April Book Review

I read some good books this month, books that I just couldn't seem to put down. Because of this I read really fast and was able to finish 7 books! Here's a look at what I read in April.

Four Cups is a book by our pastor, Chris Hodges, and it was excellent! He discusses the four promises that God made to the Hebrew people when he led them out of Egypt ("I will free you from your oppression.", "I will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt.", "I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.", "I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God." Exodus 6:6-7) and shows how each promise pertains to the life of a Christian. This book interweaves Jewish history and culture with relevant information on finding our full, God-given potential in Christ, and I found it so helpful and inspiring. Pastor Chris has a way of making things relevant and easy to understand, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone!

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is a book of Caleb's that he read many years ago, and that has always stuck with him. He's been asking me to read it for years, and I finally obliged. I really enjoyed this memoir, although parts were a little dry for me and I would be remiss to not say that I skimmed through the last couple of chapters. Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who developed a school of thought called "logotherapy", which basically says that a human's will to live is driven by the desire to find and fulfill their meaning. Dr. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor, and the first half of his book is a recollection of stories from his years as a prisoner in a concentration camp. The details are shocking and horrifying, but very insightful when applied to logotherapy. His argument is based on the fact that those who survived life in concentration camps were people who were able to focus on a bigger picture, something bigger than themselves that they were a part of. Not necessarily something religious (though that played a role for Frankl), but something to live for other than themselves. The person with this mindset could push through the physical pain and brutality (honestly, those aren't strong enough words for what they endured), and find a will to continue to live. The second half of the book is spent discussing logotherapy and is dense with psychological and philosophical musings, which was more than I was interested in reading, but overall I loved the message of this book and found it very inspirational!

This book. This book is my new all time favorite book I've ever read. I just cannot communicate how much I loved it, and nothing I say about it could do it justice. The Nightingale is the story of two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle, and the heroic things they do, the terrors they face, the people they lose, and the love they find in war-torn, Nazi occupied France. I've owned this book for several months, but it's almost 600 pages long, and honestly I was a little daunted by it. But once I started reading, I finished it in three days. It was THAT good. I also cried harder than I think I've ever cried in my life (other than when reading The Light Between Oceans--my other all time favorite book!). It should be noted that Caleb was on the other couch with headphones playing video games while I literally sobbed my heart out. I thought he didn't know and couldn't hear, so I felt totally free to moan and wail and choke on my sobs, and then when we were going to be I said something about how hard I had been crying and he was like "Oh I know! You were hysterical!" Apparently there wasn't much talking in his game, and he could hear everything despite his headphones. Embarrassing, but seriously how did he not even cast a glance in my direction?? I'm glad to know he cares about so much about my emotional distress! 😂 But the bottom line is READ THIS BOOK!! The BEST!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was loaned to me by one of my mom's good friends, and it was really good! It was another WWII era novel (what is it with me and WWII??), but not as dark and heavy as the other two I've recently read. It's about an author who begins corresponding with a man named Dawsey who lives on the British Channel island of Guernsey, which leads her to become interested in a literary society that they started when their island was occupied by Nazis during the war. She begins writing back and forth with many of Dawsey's friends, and eventually goes to the island, falls in love, and stays for good. This book was written entirely in letter format, which was a little disorienting at first, but I quickly got used to it. The characters are quirky and charming and witty and you find that it's hard not to like them all. This book had a super abrupt ending which I didn't like, but overall it was really good!

The Princess of Nowhere is a historical fiction novel about Napolean Bonaparte's little sister Pauline, and her marriage to an Italian prince named Camillo Borghese. The book is written by Prince Lorenzo Borghese, a direct descendent of Camillo's brother, so the information and perspective that he brings is really interesting. I didn't even know Napolean had a sister when I picked this book up (he actually had 4 brothers and 3 sisters), so I really enjoyed learning about her.  Pauline had kind of a sad life with her first husband dying and leaving her to raise a young son. She was afforded every luxury and privilege as her brother rose to power, but she seemed to be always searching for more. She and Camillo had a passionate romance at the beginning of their marriage, but after several betrayals (mostly on her part), they separated for more than two decades, later to reconcile and reunite mere months before her death. There's a lot of tragedy in her story, but I was glad it was redeemed a little in the end. She's buried in the Borghese family tomb in Rome. Now I want to visit!

Okay. Bread & Wine by Shauna Niequist was AMAZING!! This book is hard to describe because it sounds weird, but it's a memoir about life around the table; the food that nourishes our bodies and the relationships that nourish our souls. Shauna (we're on a first name basis because I feel like she's my BFF!), has the most beautiful writing style. It's poignant and powerful, yet feels very casual and "normal" at the same time. She shares stories from her childhood, stories about her journey through infertility and loss (she miscarried 3 babies over the course of 5 years), stories about her friends and the gatherings they've shared. And through it all she teaches the most profound life lessons. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had tears in my eyes and/or chills down my spine throughout the majority of this book. It just touched me so deeply, and now I'm dying to read more of Shauna's books!

The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers was my last book of the month. I read my first Francine Rivers book when I was in high school, and absolutely fell in love. Her storytelling is powerful, her imagery vivid. I hate to say this, but this one just wasn't that good to me! It's the story of Dynah Carey, a perfect Christian who's never done anything to dishonor God in her whole life, who gets raped outside the campus of her Christian college and ends up pregnant. Her fiancé, her roommate, her parents, the dean of the college, and a preacher she talks to all advise her to have an abortion. When she refuses, she gets kicked out of her school for being an unwed mother and moves back home. As it turns out, her mother had an abortion as a teenager and it's haunted her for decades, as well as caused problems in her marriage. The book goes through their struggle as a family to come to terms with the past, as well as Dynah's future. I can see how this book might be helpful to someone who has had an abortion and feels guilt and shame over it (I think that's partly how Rivers intended it), but it also tries to be a political statement that just felt very out of place. There were several comments along the lines of "She didn't believe in abortion, she just always acted like she did to be politically correct. That's all anyone cares about these days." and there were like four whole pages of a conversation between five elderly ladies that went something like this: "Did you know that the Supreme Court voted that women don't need to know what abortion does to their bodies?" "No way! Our government wouldn't do that!" "Yes they would, and they have!." The political undertones just felt very forced, and detracted from the story in my opinion. 

That's it for April! I have a couple books picked out for May already, but I doubt I'll read as much as this month. We have a lot going on next month and I somehow think I won't find as much time to read! :) Thanks for reading along, please leave any book recommendations you have in the comments. I'm always looking for new stuff to read! :)