Cliques, Hicks, and Ugly Sticks by KD McCrite

The book Cliques, Hicks, and Ugly Sticks by KD McCrite starts off by introducing us to April Grace Reilly, an eleven year old girl from the Arkansas countryside. She is presented with many new experiences: she starts middle school for the first time, her Mama is not feeling well, and she has to deal with good-for-nothing Isabel St. James and her husband Ian, who happen to be living with the Reillys at the moment. The book tells the story of how April Grace copes with the new things life throws at her, all the while learning that trusting God is the best thing to do in a new situation.

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me laughing throughout with the hilarious narrative of April Grace and the funny antics of the middle school girl and her sister. I was very pleased with how McCrite developed the characters over the course of the book, and the lessons they learn will stick with everyone. The characters were well planned, with the perfect traits for what the author was trying to do with the story. The plot sped along at a good speed, and it didn’t take me long to finish. Overall, I was very pleased with the book, and I think it would appeal to an audience of all ages, but particularly to the tween age, for whom it seems the story was aimed. It shows the presence of God without being overwhelmingly religious. I recommend anyone should get a copy of the book and read it over the weekend.

Also, thanks to BookSneeze for providing me with a free copy in return for this review.

Life Support by Robert Whitlow

The book Life Support has an interesting twist right from the start. Right away the characters are plunged into the plot and the characters personalities are vividly described.Robert Whitlow has an uncanny knack of holding the readers interest from chapter to chapter by using teaching lessons in law to color the book. The one love story is pure and very believable. A divorce attorney bent on helping her clients get the maximum amount from the ex-husband, struggles herself with being abandoned by her fiance for someone else. A musical pastor/handyman struggles with his divorce but holds life together through ministering to others and calling on God to show him hope through his music. The two combined help balance each other through a slow developing relationship. There was a perfect amount of romance among the two. The tragedy between the bi-polar wife and her now comatose husband is disturbing to say the least. There is an ongoing struggle between the murderous wife to pull the plug and the loving father to keep him alive for the money. All in all, the book is fascinating and has a great message. I would recommend this book to others. But be forewarned, you’ll want the second book on hand as soon as you finish this one! Also, thanks to Booksneeze.com for providing me with a free copy of the book.

The Final Summit by Andy Andrews

Humanity is on its last legs. Generations of greed, arrogance, and corruptness have shaped what we now call “the modern world”. It has fallen away from God. So, He needs to restart. To decide what to do, God calls together all the Travelers to answer a single question that will determine the fate of the rest of humanity. It seems simple enough, except for the fact that they only have an hourglass of time to work and five tries to get the question right. And every time an answer is proposed, it seems to be the likely one. Together with a team of great people throughout history, David Ponder must find the answer to save us all.

I really enjoyed this book because it offered good thoughts to use in my life and it also gave me brief history lessons on a few characters in history that I didn’t know much about. It was short and relatively easy to read, and I like Andy Andrew’s style of writing. I must say that I was a bit disappointed with the presence of God throughout the book, as it always referred to Him as just “the one hosting the summit”. The characters didn’t really talk about their faith in God, and I was hoping the ending would have something to do with faith. Even if this wasn’t so, I would heartily recommend the book to anyone who likes a good story, good advice, or funny characters. Also, thank you BookSneeze for providing me with a free copy of the book.

A Reluctant Queen by Joan Wolf

The story is a view of the life of Esther, queen of Persia. It starts out by describing a little bit about her life before she was made queen. When she ends up going to the harem, on a mission from her elders, she is picked to be the king’s wife and her life is turned upside down. It tells of her life as queen, and how she goes about achieving what her uncle told her to do. She faces hardships, but stays close to God along the way.

The book was focused on the love life of Queen Esther, so there are a few parts that maybe wouldn’t be mentioned otherwise. I don’t feel the author was quite as tasteful with the romance scenes as, say, Francine Rivers is, but there is nothing that could be even remotely compared to what some teens are reading today. I really enjoyed the fact that it told about life in the harem and how Persian women at the time had to live, instead of just focusing on the story that most people are familiar with. I must say, though, that the author had a really annoying habit of describing the male characters over indulgently. It wasn’t too much of a bother; actually, it gave quite a good description of the people in the story.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who loves biblical stories or a good, clean romance novel now and then. I really enjoyed it, and having only 255 pages, it took me hardly any time at all to read it. I read about a third of it coming home from a vacation to Utah recently. And thank you BookSneeze for providing me with a free copy to review and give my input on!

A Time to Embrace by Karen Kingsbury

In the book A Time to Embrace, Karen Kingsbury weaves in high school coaching drama with everyday struggles that a seasoned Christian family might face. She does a nice job of creating the backdrop of a small town enthralled with football. Most of Coach Reynolds players respect him for his ability to meet the kids where they are at in life. He cares for their success on the field and off of the field, spiritually and morally. As with any coach, problems arise with discontented parents over playing time.

At home the Reynolds deal with other struggles. Remembering the past can be trying while staying afloat with coaching. Abby and John continually thank God for saving their marriage from an affair while still grieving a child that died, and dealing with a son hooked on pornography. When coach thought that things were looking up for his team, a tragic accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. Finding out that he was paralyzed was nothing compared to the blow that it was his players who caused the accident. The rest of the story becomes amazingly predictable. Coach Reynolds walked again and was asked to stay on a head coach.

I would recommend the book to readers who are not avid Karen Kingsbury fans. While I love the series that she writes, they tend to become predictable with lots of tragedies, prayer and wonderful outcomes. She has a way of hitting on great issues and how a Christian may handle these.

The Chronicles of Narnia

I've recently been doing a research project on the 'Chronicles of Narnia' for school, and it's turned out to be very interesting. There have been many things that have turned out to be, well, new to me (and that's saying something because I've read them now three times all the way through). I suggest that anyone who wants to read the Chronicles again should do so, but this time search for thing s that you never looked for before, such as how the characters develop over the course of the books, new plot lines that you hadn't seen before, or, my favorite, read them in a different order. There's lots of controversy on the order that they should be read in, but I would suggest the order that C. S. Lewis finished them in. That way, you will get more out of the experience than by just reading them with internal chronology. Just my opinion, but I always like to try new things.