunately the ending left much to be desired.
Cradles of the Reich follows three characters who find themselves at Heim Hochland, one of the Germans’ centers to breed ‘racially pure’ babies for Hitler. Coburn indicates in her author’s note that she wanted to explore characters with three different attitudes a German citizen may have had.
- Gundi: the perfect German ‘specimen’ but is secretly part of the Resistance against the Nazis and wants no part of their program
“‘Gundi, If you want to do something, it can’t be because you want to help the Jews. It has to be because you understand, heart and soul, that we are all inextricable bound. We don’t need a savior. We need allies.’”
- Irma: the motherly nurse who hears the bad things that are happening but thinks it can’t be as bad as everyone says
“‘That’s the problem, Gundi, I don’t want to be in a world where helping one another survive is remarkable.’”
- Hilde: young and enamored with an SS officer, excited to do her part to bear children for the Reich
“She was a woman of substance who understood that the most important thing about a man was the kind of life he could provide for her.”
The chapters change perspectives between the three women as they find themselves at the house intended to ‘care for’ pregnant women who are bringing racially pure children into the world.
Gundi tried to run away and escape the program but was back and basically forced to remain there. Irma is just trying to do good in the world by helping bring life into it. Hilde is desperate to bear children in this program and will do whatever it takes to be successful and wanted.
Eugenics and Abortion
It’s pretty unreal to think about these kinds of centers existing. That the Nazis thought they could identify the perfect race and create a world like that— especially considering Hitler wasn’t even Aryan…
And yet, I can’t help but think about abortion in the United States.
We scoff and are disgusted by the practices contained in this book to create perfect humans, and yet culture approves and celebrates abortion which is essentially doing the same thing. Babies are killed if they are not perfect— they may have one ‘defect’ or another— or they are inconvenient, unwanted. We are lying to ourselves if we believe abortion in America is any different than the eugenics vision of Hitler.
All life is inherently valuable. It is simply a person’s human-ness that makes them worthy of life: not their skin color, their number of limbs, their number of chromosomes, the abilities of their minds, or the functioning of their senses.
Hopefully this book can remind us of the value of human life and stop us from trying to create ‘perfect’ families by keeping certain babies out of them.
The Ending
Why was the ending disappointing?
Because it was abrupt. And it was incomplete.
One of the characters makes an escape attempt but it’s at like 80% of the way through. And then the book is just over. We don’t even know what becomes of one of the characters. And even the woman who tries to escape we don’t get any information about her family or the father of the child or even what her future holds.
Considering the author creates a story where these three very different characters come together in the same house, you’d think we would get a fuller picture of how their attitudes change or influence one another.
I just needed so much more information at the end.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book if you enjoy all WWII books and love learning about more aspects of what happened during the war and how people endured different types of hardship. If you are interested in learning about the Lebensborn Society, you’ll probably enjoy this book.
If you like to have satisfying and complete endings, I wouldn’t recommend this one. I think you’ll be disappointed like I was.
It had so much potential and the ending really took away from it.
I also would not recommend this book if pregnancy or miscarriage is a sensitive subject for you. They are both major parts of the book and may be too much for some women.
[Content Advisory: 1 f-word, 0 s-words; one minor character is gay; considering the premise of the book there is frequent talk of sex and pregnancy; trigger warning for miscarriage]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“‘In the four years the Lebensborn Society has been in existence, do you know how many girls have met one hundred percent of our criteria for genetic and aesthetic perfection?’ Dr Ebner paused, ‘One. One girl— you, Gundi.’”
This is a disturbing read.
Not because of the writing but because of the subject matter: Lebensborn Society circa WWII where the Germans sought to create perfect humans using a breeding process. It’s disturbing because of the indoctrination we know happened in Nazi Germany.
This book focuses on a unique facet of the war which differentiates it from so many other WWII novels and made it interesting to read, but unfortunately the ending left much to be desired.
Cradles of the Reich follows three characters who find themselves at Heim Hochland, one of the Germans’ centers to breed ‘racially pure’ babies for Hitler. Coburn indicates in her author’s note that she wanted to explore characters with three different attitudes a German citizen may have had.
- Gundi: the perfect German ‘specimen’ but is secretly part of the Resistance against the Nazis and wants no part of their program
“‘Gundi, If you want to do something, it can’t be because you want to help the Jews. It has to be because you understand, heart and soul, that we are all inextricable bound. We don’t need a savior. We need allies.’”
- Irma: the motherly nurse who hears the bad things that are happening but thinks it can’t be as bad as everyone says
“‘That’s the problem, Gundi, I don’t want to be in a world where helping one another survive is remarkable.’”
- Hilde: young and enamored with an SS officer, excited to do her part to bear children for the Reich
“She was a woman of substance who understood that the most important thing about a man was the kind of life he could provide for her.”
The chapters change perspectives between the three women as they find themselves at the house intended to ‘care for’ pregnant women who are bringing racially pure children into the world.
Gundi tried to run away and escape the program but was back and basically forced to remain there. Irma is just trying to do good in the world by helping bring life into it. Hilde is desperate to bear children in this program and will do whatever it takes to be successful and wanted.
Eugenics and Abortion
It’s pretty unreal to think about these kinds of centers existing. That the Nazis thought they could identify the perfect race and create a world like that— especially considering Hitler wasn’t even Aryan…
And yet, I can’t help but think about abortion in the United States.
We scoff and are disgusted by the practices contained in this book to create perfect humans, and yet culture approves and celebrates abortion which is essentially doing the same thing. Babies are killed if they are not perfect— they may have one ‘defect’ or another— or they are inconvenient, unwanted. We are lying to ourselves if we believe abortion in America is any different than the eugenics vision of Hitler.
All life is inherently valuable. It is simply a person’s human-ness that makes them worthy of life: not their skin color, their number of limbs, their number of chromosomes, the abilities of their minds, or the functioning of their senses.
Hopefully this book can remind us of the value of human life and stop us from trying to create ‘perfect’ families by keeping certain babies out of them.
The Ending
Why was the ending disappointing?
Because it was abrupt. And it was incomplete.
One of the characters makes an escape attempt but it’s at like 80% of the way through. And then the book is just over. We don’t even know what becomes of one of the characters. And even the woman who tries to escape we don’t get any information about her family or the father of the child or even what her future holds.
Considering the author creates a story where these three very different characters come together in the same house, you’d think we would get a fuller picture of how their attitudes change or influence one another.
I just needed so much more information at the end.
Recommendation
I would recommend this book if you enjoy all WWII books and love learning about more aspects of what happened during the war and how people endured different types of hardship. If you are interested in learning about the Lebensborn Society, you’ll probably enjoy this book.
If you like to have satisfying and complete endings, I wouldn’t recommend this one. I think you’ll be disappointed like I was.
It had so much potential and the ending really took away from it.
I also would not recommend this book if pregnancy or miscarriage is a sensitive subject for you. They are both major parts of the book and may be too much for some women.
[Content Advisory: 1 f-word, 0 s-words; one minor character is gay; considering the premise of the book there is frequent talk of sex and pregnancy; trigger warning for miscarriage]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“‘You may presume that you belong in the spotlight and I operate in a secret world, but perhaps we exist in the same place.’”
A pop star and a spy. Winter and Sydney. On a secret mission to stop a biochemical weapon from getting into terrorist hands. That’s the premise of this book.
Stars and Smoke.
A pretty good title!
This is a YA novel so both characters are 19 years old and good-looking. Another reviewer commented that they got tired of hearing how beautiful Winter was and I would have to agree. It got to be a bit much. And what’s weird is that I still can’t really picture what he looks like.
Let’s see…
"he was so beautiful it was hard to believe he was real."
"she was surprised he wasn’t covered in moths all drawn to his light."
"There was no one else here, and yet, even now, he looked like a star, like he couldn’t help but burn so bright that even the air was drawn to him, that the moon yearned to illuminate him."
Marie Lu took pop star quite literally.
So as with most YA novels, the characters are young and beautiful, have amazing wisdom and skills, and obviously fall in love with each other.
Having read Lu’s Legend series and The Kingdom of Back, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. Stars and Smoke was different because it wasn’t really a world-building book. It took place in modern day London. There was some high-tech gadgetry but otherwise a normal world.
I still liked it.
I think what I enjoyed most was the action. I could see this being a rom-com-action-type movie. For some reason I just picture Simu Liu and Scarlett Johansson as Winter and Sydney so they would be older than teenagers but Simu can dance and Sydney is basically Black Widow.
I am a fan of the Mission Impossible movies, however ridiculous they end up being, so I didn’t really care of the aspects of the mission were realistic or not. It also almost felt like the action and the mission superseded the romance which I prefer.
For a YA novel, the characters weren’t too annoying, the dialogue was mostly realistic, and the action and suspense was really good. Plus it was a clean novel, virtually no swearing and no sex scenes (just one almost one…) so a book that would be appropriate for a teenage audience.
A slightly more detailed summary is this: Panacea, a secret organization often ‘employed’ by the CIA, recruits Winter, a pop star, to be an undercover spy for their mission because Winter has been invited as the special guest to the birthday party of an evil billionaire’s daughter. Winter is paired with the agent, Sydney, who will be his bodyguard.
Together they must use Winter’s access to the daughter to get evidence of the billionaire’s illicit activities so that the CIA can finally take him down before the chemical weapon, Paramecium, is in terrorist control.
The side plot lines are: of course, the romance between Winter and Sydney— forbidden because they live in two very different worlds; and Winter’s early-life-crisis where we feels like his existence is meaningless compared to his deceased brother who worked for the Peace Corp.
Winter finds out his brother was actually an agent with Panacea, not the Peace Corp, and so we see his grief journey with processing that and trying to follow in his footsteps and get the love of his mother back.
I didn’t realize this book was in a series. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It seems like a good standalone story and I’m not sure if the characters have what it takes to go the distance, but Marie Lu is a great author so maybe she’ll come up with something good.
Stars and Smoke doesn’t really end on a cliffhanger so you don’t have to read this one with a commitment to the entire future series which I also like. I have too many series I’m in the middle of…
I liked the name of the secret organization: Panacea. The word Panacea means ‘solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases’ and is the name of the Greek goddess of universal remedy. I thought this was interesting to think about as both Winter and Sydney have difficulties— Winter, his grief over his brother and his estrangement with his mother; Sydney with a lung condition and the loss of her mom to the same disease— and especially considering this is a series, the role of Panacea in both of their lives may become a remedy for them in different ways.
One thing that was a little weird to me was that Winter was a male. In Tosca Lee’s book The Line Between—a really good book— the main character is Wynter and is a female. I’m not sure I felt like Winter fit his character, I think he should have had a different name.
Overall, for a YA book I really liked it! I think if it was marketed as a an adult book I would have wanted it to be a little different, but I think for what it was supposed to be Marie Lu did a really great job writing this.
And for this reason… I would recommend this book.
[Content Advisory: 0 f-words, 7 s-words; a couple characters are gay; heavy flirting but no sex scenes]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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A pop star and a spy. Winter and Sydney. On a secret mission to stop a biochemical weapon from getting into terrorist hands. That’s the premise of this book.
Stars and Smoke.
A pretty good title!
This is a YA novel so both characters are 19 years old and good-looking. Another reviewer commented that they got tired of hearing how beautiful Winter was and I would have to agree. It got to be a bit much. And what’s weird is that I still can’t really picture what he looks like.
Let’s see…
"he was so beautiful it was hard to believe he was real."
"she was surprised he wasn’t covered in moths all drawn to his light."
"There was no one else here, and yet, even now, he looked like a star, like he couldn’t help but burn so bright that even the air was drawn to him, that the moon yearned to illuminate him."
Marie Lu took pop star quite literally.
So as with most YA novels, the characters are young and beautiful, have amazing wisdom and skills, and obviously fall in love with each other.
Having read Lu’s Legend series and The Kingdom of Back, I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book. Stars and Smoke was different because it wasn’t really a world-building book. It took place in modern day London. There was some high-tech gadgetry but otherwise a normal world.
I still liked it.
I think what I enjoyed most was the action. I could see this being a rom-com-action-type movie. For some reason I just picture Simu Liu and Scarlett Johansson as Winter and Sydney so they would be older than teenagers but Simu can dance and Sydney is basically Black Widow.
I am a fan of the Mission Impossible movies, however ridiculous they end up being, so I didn’t really care of the aspects of the mission were realistic or not. It also almost felt like the action and the mission superseded the romance which I prefer.
For a YA novel, the characters weren’t too annoying, the dialogue was mostly realistic, and the action and suspense was really good. Plus it was a clean novel, virtually no swearing and no sex scenes (just one almost one…) so a book that would be appropriate for a teenage audience.
A slightly more detailed summary is this: Panacea, a secret organization often ‘employed’ by the CIA, recruits Winter, a pop star, to be an undercover spy for their mission because Winter has been invited as the special guest to the birthday party of an evil billionaire’s daughter. Winter is paired with the agent, Sydney, who will be his bodyguard.
Together they must use Winter’s access to the daughter to get evidence of the billionaire’s illicit activities so that the CIA can finally take him down before the chemical weapon, Paramecium, is in terrorist control.
The side plot lines are: of course, the romance between Winter and Sydney— forbidden because they live in two very different worlds; and Winter’s early-life-crisis where we feels like his existence is meaningless compared to his deceased brother who worked for the Peace Corp.
Winter finds out his brother was actually an agent with Panacea, not the Peace Corp, and so we see his grief journey with processing that and trying to follow in his footsteps and get the love of his mother back.
I didn’t realize this book was in a series. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It seems like a good standalone story and I’m not sure if the characters have what it takes to go the distance, but Marie Lu is a great author so maybe she’ll come up with something good.
Stars and Smoke doesn’t really end on a cliffhanger so you don’t have to read this one with a commitment to the entire future series which I also like. I have too many series I’m in the middle of…
I liked the name of the secret organization: Panacea. The word Panacea means ‘solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases’ and is the name of the Greek goddess of universal remedy. I thought this was interesting to think about as both Winter and Sydney have difficulties— Winter, his grief over his brother and his estrangement with his mother; Sydney with a lung condition and the loss of her mom to the same disease— and especially considering this is a series, the role of Panacea in both of their lives may become a remedy for them in different ways.
One thing that was a little weird to me was that Winter was a male. In Tosca Lee’s book The Line Between—a really good book— the main character is Wynter and is a female. I’m not sure I felt like Winter fit his character, I think he should have had a different name.
Overall, for a YA book I really liked it! I think if it was marketed as a an adult book I would have wanted it to be a little different, but I think for what it was supposed to be Marie Lu did a really great job writing this.
And for this reason… I would recommend this book.
[Content Advisory: 0 f-words, 7 s-words; a couple characters are gay; heavy flirting but no sex scenes]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“You should not be true to yourself, unless you have died to your old self and your new self is raised with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places. The real you is worth letting out if the real you is dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus.”
A title meant to be provocative. ‘Do not be true to yourself’ is a message you won’t hear on any Disney movie or Taylor Swift album. It’s countercultural and sounds wrong at first, but page after page of this book you’ll be convinced that the statement is true in the context of the Bible.
This is a short book (only 81 pages) that is probably targeted mostly to high school seniors and college graduates, but the principles he relates are beneficial for everyone.
Kevin DeYoung has given many commencement speeches and some of the material in this book is derived from those. His speeches are contrary to the common commencement message of ‘Follow your dreams. March to the beat of your own drummer. Be true to yourself.'
Instead, DeYoung challenges people that our true selves born into sin nature should not be our compass and guidebook. Our desires and passions can lead us astray.
Throughout the book he counters the popular view that our feelings can dictate who we are.
“The world tells us that our identity is found in what we desire. So to deny the fulfillment of what you desire is to deny your truest identity.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” - Prov 14:12
Using Scripture and pop culture references to music and movies, DeYoung does a good job of capturing the interest of the reader and makes strong points for the reader to:
- Choose to serve the Lord (Joshua 23)
“There will always be enthusiasm for ambiguously defined spirituality. But what about following Jesus day after day, week after week, year after year? God wants our commitment to be single-minded.”
- Make a commitment to go to church, especially when you’re away from home and no one will know if you go or not.
“What you do in those first weeks on your own, especially what you do with your commitment to a local church, will set you on a trajectory where Jesus Christ will truly be Lord of your life or where he will be something that you learned as a young person and then left behind.”
- Pick the path of righteousness (Psalm 1)
“Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t want a religion with its institutions, and doctrines, and rules. I just want a relationship with Jesus.’ That sounds pious, but it is false. The Psalmist says precisely the opposite. ‘Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord.’”
- Surrender fully to Jesus; be all in (Deut 6 and Lev 19)
“This may sound easy enough: just believe in Jesus. But remember “believing” in Jesus is not the same as liking Jesus or being a fan of Jesus… Many people today are happy to be vaguely supportive of Jesus, but they don’t want to go all the way and obey everything he taught, believe everything he said, become a member of his church, and count everything as loss for the sake of Christ.”
You can easily read this book in one sitting. Even non-readers won’t be threatened by this book and do not have to give much in the way of commitment to still hear solid truth.
It makes a great gift for young people who are about to be off on their own and must decide what kind of faith they’re going to have away from the eyes of their parents and those who know them.
I love the reminder that we must be intentional with our faith. God is not asking for marginal followers who are more swayed by their feelings than a devotion to God and his Word.
There are only two ways to live. Which way do you choose?
I also love that DeYoung included a list of books in the back of his book for other great (longer) reads that were influential in his life and faith journey.
“One of the most important things we can do when we are young and our beliefs and opinions have not yet fully formed is to make sure we read good books.”
Here is his list, Surprisingly, at the time of this review I’ve only read one of them. I would also encourage you to browse my site and reviews for Christian Living and Theology. There are so many good books out there to challenge and encourage and inform your faith. Take the time to study and know what you believe in so you can stand firm in the seas of culture that are tossed by every passing wind.
- Augustine, Confessions (or try On the Road with Augustine by James K.A. Smith)
- John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
- J.C. Ryle, Holiness
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodox
- Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family
- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
- C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man
- John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied
- J.I. Packer, Knowing God
- R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God
Other books that are great for this audience are:
- Surviving Religion 101 by Michael J. Kruger
- Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung
- Why Believe? by Neil Shenvi
- The Slumber of Christianity by Ted Dekker
**Received a copy via Crossway in exchange for an honest review**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
A title meant to be provocative. ‘Do not be true to yourself’ is a message you won’t hear on any Disney movie or Taylor Swift album. It’s countercultural and sounds wrong at first, but page after page of this book you’ll be convinced that the statement is true in the context of the Bible.
This is a short book (only 81 pages) that is probably targeted mostly to high school seniors and college graduates, but the principles he relates are beneficial for everyone.
Kevin DeYoung has given many commencement speeches and some of the material in this book is derived from those. His speeches are contrary to the common commencement message of ‘Follow your dreams. March to the beat of your own drummer. Be true to yourself.'
Instead, DeYoung challenges people that our true selves born into sin nature should not be our compass and guidebook. Our desires and passions can lead us astray.
Throughout the book he counters the popular view that our feelings can dictate who we are.
“The world tells us that our identity is found in what we desire. So to deny the fulfillment of what you desire is to deny your truest identity.”
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” - Prov 14:12
Using Scripture and pop culture references to music and movies, DeYoung does a good job of capturing the interest of the reader and makes strong points for the reader to:
- Choose to serve the Lord (Joshua 23)
“There will always be enthusiasm for ambiguously defined spirituality. But what about following Jesus day after day, week after week, year after year? God wants our commitment to be single-minded.”
- Make a commitment to go to church, especially when you’re away from home and no one will know if you go or not.
“What you do in those first weeks on your own, especially what you do with your commitment to a local church, will set you on a trajectory where Jesus Christ will truly be Lord of your life or where he will be something that you learned as a young person and then left behind.”
- Pick the path of righteousness (Psalm 1)
“Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t want a religion with its institutions, and doctrines, and rules. I just want a relationship with Jesus.’ That sounds pious, but it is false. The Psalmist says precisely the opposite. ‘Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord.’”
- Surrender fully to Jesus; be all in (Deut 6 and Lev 19)
“This may sound easy enough: just believe in Jesus. But remember “believing” in Jesus is not the same as liking Jesus or being a fan of Jesus… Many people today are happy to be vaguely supportive of Jesus, but they don’t want to go all the way and obey everything he taught, believe everything he said, become a member of his church, and count everything as loss for the sake of Christ.”
You can easily read this book in one sitting. Even non-readers won’t be threatened by this book and do not have to give much in the way of commitment to still hear solid truth.
It makes a great gift for young people who are about to be off on their own and must decide what kind of faith they’re going to have away from the eyes of their parents and those who know them.
I love the reminder that we must be intentional with our faith. God is not asking for marginal followers who are more swayed by their feelings than a devotion to God and his Word.
There are only two ways to live. Which way do you choose?
I also love that DeYoung included a list of books in the back of his book for other great (longer) reads that were influential in his life and faith journey.
“One of the most important things we can do when we are young and our beliefs and opinions have not yet fully formed is to make sure we read good books.”
Here is his list, Surprisingly, at the time of this review I’ve only read one of them. I would also encourage you to browse my site and reviews for Christian Living and Theology. There are so many good books out there to challenge and encourage and inform your faith. Take the time to study and know what you believe in so you can stand firm in the seas of culture that are tossed by every passing wind.
- Augustine, Confessions (or try On the Road with Augustine by James K.A. Smith)
- John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
- Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress
- J.C. Ryle, Holiness
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodox
- Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family
- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
- C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man
- John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied
- J.I. Packer, Knowing God
- R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God
Other books that are great for this audience are:
- Surviving Religion 101 by Michael J. Kruger
- Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung
- Why Believe? by Neil Shenvi
- The Slumber of Christianity by Ted Dekker
**Received a copy via Crossway in exchange for an honest review**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“There is beauty in the brokenness. That’s what this book seeks to uncover, because beauty matters.”
I was an art major. Well… graphic design… but I took fine art and art history classes. And I think I learned more reading this book than I did in all of my art classes. I don’t know if I can lay the blame for that on my professors or my college-brain’s lack of enthusiasm to learn art history.
I can tell you after visiting Rome several years ago, and reading this book now, I regret wasting those years of learning.
Maybe I should have been an artist’s apprentice instead!
As the blurb on Goodreads says, “The book is part art history, part biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it's all story.”
Russ Ramsey does a phenomenal job of looking at a variety of artists and their work and not only explaining the story, context, and technique of the pieces but helping us see them through the eyes of the gospel.
There were so many insights and contexts to famous art that I had seen before but had no idea what was behind it. It really brought the art to life in a new way and gave my somewhat art-jaded-heart a little kickstart!
One particular story that stuck out was the information about Michelangelo’s David sculpture. I had seen it in Rome. I had studied it in class, but the story of it and the context, I had no idea! It really is amazing!
This is a long excerpt but it sums up well what you’ll find in the pages of this book:
“Michelangelo highlights our hunger for glory. Caravaggio raises the conundrum of an utterly corrupt person creating transcendently beautiful displays of gospel truth. Rembrandt takes us on a journey involving the greatest art heist in American history, asking whether we feel the brokenness of the world and what can be done about it. Vermeer reminds us that no one creates in a vacuum, but rather we rely on the technological innovations of others. Bazille takes it a step further, adding that we don’t just rely on the innovations of others but on the others themselves for community and showing how generosity can yield exponential benefits for many. Van Gogh breaks our hearts as an example of someone striving for glory as he empties himself chasing a beauty that eludes him. Henry O. Tanner unpacks issues of race, the role of an artist in the late 1800s who wanted to promote the dignity of the marginalized, and the complicated choices that accompanied that journey. Edward Hopper delves into human loneliness and isolation, reminding us that talent and fame cannot give the heart what it hungers for most. And Lilias Trotter shows us what it means to set aside a passion for something good in order to follow after a greater calling and reveals the joys and sorrow that often accompany sacrificial obedience.”
I think this book would make a great book club selection! (I’ve included book club questions at the end.)
There are so many things to ponder and discuss. For the rest of my review, I’m putting my comments as ‘ponders’ because this book raised a lot of things to think about, but I never really settled anywhere with it. I think that’s the thing about art. It is defined yet ambiguous.
Ponder One
What is beauty and why does it matter? He wrote about this in his first chapter and says:
“Our wounds are not beautiful in themselves; the story behind their healing is. But how can we tell the story of our healing if we hide the wounds that need it? This book is about beauty. To get at it, this book is filled with stories of brokenness.”
“The pursuit of beauty requires the application of goodness and truth for the benefit of others. Beauty is what we make of goodness and truth. Beauty takes the pursuit of goodness past mere personal ethical conduct to the work of intentionally doing good to and for others. Beauty takes the pursuit of truth past the accumulation of knowledge to the proclamation and application of truth in the name of caring for others.”
I’ll be honest with you— I am not your typical artist. I have a hard time appreciating a lot of kinds of art. There is art I don’t think is beautiful. I can spend hours thinking about what makes art beautiful or meaningful.
Can art be beautiful strictly because of the story as to how it was made? And if that’s true, how does a normal passer-by understand that beauty just by looking at the painting? How much of art should or needs to be explained?
Can art be beautiful if it doesn’t depict truth or reality or goodness?
How does art care for people?
Whenever I go to another art museum, I think I’ll take that question with me— ‘What makes this piece of art beautiful?— and see if I can answer it.
Ponder Two
Throughout the book there was this tension between ‘Wow, that’s a really cool piece of information or connection’ and ‘Can we really jump from there to there?’
Because I didn’t have a lot of my own knowledge, sometimes I wondered if Ramsey was perhaps speculating too much on the artists’ intentions or motivations or emotions while creating their art. We have some letters and whatnot as evidence, but could some of these connections to faith be a bit of a stretch?
And if they were… does it matter?
Ramsey seemed pretty confident about the faith of these artists, but I guess I wonder how he can be so sure if their art, but not their lives, reflected it. I know as Christians we still sin and there is forgiveness, but isn’t it possible to create biblical art without having a heart right with the Lord?
Obviously, we don’t know the outcome of their salvation but at times it felt like maybe Ramsey was reading into things more than I would have.
Ponder Three
So much of art in earlier centuries was biblical in nature. Oftentimes the religious institutions were the main entities with money to commission art. Artists could survive from creating biblical renderings that would be placed in churches and cathedrals.
Also much of it is racially inaccurate as the artists were European.
But my question is… if the second commandment states not to make for ourselves an idol and the Bible prohibited graven images, is it unbiblical to depict Jesus in art?
During those times a lot of the people were illiterate and depended on the church to be taught the Bible. The art that was created allowed illiterate people to understand Scriptural messages by visual pictures. Art as evangelism.
Which then leads me to also think of children’s Bibles that have pictures along with the stories.
If making things or pictures in the image of Jesus is unbiblical can we give a pass to situations where the Gospel is trying to be depicted?
Or would that be like allowing the golden calf that was created with the motivation to still be worshiping God?
I don’t know what to think about this.
Ponder Four
What makes art scandalous? Isn’t it weird that different art at different times is considered scandalous but not in a different era?
Then, is scandalous a measure of morality?
And if it is, can morality change?
And if it is, is it immoral to create scandalous art?
Ponder Five
Ramsey’s chapter on Carravagio talks about the dichotomy of Carravagio’s behavior and the nature of his art.
“This is the paradox of Caravaggio—he brought so much suffering on himself, with such bravado and acrimony, yet when he picked up his brush, the Christ he rendered was the Redeemer of the vulnerable… We know that while he was yet sinning, he was producing some of the most profoundly merciful and eloquent commentaries on Scripture ever painted.”
What do we do with art or creations in general that depict truth, but come from a person in sin. Was Caravaggio repentant? We don’t know. Would it matter? Perhaps.
It seems if Caravaggio were alive today with the same type of scenario, if he had a pattern of corruption and sin but painted beautiful scenes from the Bible, he would still be dismissed by Christians. Christians wouldn’t want to support a person who disparages God’s name in their daily life. His art would be seen as hypocritical.
The irony is, all art is created by sinners.
Further, God can use creations from sinners, repentant or not, to build His kingdom.
How, then, should we rightly interact with art that is borne of this nature. Art in the sense of fine art, music, video, movie, etc.?
Can art still be beautiful if the creator was corrupt or it was borne in corruption? Would the beauty be of a different kind? Is it still true?
Ponder Six
What if I don’t feel moved by art?
This is a transparent question for me to ask, being somewhat of an artist myself.
But during my art classes, I remember feeling like an outlier when it came to observing and contemplating art. I didn’t create art to express myself. I wanted to create art for the beauty of it. To create something that someone would want to hang on their wall.
It felt forced to look at someone’s painting and talk about feelings. I could comment on the color selection, the brush strokes, the lines, the composition, but if it were trying to convey an emotional message, it was not always clear to me.
Is it still worth creating art if the viewer does not comprehend the message the artist is attempting to deliver?
Should art move us emotionally?
Do all artists really create every part of the art intentionally? I can see more in earlier centuries of art that this would be true, but is art today still so intentional? Or could we find ourselves over-analyzing every detail and creating a portrait of meaning that is too contrived?
Could I go into an art museum with the explicit purpose to find one or two paintings to study for an extended amount of time? I’m not sure I could. When we were in Rome we visited like three whole museums in one day! Clearly we were doing it wrong, but we had a time crunch and our tour guide told us to skip the Egyptian rooms so sue me.
I’d like to think I could gaze at one piece of art for an hour and come away with some sort of deep connection, but realistically I think my mind would wander and I would get bored. What does that say about me? Am I just a product of our fast-paced culture, or is that a symptom of something deeper?
Now when I think about natural beauty… I think I could sit on the top of a mountain and stare at God’s creation for an hour and come away changed. Maybe I just prefer God’s art to man’s?
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book! For both art-lovers and art-avoiders.
For either party, I think the stories of these artists will resonate with you, inspire you, challenge you, and help you to appreciate art in a different way.
This book is interesting, thought-provoking, and faith-focused.
The book cover made me think I was going to be bored reading it, but I found myself looking forward to picking it up each day and learning more.
Plus the appendices in the back are helpful in encouraging and instructing readers on how to visit an art museum.
Art is connected to life. And “Life, after all, is the great art of divine design.”
“God uses beauty to woo and warm hearts. Creation testifies to a Maker who delights in beauty for beauty’s sake.”
If nothing else, this book may inspire you to see the beauty around you, just for the sake of appreciating something beautiful.
I've included a whole list of more Book Club Discussion Questions in My Original Blog Post! Check it out and have fun discussing in your groups!
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
I was an art major. Well… graphic design… but I took fine art and art history classes. And I think I learned more reading this book than I did in all of my art classes. I don’t know if I can lay the blame for that on my professors or my college-brain’s lack of enthusiasm to learn art history.
I can tell you after visiting Rome several years ago, and reading this book now, I regret wasting those years of learning.
Maybe I should have been an artist’s apprentice instead!
As the blurb on Goodreads says, “The book is part art history, part biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it's all story.”
Russ Ramsey does a phenomenal job of looking at a variety of artists and their work and not only explaining the story, context, and technique of the pieces but helping us see them through the eyes of the gospel.
There were so many insights and contexts to famous art that I had seen before but had no idea what was behind it. It really brought the art to life in a new way and gave my somewhat art-jaded-heart a little kickstart!
One particular story that stuck out was the information about Michelangelo’s David sculpture. I had seen it in Rome. I had studied it in class, but the story of it and the context, I had no idea! It really is amazing!
This is a long excerpt but it sums up well what you’ll find in the pages of this book:
“Michelangelo highlights our hunger for glory. Caravaggio raises the conundrum of an utterly corrupt person creating transcendently beautiful displays of gospel truth. Rembrandt takes us on a journey involving the greatest art heist in American history, asking whether we feel the brokenness of the world and what can be done about it. Vermeer reminds us that no one creates in a vacuum, but rather we rely on the technological innovations of others. Bazille takes it a step further, adding that we don’t just rely on the innovations of others but on the others themselves for community and showing how generosity can yield exponential benefits for many. Van Gogh breaks our hearts as an example of someone striving for glory as he empties himself chasing a beauty that eludes him. Henry O. Tanner unpacks issues of race, the role of an artist in the late 1800s who wanted to promote the dignity of the marginalized, and the complicated choices that accompanied that journey. Edward Hopper delves into human loneliness and isolation, reminding us that talent and fame cannot give the heart what it hungers for most. And Lilias Trotter shows us what it means to set aside a passion for something good in order to follow after a greater calling and reveals the joys and sorrow that often accompany sacrificial obedience.”
I think this book would make a great book club selection! (I’ve included book club questions at the end.)
There are so many things to ponder and discuss. For the rest of my review, I’m putting my comments as ‘ponders’ because this book raised a lot of things to think about, but I never really settled anywhere with it. I think that’s the thing about art. It is defined yet ambiguous.
Ponder One
What is beauty and why does it matter? He wrote about this in his first chapter and says:
“Our wounds are not beautiful in themselves; the story behind their healing is. But how can we tell the story of our healing if we hide the wounds that need it? This book is about beauty. To get at it, this book is filled with stories of brokenness.”
“The pursuit of beauty requires the application of goodness and truth for the benefit of others. Beauty is what we make of goodness and truth. Beauty takes the pursuit of goodness past mere personal ethical conduct to the work of intentionally doing good to and for others. Beauty takes the pursuit of truth past the accumulation of knowledge to the proclamation and application of truth in the name of caring for others.”
I’ll be honest with you— I am not your typical artist. I have a hard time appreciating a lot of kinds of art. There is art I don’t think is beautiful. I can spend hours thinking about what makes art beautiful or meaningful.
Can art be beautiful strictly because of the story as to how it was made? And if that’s true, how does a normal passer-by understand that beauty just by looking at the painting? How much of art should or needs to be explained?
Can art be beautiful if it doesn’t depict truth or reality or goodness?
How does art care for people?
Whenever I go to another art museum, I think I’ll take that question with me— ‘What makes this piece of art beautiful?— and see if I can answer it.
Ponder Two
Throughout the book there was this tension between ‘Wow, that’s a really cool piece of information or connection’ and ‘Can we really jump from there to there?’
Because I didn’t have a lot of my own knowledge, sometimes I wondered if Ramsey was perhaps speculating too much on the artists’ intentions or motivations or emotions while creating their art. We have some letters and whatnot as evidence, but could some of these connections to faith be a bit of a stretch?
And if they were… does it matter?
Ramsey seemed pretty confident about the faith of these artists, but I guess I wonder how he can be so sure if their art, but not their lives, reflected it. I know as Christians we still sin and there is forgiveness, but isn’t it possible to create biblical art without having a heart right with the Lord?
Obviously, we don’t know the outcome of their salvation but at times it felt like maybe Ramsey was reading into things more than I would have.
Ponder Three
So much of art in earlier centuries was biblical in nature. Oftentimes the religious institutions were the main entities with money to commission art. Artists could survive from creating biblical renderings that would be placed in churches and cathedrals.
Also much of it is racially inaccurate as the artists were European.
But my question is… if the second commandment states not to make for ourselves an idol and the Bible prohibited graven images, is it unbiblical to depict Jesus in art?
During those times a lot of the people were illiterate and depended on the church to be taught the Bible. The art that was created allowed illiterate people to understand Scriptural messages by visual pictures. Art as evangelism.
Which then leads me to also think of children’s Bibles that have pictures along with the stories.
If making things or pictures in the image of Jesus is unbiblical can we give a pass to situations where the Gospel is trying to be depicted?
Or would that be like allowing the golden calf that was created with the motivation to still be worshiping God?
I don’t know what to think about this.
Ponder Four
What makes art scandalous? Isn’t it weird that different art at different times is considered scandalous but not in a different era?
Then, is scandalous a measure of morality?
And if it is, can morality change?
And if it is, is it immoral to create scandalous art?
Ponder Five
Ramsey’s chapter on Carravagio talks about the dichotomy of Carravagio’s behavior and the nature of his art.
“This is the paradox of Caravaggio—he brought so much suffering on himself, with such bravado and acrimony, yet when he picked up his brush, the Christ he rendered was the Redeemer of the vulnerable… We know that while he was yet sinning, he was producing some of the most profoundly merciful and eloquent commentaries on Scripture ever painted.”
What do we do with art or creations in general that depict truth, but come from a person in sin. Was Caravaggio repentant? We don’t know. Would it matter? Perhaps.
It seems if Caravaggio were alive today with the same type of scenario, if he had a pattern of corruption and sin but painted beautiful scenes from the Bible, he would still be dismissed by Christians. Christians wouldn’t want to support a person who disparages God’s name in their daily life. His art would be seen as hypocritical.
The irony is, all art is created by sinners.
Further, God can use creations from sinners, repentant or not, to build His kingdom.
How, then, should we rightly interact with art that is borne of this nature. Art in the sense of fine art, music, video, movie, etc.?
Can art still be beautiful if the creator was corrupt or it was borne in corruption? Would the beauty be of a different kind? Is it still true?
Ponder Six
What if I don’t feel moved by art?
This is a transparent question for me to ask, being somewhat of an artist myself.
But during my art classes, I remember feeling like an outlier when it came to observing and contemplating art. I didn’t create art to express myself. I wanted to create art for the beauty of it. To create something that someone would want to hang on their wall.
It felt forced to look at someone’s painting and talk about feelings. I could comment on the color selection, the brush strokes, the lines, the composition, but if it were trying to convey an emotional message, it was not always clear to me.
Is it still worth creating art if the viewer does not comprehend the message the artist is attempting to deliver?
Should art move us emotionally?
Do all artists really create every part of the art intentionally? I can see more in earlier centuries of art that this would be true, but is art today still so intentional? Or could we find ourselves over-analyzing every detail and creating a portrait of meaning that is too contrived?
Could I go into an art museum with the explicit purpose to find one or two paintings to study for an extended amount of time? I’m not sure I could. When we were in Rome we visited like three whole museums in one day! Clearly we were doing it wrong, but we had a time crunch and our tour guide told us to skip the Egyptian rooms so sue me.
I’d like to think I could gaze at one piece of art for an hour and come away with some sort of deep connection, but realistically I think my mind would wander and I would get bored. What does that say about me? Am I just a product of our fast-paced culture, or is that a symptom of something deeper?
Now when I think about natural beauty… I think I could sit on the top of a mountain and stare at God’s creation for an hour and come away changed. Maybe I just prefer God’s art to man’s?
Recommendation
I definitely recommend this book! For both art-lovers and art-avoiders.
For either party, I think the stories of these artists will resonate with you, inspire you, challenge you, and help you to appreciate art in a different way.
This book is interesting, thought-provoking, and faith-focused.
The book cover made me think I was going to be bored reading it, but I found myself looking forward to picking it up each day and learning more.
Plus the appendices in the back are helpful in encouraging and instructing readers on how to visit an art museum.
Art is connected to life. And “Life, after all, is the great art of divine design.”
“God uses beauty to woo and warm hearts. Creation testifies to a Maker who delights in beauty for beauty’s sake.”
If nothing else, this book may inspire you to see the beauty around you, just for the sake of appreciating something beautiful.
I've included a whole list of more Book Club Discussion Questions in My Original Blog Post! Check it out and have fun discussing in your groups!
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