Book Reviews
The Miseducation of Obi Ifeanyi
Chinedu Achebe
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
Chinedu Achebe’s The Miseducation of Obi Ifeanyi is a character-driven novel revolving around a Nigerian-American couple and their relatives and friends. Amid typical marriage struggles, both personal and long-hidden family secrets surface to bring a new dynamic to these relationships.
Obi is a young attorney living in Houston with his wife Nkechi and their toddler. […]
It’s a Bama Thing!
Rob Lewis
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
It’s a Bama Thing! overflows with joy as Rob Lewis blends biographical information with two great loves: his worship of God and his enthusiasm for the state of Alabama, particularly the University of Alabama’s football team.
Lewis divides his chapters thematically and then braids in information from his life, religious beliefs, and appreciation for home. […]
Something New in Cloverville?
Janet Stuart
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
A turtle wins a new and unique contest in the picture book Something New in Cloverville?
Mayor Eddie, a hedgehog, wants to create a new event for Cloverville’s Summer Celebration, and he’s inspired by a tomato display in Sophie Skunk’s store. Together, they come up with the rules for the first-ever tomato-rolling contest, with a […]
Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches by American Women
Dana Rubin
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
In Speaking While Female, Dana Rubin assembles a comprehensive anthology of vibrant female voices from over 200 years of American history.
Female orations, explains Rubin, were rarely published and generally excluded from the mostly male canon of America’s historical speeches. But women, too, were eyewitnesses to injustice and had something to say about it, she […]
Living with Cancer
Gayle Leslie Henderson
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
In 2015, Gayle Leslie Henderson was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. Aiming to share her experience with other survivors, she has collected 14 of her essays on the spiritual, emotional, and practical aspects of this new reality in Living with Cancer.
Henderson gets it. She understands the confusion, loss of control, and exhaustion that comes […]
Jetsam: A Divemaster Ricky Adventure (Book 3)
Tracy Grogan
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
No matter where Ricky Yamamoto scuba dives, she gets in hot water. In Jetsam however, most of the calamities she encounters aren’t aquatic.
In the third of Tracy Grogan’s Divemaster Ricky Adventures, Ricky leaves the Sinai Peninsula, where she’d previously led dives and narrowly escaped with her life. Now she’s headed for a gig in […]
Deep Light
Dennis Martineau
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
Dennis Martineau’s debut novel is a page-turning fusion of science fiction adventure and cosmic horror set on a remote space station, whose crew is developing a device that can create controllable black holes and, ideally, glimpse into the darkness within.
The Deep Light device on the Parallax space station is just hours away from increasing […]
A Japanese Boy Sees a New Light: Escaping from North Korea
Shu Shimizu
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
In this lucid, well-crafted true story, Shu Shimizu relates his perilous escape from North Korea at the end of World War II.
Shimizu was living with his Japanese parents and two brothers in the northern Korean city of Kisshu, where his father worked for the Korean Railway Company, when Japan’s Emperor Hirohito surrendered on August […]
Along Came Hell, or So I Thought
Lois Young
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
Lois Young chronicles her journey to a life of peace and contentment from what she considered hell on earth in this compelling memoir about trusting God through life’s darkest days.
After 44 years of marriage, Lois Young’s husband—a respected leader in their church of 30 years—was convicted of a felony for child molestation and sentenced […]
Everyday Awakening: Five Practices for Living Fully, Feeling Deeply, and Coming into Your Heart and Soul
Catherine Duncan
(Reviewed: March, 2023)
Catherine Duncan’s self-help book Everyday Awakening is the culmination of what she’s learned at critical junctures in her life.
At age 11, Duncan was given a slim chance of survival when battling cancer. But she beat the odds, and “this childhood experience cracked me open,” she writes. “….I had awakened to the preciousness of being […]