Book Review: The Lucky Few by Heather Avis

Heather Avis was working as an education specialist when her and husband decided to start a family. After the painful discovery that the couldn't have biological children, Heather and her husband, Josh turn to adoption. The first child to come available has Down Syndrome and a serious heart condition. The couple pray about this situation and feel led to take a leap of faith and adopt their first child Macyn. They adopt two more children, Truly and August. August also has Down's Syndrome.

Avis tells her story beautifully. She faces infertility at the same time one of her students has an unplanned and most likely unwanted pregnancy. She chronicles the journey of parenting Macyn, who needed an open heart surgery and an oxygen tank. She also shares the miracle of Macyn's healing that allows her to be taken off oxygen and breathe on her own.

Avis's daughter Truly is fiercely independent and that brings a new set of challenges to Heather physically as well as emotionally as she learns how to parent a child that doesn't need her constant attention to be able to survive.

The adoption of August is what touched me the most as Avis was able to meet his mother before she gave birth to August. The moments surrounding his birth and transition from having one mother to two is heart wrenching.

This book gives great insight to the adoption experience as well as life as the parent of a child with Down's Syndrome.

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: Feisty and Feminine by Penny Young Nance

Penny Nance is the CEO and president of Concerned Women for America and her book inspired me to be just that-concerned-for America, along with those who do not share my faith.

Nance's book is a rallying cry of sorts, for concerned, conservative women who have stayed silent for far too long. We've remained silent for a variety of reasons including fear. Nance's book is filled with statistics and stories to motivate as well as useful strategies to help enact change. Her book covers topics ranging from the devaluation of women, marriage, abortion, women in foreign policy and life balance. Each chapter is broken into two sections, the facts about the topic and ways that Nance encourages conservative women to change the world around them. The book is also peppered with profiles of successful women who hold conservative values,

Many of Nance's arguments had me chanting "yes yes yes!" as I realized that she was articulating ideas, emotions and beliefs that I had but couldn't express. Other topics, I didn't know as much about going into her book but Nance managed to bring me quickly to speed and left me with a passion to know more and do more.

If you're a conservative woman who's sick of having her values and opinions pushed aside or even mocked, this is definitely for you. If you're a conservative woman whose been fueling a silent fire, this is the book for you. If you're informed or uninformed about the issues in today's world, this book is for you. If you're informed you're glean new strategies and if your're uninformed you'll be prepared and educated. I've already started texting my friends pictures of this book as a must read. It is educational, inspirational and confirmational all in one book.

* I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife by Ruth Ann Tucker

Black and White Bible, Black and Blue Wife  is Ruth Tucker's true story. Ruth is a professor and mother. Her husband was a minister and used the Bible's call for wives to submit to their husband's as validation for abusing her. Ruth tells her story and refutes her husband's logic with Biblical evidence. 

For the most part, I think that Tucker makes her point well. She applies logic and reasoning to verses in the Bible and uses the verses in context. For example, she points out that many often ignore the command for husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, or that people are quick to chalk up the command to forgo braids and jewelry to cultural differences but heavily stress other commands in the same section. I found that Tucker and I held the same view in most cases but she provides extra examples and verses for me to look up and remember when I have this discussion with others. At times, I felt she got overly scholarly, but for the most point I found B&WB,BBW to be on point and enlightening. 

I'm curious to hear about how your thoughts on submission and the biblical roles of wives and husbands. Personally, I think that the Bible places emphasis on women being strong! Look at the Proverbs 31 woman for an example.

Review: The Secret to Hummingbird Cake by Celeste McHale

This book centers around the life of Carrigan and her two friends, Laine and Ella Rae. These southern women have been best friends since they were children. Carrigan is struggling with feeling unwanted in her marriage and Laine and Ella Rae each try to encourage her, albeit in their different ways. This drama is more of a backstory as the trio quickly comes to learn that they will lose one of their dear sisters to cancer.

I thought this book was excellent! When you read it, you can feel the heat and hear their twangs. I was able to fight back my tears in the middle of the book but by the end they were streaming down my face. This is a wonderful book of friendship and love. If you judge the book by it's title you'd think "chick flick" but this book explores love much deeper than that.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: Walk to Beautiful by Jimmy Wayne

Jimmy Wayne’s Walk to Beautiful takes you on a journey from Jimmy’s troubled childhood in and out of foster care to his successful country music career and his efforts to give back and help raise awareness of what foster kids go through.

Jimmy had a hard life. At a young age he learned to fend for himself, after learning that his mother wouldn’t. He saw his sister married off to an abusive older man when she was only fourteen. He was homeless and often in foster care. Eventually, Jimmy was taken in by a kind older couple who inspired him and led to him changing his viewpoint on life. From there, Jimmy graduated high school and college and started his music career. After enjoying some success, Jimmy realizes he wants to give back. He then planned to walk half way across America in order to raise awareness about the lives of foster children. In fact, he is part of the reason that many states have stopped “aging out” foster kids at age 18 and now allow them to transition out at age 21.

I was thoroughly inspired and impacted by Jimmy’s story. He is a good story teller and knows how to keep an audience’s attention. I would definitely recommend this book, even if you don’t typically read memoirs or non-fiction. The book has a great story element to it that will keep you interested and engaged. I always hate saying that books about painful real life events are “good reads” but for lack of a better phrase that is what I will use.

*I was given a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  

Book Review: My Name is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody

I hate to say "This is such a good book" when the plot revolves around a heart wrenching true story. However, I did enjoy reading this book as it is very powerful and inspirational. Although the story itself is painful, Mahtob is able to move past the pain into forgiveness and is able to live a full life because of it. This is what I find encouraging- that despite all of the bad things that happen to us and around us good does prevail because God is good and has already declared the victory on our behalf.

Basically, this book tells the story of the daughter in the famous movie and book, Not Without My Daughter.  The daughter, Mahtob, tells the events as she remembers them taking place. However, she goes beyond describing her childhood and details her life up until the present. I find that reading about her life as a whole helps to balance out the tragedy that happened in her childhood and continued to follow her until her father's death. 

This is a very touching and moving account of Mahtob's life. Despite her father's negative influence she was able to move on with her life and that is what makes this book truly inspiring. I highly recommend this book!

PS: I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

PS: Other inspirational books I'd recommend include Kisses from Katie, Dreams So Big and Left to Tell. 

Book Review: Wicked Women of the Bible by Ann Spangler

I was really excited to receive this book*. I’m currently writing my own book about women’s relationships with God and this book was very inspiring.

Wicked Women of the Bible is broken into small chapters, each about a different Biblical woman. I found the fact that the book was broken into smaller chapters made it easy to read. It is written quite simply and I think that that makes the book accessible for reader’s of every level. Spangler re-imagines the Scripture into story-like scenes, noting where she takes artistic liberties. I find that this storytelling approach opens the Scripture up and makes it accessible to a wide variety of women. She notes where she embellishes a detail and explains why and I think this is important because it makes sure that no one is misled.

Spangler’s title includes the word “wicked” and she plays on this throughout. She writes not only about women who are known for being bad, but also about women who are “wicked smart” “wicked old” or find themselves in a “wicked predicament”. I really enjoyed this fresh take.

I highly recommend this book and have added a few of Spangler’s others to my “to-read” list.

You can check out Spangler's blog here.

*This book was given to me by BookLook Bloggers in exchange for an honest review. 

Book Review: Chocolate Covered Cashews

Chocolate Covered Cashews is the story of Wiley Baxter’s life and testimony. He tells about his life as a child in a large family, his divorce and second marriage. He also writes about discovering that he had fathered twin daughters with his first wife.

Chocolate Covered Cashews is a quick and easy read. He has an inspirational testimony and life story. However, the story did not do a good job of captivating my attention. People always say that writers should show, not tell and I feel, because of the nature of his story, Baxter did a fair amount more of telling than showing. To me, Chocolate Covered Cashews almost feels as if I am reading a speech that Baxter wrote to read at a church service. Also, I expected there to be a greater connection to the title.  I understand his connection to the title but I feel it was a bit misleading as there weren’t any direct scenes involving the chocolate cashews. That reflect my point of telling rather than showing, Baxter told us what happened instead of writing a scene.

*I was provided a copy of this book in return for an honest review.