The tough part about reviewing a memoir is not to critique the author’s story but to review how they told it. A memoir is an account from a real person so a different set of eyes is needed compared to reviewing fiction. Most of the reviews I have read of Andie Mitchell’s It Was Me All Along treated this work as fiction. Many amateur reviewers commented on the choices Mitchell made much as they would when reading a fictional piece. I understand how easy it is to do so but I feel that’s unfair to the author and I’ll strive to avoid the same path others have chosen in their reviews.
Andie Mitchell is the blogger for Can You Stay for Dinner. Mitchell has chronicled her weight loss story and offers helpful advice and recipes for her online audience who are pursuing a healthier lifestyle. It Was Me All Along is a more in depth account of the obesity which has plagued Mitchell most of her life, her journey to lose well over 100 pounds and learning to develop a healthy relationship with food. Mitchell’s story is a good one. I appreciate her story is one of striving to make healthy decisions, avoiding fad diets, and using tried and true methods such as healthy portions and exercise to achieve her goals. It many ways, primarily on her blog, Mitchell is a great example of how the average person can achieve and sustain weight loss with a healthy mindset.
Takeaway: One of the best examples of how fiction is important to give form to important ideas.
Summary: God is God of all of us, not just the extraordinary that get the world’s attention.
The most read review of the month was not of a book but of the Scribd ebook/audiobook subscription service.
Summary: A readable, recent introduction for those new to Anglicanism.
Summary: We need to be able to see God in the Dark as well as the light.
Inferno is the fourth book in the Robert Langdon series by Dan Brown. The first two books in the series were made into successful movies starring Tom Hanks. In this book, Robert Langdon is once again called on for his vast knowledge of symbols and iconography so that he might once again follow the clues and solve a dark mystery. Never knowing whom to trust, Langdon relies heavily on what he knows about specifically Dante and his masterpiece, Inferno, in order to hurry and beat a mastermind at his own game. While the first two books (Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code) in the series take place in Europe, the third book, The Lost Symbol, occurs mainly in Washington D.C. and New England. The third book was supposed to be made into a movie also but was supposedly passed over because its story resembled too closely that of National Treasure. In this book, Inferno, Langdon spends all of his time once again in Europe. Just like in his other books, there are many twists and turns and Langdon’s quest take him to a number of different famous and historic locations in Italy and a few other countries in Europe. Whereas The Da Vinci Code fed on our interest in conspiracies, this book addresses our ever growing population problem and our fears about epidemics becoming more widespread as our world has become more and more globally connected. The movie for this book is set to come out in the fall of 2016 and will once again star Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon.
Donald Miller has always been unlike any Christian author I have read before. He rocked my world in Blue Like Jazz. He inspired me to get off my rear end and start living my life in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I’ve always been a big fan of Miller being an open and authentic writer plus an avid student of life. His latest book, Scary Close was released this month and it’s unlike anything he’s written before.
Summary: 45 Reflections on how the bible pushes us toward disquiet.