Book Reviews

A Mile in My Flip-Flops by Melody Carlson

A year and a half after getting dumped, Gretchen is still depressed. She watches a lot of HDTV and gets the brilliant idea to flip a trashed house with the help of her dad. Her dad has a heart attack and asks her to get advice from a single man he tried previously to set her up with. No need to tell the rest of this way-too-boring, way-too-predictable story. A huge disappointment from a "Christian" author. (Acknowledgment of God in a book does not make it Christian fiction.)

Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo

Another boy-goes-to-heaven-and-lives-to-tell-about-it story. I was more doubtful about this story and didn't care for it as much as the one I read a few weeks ago.

Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? by Steven Tyler

Oh my. I so wanted to like this book. It was possibly the worst written autobiography I've ever read. Steven writes how he speaks--everything just sort of falls out, and if it actually makes sense, well, it's a miracle.

A Time to Embrace by Karen Kingsbury

A beautiful and believable tale about commitment and the healing of a marriage. In the middle of this book, I realized it's the second in a series. I'm now reading A Time to Dance but finding it not as gripping as this sequel.

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane

Fascinating, unprofessional, sobering, gossipy, patriotic, whiney, detailed, disrepectful, sincere. For as much as there were parts I didn't like, there were other parts that I did. A little bit of everything here.

Dreams of Joy by Lisa See

A sequel to Shanghai Girls, this story continues with the life of daughter Joy. While at Chicago University in the late 1950s, Joy is seduced by thoughts of the new socialist China, where she flees to find her birth father, work at a farming commune, and fall in love.

While I've often read Chinese historical fiction, I've never read anything from this time period. It was gripping, and many of the parallels we see in today's American government were shocking, an eye-opener.

The story was fast paced, and I found it hard to put this book down. I have enjoyed everything I've ever read by this author, with the exception of Peony in Love.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

I tend to avoid popular fiction but finally succumbed and read this book. Now elderly, in a nursing home, and generally forgotten by his children and grandchildren, Jacob reminisces about his post-college life working in a Ringling Bros.-like carnival. It was an okay book, interesting in that it kept me reading, and memorable mostly due to the unusual subject (circuses).

The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins

Interesting and informative non-fiction read which follows six high school students from around the country, each belonging to a different clique/social group. Interspersed in their stories is commentary regarding the psychology behind being popular and being an "outcast." Part way through the book, each student is given an individual challenge to change how they are seen by classmates, and are followed as they work through their challenge.

I highly recommend this book. It should be required reading for any parent, teacher, AND teen. I'm a little sad to have finished it.