Archive | July 2018

The House We Called Home by Jenny Oliver

Jul13

Family M.O.T

The House We Called Home by Jenny Oliver is a fabulous contemporary family novel that will awaken your senses to the world around you.

Life can easily slip into a mundane pattern. Everyone from children to teens to adults find life predictable and unexciting. Life, as shown online seems to be perfect and ideal for everyone but you. Life is passing you by, so what do you do? If you escape for a while, will anyone notice? Or care?

The novel explores that life is for living. It is for trying something new and for rediscovering old passions. It is for giving others permission to be themselves. Too often we settle into roles – daughter, wife, mother – when really we just want to be ‘me.’

The House We Called Home shows what happens to relationships and dynamics when everyone, including the house, is remodeled.

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The Girl Who Wanted To Belong by Angela Hart

Jul12

Heart Breaking

The Girl Who Wanted To Belong by Angela Hart is a true story of Lucy, a foster girl searching for the  love of her family and seeking to find her place. It will break your heart.

Eight year olds should not have to fight for love. The reader sees the conflict between Lucy’s father and his partner. He seems to be caught between a rock and a hard place. Every time the reader gets their hope up, it seems another brick is cemented in the wall. We ‘feel’ for Lucy.

The story is also about the foster parents, Angela and Jonathan who are seen to have infinite love, patience, respect and boundaries. Giving a healthy home for Lucy to be loved and nurtured. They diplomatically fight her corner.

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The Happiness List by Annie Lyons

Jul12

Carpe Diem

The Happiness List by Annie Lyons is a really fun contemporary novel that focuses on good friends, carpe diem and dealing with grief.

Loss consumes. “After two years, people sort of expected you to have moved on.” There is no time limit on grief. It is “my grief, my way.” We have to find a way to move into a new normal. “Grief is ongoing. It never leaves you. You’re finding a way to live around that.”

With grief, comes guilt. “Guilt… my oldest and most reliable friend… I get to live, to carry on.” Guilt can weigh us down. We need to let it go and live again. We must not be afraid to laugh and to live and to love again. It does not mean we forget our loved one, but we have to learn to live with our memories and not our guilt.

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The Choice by Edith Eger

Jul11

Victim Or Survivor?

The Choice by Edith Eger is the true story of a concentration camp survivor who uses her experiences to help others. It is a painful read but one that also gives hope. We cannot stop the bad things from happening but “I can choose how to respond to the past.”

Our outlook to our circumstances will determine whether we survive or perish. “No one can make you a victim but you.” In the camps Edith Eger chose to focus on the good times. Her mind took her to places her body could not go. “We can’t choose to vanish the dark, but we can choose to kindle the light.”

Edith Eger survived because she held on to the positive. Her mindset was to survive today because tomorrow she would be free. Edith Eger survived Auschwitz, death marches and more camps. She clung on to hope.

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