Second Quarter Reading Reviews

It’s time to play catch up! After being back in Berne for basically a month, I have been meaning to update y’all with my April-June reads. 

One major book that really has been of great comfort this spring was Unmet Expectations by Lisa Hughes! (She is the wife of our church’s pastor.) It would fall under the biblical counseling genre and was very convicting. It was a good reminder to make sure that my desires and heart are set upon God’s word and His will, not mine and not worldly desires. A Gospel Primer and God Has A Wonderful Plan for Your Life are two (highly) recommended short reads that hold so much truth! Because of the way A Gospel Primer was broken down, I read it as a devotional each night. 

Another really great book was The Book That Made Your World by Vishal Mangalwadi. I actually had this as a textbook for one of my courses this year (Worldview, Apologetics, and Evangelism), and I finished the rest on my own time since it had me hooked! The author goes through various parts of history and how the gospel and God’s law seemed to follow English “colonizers.” He did a good job of discussing how many of the missionaries and “colonizers” actually did more good than harm, it was the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that we hear about in textbooks, and what shapes our understanding of this topic. The culture of a country, say India for the book’s example, viewed the missionaries and explorers as bad since they would take away the culture of the country and replace it with biblically appropriate culture and truth. But all culture is to point to God and follow God’s commands. Unbelievers will not view it this way and of course modern history hates when culture is changed due to Christians. 

When it comes to Christian fiction (based on biblical accounts), I typically do not read it since there are few good authors in this area. But I wanted to read through some books that I have had for years and never touched, wanting to get rid of books I would not read again. But I was pleasantly surprised by the author Mesu Andrews. I have only read two of her books so far but the liberties she took did not seem to be too many, and I was able to enjoy her books The Pharaoh’s Daughter and Miriam. She might have even unlocked a rabbit trail for me to read into Egyptian history! 

A teen series that I dove into during our trip to Hawaii was the Legend trilogy by Marie Lu. In a dystopian world, the east and west side of the United States have been divided. The main character is from California, where  kids are tested to see what class they will live and work in. Many secrets are revealed, and a sickness seems to be spreading through the west coast. There was some language from what I remember and some brief references to a side character being gay (it does not last for awhile though). 

The Sound of Gravel, Banished, Unorthodox, and In the Shadow of the Moons were all interesting reads about unbiblical beliefs. The Sound of Gravel takes place in Mexico, where a sect of Mormons have lived for generations. Banished is written by a daughter of a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and was once a member herself. I had never read a book on this topic before, but it did sadden me when she left the faith overall since this church took it too far. Unorthodox is about a lady who grew up as an Orthodox Jew. Again, this was another first book for me on this religious lifestyle. But out of all of these, I thought that In the Shadow of the Moons was my favorite read. The author was the wife of one of the sons of the Moon family, the leaders of the Moonie cult in South Korea. I was excited to find this book after living in Korea for several years and only living one town away from a Moonie University. 

As autumn approaches, my recommendations for reads when you just want to curl up under a blanket with a book and warm drink include: The Midwife of Hope River, These Silent Woods, The Golden Spoon, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Hannah Coulter, and A Fall of Marigolds. 

Okay, your turn! What books have you read this spring/summer?