This week's (and last week's, because apparently my goal of two books per week was a little too lofty after all) books are:
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| taken from Goodreads.com |
This was actually my first Emily Freeman book (love her on Hopewriters and love her sister The Nester) and I really liked it. Her encouragement to make art within and throughout all of our daily tasks was so beautiful and unique. She stresses the importance of figuring out how we are meant to create art for our Savior by living our lives, and how that might not mean literal, traditional art but maybe in a more discreet and less obvious way instead. Since I was just diving back into writing when I read this, I found it to be particularly encouraging.
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| taken from Goodreads.com |
So this book has just been turned into a movie and all the [Christian] reviews seem to be pretty condemning (as well as full of spoilers...like, IN THE TITLE of the review, effectively ruining the ending of the book for the person who is in the middle of reading said book and avoiding reviews for the purpose of not having the end spoiled). The reviews are, truthfully, about the movie and not the book, and I have not yet seen the movie so my brief review will only be about the book. That being said, my honest opinion (SPOILER ALERT, because I'm a nice person) is that this was a really good book that didn't glorify euthanasia at all. It explored it as a topic, it did explain the specific character's point of view and all the reasons why he wanted to go that route, but I honestly do not think it glorified it. Every single character in the entire book, other than the character in question, was devastated by his decision. Every single character fought against it till the end, argued with him about the merits of making a different decision, tried their hardest to show him the value of living rather than giving up, and, in the end, were completely and utterly destroyed by his decision. I can't speak for the movie, but this "happy ending" all the reviewers keep talking about doesn't happen in the book. Yeah, she gets a lot of money. But she also loses the love of her life. If you want to discuss other reasons why I think it doesn't glorify it, and why I also think there's value in reading books that make us think and consider another point of view (even if we don't agree with it at all), I would love to discuss it more. But for the sake of time, I'll move on. Honestly, I just liked the book. I loved the characters and I loved her writing style. I was inspired by this book; it was most of the reason I decided to temporarily abandon nonfiction reading and focus on fiction while I try to write my novel. The characters and the writing and the voice in this novel inspired me and pushed me and got my creativity flowing in new and exciting ways with my own novel. It took me from a place where I had been stuck for two years and pushed me into a whole new arena with my writing. I'll always be grateful to this book for that, and I can't wait to read more by Ms. Moyes because of it.
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| taken from Goodreads.com |
This was the second book I added to my Goodreads account. It was probably six or seven years ago. I almost deleted it recently because I figured if I hadn't read it by now I never would. But I did, and I loved it. I got transported back to high school, but I still loved it. A high school that has a list posted every fall of the ugliest and prettiest girl in each grade? Yeah...it makes for an interesting plot. I do think the author got a little overextended with following eight different girls throughout the book; after the first half or so she loses the plots of a couple and focuses more on the same few over and over, but it was still really good. I'd definitely recommend it.
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