FICTION
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The movie has been such a touchstone throughout my childhood & life that I never got around to reading the book. In my 2025 Year of Play, the time finally came.
How similar, & HOW different! The book reads more like a child’s pilgrimage story with three distinct legs of the journey. “Friends for the journey” feels an appropriate motto, & I appreciate that children received the message that unlikely friends could be soul friends.
All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
3.5 stars, marked down because of my own personal stress related to wealth-&-status culture
I almost put this book down. Our protagonist, Anna, appropriately drops so many literary references that I began to wonder if I was reading a modern-day Gothic novel which would add to my stress. Then I saw it was a Pride & Prejudice retelling, & from then on, I got so many Bridget Jones vibes that I hung in.
And…I really wish society would move on from its hyperfocus on wealth & status. One of the characters behaves horrendously & gets away with it because she comes from wealth. The protagonist works her tail off & is a genuinely kind human being, yet she gets ostracized for not admitting up front that she’s not wealthy. Why can’t we focus more on good character as the mark of a person?
How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The relationship is sweet (& the writing occasionally a little too spicy for my taste), but I don’t find it at all realistic – & I recognize that may be its charm for other readers. For me, I needed way more dialogue between Helen & Grant as they began to explore their relationship, more anger, more angst, more of all of it.
NONFICTION
The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
An almost perfect book for my 2025 Year of Play!
4.5 stars, only a .5 star down for repetition based on her first book, How to Break Up with Your Phone. It’s important stuff, screens are fake fun & designed to yank us down all the rabbit holes, but we could have had one deep-dive on the subject rather than two within this book.
Otherwise, this book will be a touchstone for me going forward. Her distinction between hobbies/passion projects (solitary activities we can enjoy on our own) & True Fun (definition: Playful Connected Flow) will definitely be a guiding factor for my life moving forward.
Gold in Your Backyard: Lessons in Life, Leadership and the Power of a Dream by Ron Rubin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thanks to the author & Weaving Influence for an ARC.
I’ve participated in several book launches, but this one took the cake (the tea?) – a gorgeous gift box with a hardcover book & a gift edition of tea from The Republic of Tea, one of my favorite tea companies…though I couldn’t have told you the name of the man behind the brand: Ron Rubin.
The book is somewhere between a motivational business book and a coffee table book. It’s big, with glossy, gold-lined pages. The wisdom on those pages is gold-lined, too. It’s easy to read, encouraging, story-based, & more fun than a lot of more traditional business books.
CHRISTIAN NONFICTION
Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry by Beth Allison Barr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you have time for just one book on so-called ‘biblical womanhood,’ read Barr’s other book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood. This book picks up where that one left off, diving into a particular niche of the larger topic. I found many like-minded women in these pages, women who felt an independent call to ministry yet who married men with a call to ministry & so their marriage was perceived to be the higher calling. I also found some women I’d like to kick in the shins, women working against women.
Summing it up: what is referred to as ‘biblical womanhood’ isn’t biblical at all, but cultural, & serves to reinforce the patriarchy at all costs, even dangerous costs (domestic violence, abuse of many sorts) which will inevitably be paid by women, to everyone’s detriment.
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