Sunday, September 25, 2011

Far From the Dream by Lance Wubbels


This book is the first in a four book series entitled Gentle Hills.  All four of these books are set in the time of World War II.  Far From the Dream is about the call to war and the struggle between love and duty.  Will he stay and help his father run the farm or will he join the Navy to seek retribution and justice for the injury of a close friend?  These are just some of the problems that face Jerry Macmillin in this book.  

Jerry has to choose between his sense of duty and the love of his life, Marjie.  He chooses to marry Marjie and just two days after the wedding he boards a bus to Norfolk, Virginia to begin his stint in the Navy.  Meanwhile things at home are hard for the newly married Marjie.  She has to find a place to live and look in on her father in law who is not in good health since Jerry’s departure, meanwhile finding out that she is pregnant with no idea when or if her husband will return. 

This book goes back and forth chapter-by-chapter from Jerry’s perspective to Marjie’s perspective.  This book shows both sides of war, the ones who leave and the ones that stay behind and try to continue on with their lives.  It left me wanting to read the next in the series.  Check back to hear about book 2!



Sunday, September 11, 2011

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham


Ok so I know when some of you read the title of this post you thought I was nuts.  Why is she reading a Christmas book in September? Well, what can I say?  I love Christmas! In all seriousness, I ran across this book the other day while browsing to find one to read before bed.  When I saw it, I thought this would be a good light read and I loved it the first time I read it, so why not?

You then see who the author is and think really? A comedy written by John Grisham, who in my opinion is the greatest mystery writer of all time? Well, He is a very talented writer and if anyone can go from writing mystery novels to comedies, he can.  This is a great book that was made into a movie, as were many of Grisham’s other works. 

Now you are thinking, what is this book about?  Allow me to tell you!  This book is centered on a typical suburban couple that has just sent their only daughter out to live on her own as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Peru.  The father, Luther Krank, is very practical and comes up with a way that he and his wife, Nora, can save the 6,000 dollars spent last Christmas and take a much needed vacation on a cruise to the Caribbean, just the two of them, much cheaper.  They decide they are going to skip Christmas altogether.

For everyone that lives on Hemlock Street, Christmas is a big deal.  There has to be a Frosty on the roofs and lights on every house for the competition between neighborhoods.  This book hilariously shows how difficult it is to avoid the crowds at the mall, not buy fruitcakes and calendars you don’t need and be criticized by your neighbors for not decorating or buying a tree.  But just when you think the Kranks have succeeded in skipping Christmas, the story turns and they learn the real meaning of the season.

Stained Glass Hearts: Seeing Life from a Broken Perspective by Patsy Clairmont


I recently finished reading Stained Glass Hearts: Seeing Life from a Broken Perspective by Patsy Clairmont.  Everyone, myself included, has experienced the searing pain of rejection and heartbreak. Many of us feel that our hearts are shattered in a million tiny pieces that, like Humpty Dumpty, can never be pieced together again.  But for those of us that feel this way, there is a solution.  God is the only person that can take a heart that is shattered in millions of pieces, with some that seem permanently lost, and piece them back together like a stained glass portrait of his love for us.          

As Patsy Clairmont points out in this book, stained glass is just small smatterings of broken glass that are put together to form a beautiful picture of wholeness.  Just as the person that makes a stained glass picture takes time to choose the perfect place for the piece of glass that the rest of the world would call broken, God takes the little pieces of our broken hearts others would call irreparable and puts them back together better than they were before they were broken.

I loved this book.  The symbolism that Patsy Clairmont uses between the beauty of stained glass reflecting the beauty of our broken hearts is amazing.  I was captivated by her stories of family heartbreak and struggles with agoraphobia.  She also intertwines beautiful psalms and other verses of scripture that act as a soothing balm to a weary heart. She also makes suggestions for art, music, and poetry that can help sand off the rough edges of a shattered heart.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone that needs to know that God can repair a broken heart with even the smallest pieces.