wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

When the author John Crocker was a pre-med student in college, he applied and was selected for a six-month research trip to the Gombe Forest in Tanzania to study chimps in the wild with Jane Goodall and her team. In this book, John shares his amazing time in Gombe, the friends he made - both human and animal - and how his observations of chimp behaviour helped lead him as a doctor, and as a parent.

I thought this was a wonderfully written book that held a lot of love and gratitude from the author about his experiences and the wonderful times he had. John shares a lot of respect and love for all of his former team, and field guides as well as a lot of admiration for Jane Goodall who became a friend of his, as well as an inspiration. I really admired how John spoke of how pivotal Gombe was to many things in his adult years from his career as a doctor and how he approached certain diagnoses or predicaments, as well as how he allowed his observation of chimp matriarch Fifi and her parenting of her son Freud show him the type of patenting style he would adopt for his future family.

I think there were times the book could be slightly repetitive but I honestly didn't mind this as I was just loving being in Gombe via John's experiences and recollections, as well as the wonderful homecoming trip he made many years later with his own son. 

Three people - two best friends and one husband, and three is a crowd. When a husband and wife clash over the wife's best friend Temi and her behaviour, relationships come crashing down all in one night.

This book is fast-paced and feels a little bit like watching a car crash as you follow three people, some of whom are not very nice - one of which is awful - drag each other down and kick each other while down there. This is told in three different POVs - the wife, the husband and then the best friend Temi and each story is slightly different, and we really see each character from different perspectives and how their behaviour is interpreted by each other.#

The book is very much about an extremely controlling, toxic friendship between the wife and Temi - so bad that the wife definitely doesn't even realise how controlled and manipulated she is by her friend. It was really shocking switching from the wife's POV to the husband, and seeing the relationship from his POV and things that had happened. I didn't think I would but I genuinely felt so sorry for the husband at how he was treated in his own house by Temi. I found it frustrating and hard to understand at times, as I could never imagine a friend treating my partner that way but nor would I ever allow it to happen as it's so disrespectful on many levels.

Because of some personal experiences in my own life with toxic friendship, I found parts of this book quite hard - Temi's obsession with her friend and to control her even in her adult life, and her strange fixation on plans they made as teenagers around marriage and children, and how apparently this needed to stay the same into adulthood.

There's a couple of hared moments in this in regards to gaslighting as well but I also think this book is good at showing that gaslighting can come from different sources - not just a romantic or sexual relationship.

I didn't really find this book a nice or satisfactory book to read. It's actually quite depressing and leaves off at an abrupt point in the story with no resolution or peace of mind for the reader.
 

Chrissy Crosby is determined to win a buckle at her next rodeo but it feels like life is getting in her way from the classroom bully picking on Chrissy and her new friend Chun, her father losing his job and her horse getting injured. Can Chrissy, with the help of her friends and family, still do well despite life beating her down?

This was a book packed with a lot of action and activity, and also covered some pretty serious topics from bullying to domestic abuse. I think Chrissy is a real firespitter of a character - she's full of gumption with a lot of passion for what she loves and who she loves, and will also defend her friends and family from those trying to bring them down. We see Chrissy get into some bad moments in this book including a physical fight (more than once) with Jodie Lee who is not a very nice little girl.

I do think a lot happened to Chrissy in a short space of time that felt a bit much for a young girl to have to deal with - her grandmother died in the first chapter, and this was swiftly followed by her goat being killed by vicious dogs (I mean, wow), her horse almost slitting her neck open and then her other horse getting colic because of a mistake she made - and this is on top of her father also losing his job and basically getting bullied in school. And there was also a freak tornado in the middle that almost killed the school bus of kids. Which is all a lot for a child to handle - and a lot of the time the only advice her parents had was 'listen to God'. There was probably a bit too much speaking out to the lord in this for me, as personally, not my thing but understand the book is written and aimed at young Christians.

So this book was fine, the rodeo was fun but ultimately not one for me as I'm not the target audience.