Independence Day is a strange one this year. It’s hard to celebrate “independence” when our rights are being stripped away day by day. (I’m talking about the overturn of Roe v. Wade in case that’s not clear.)
I looked through my backlog of books I need to review (have I mentioned how behind I am?!) to see if there was an Independence Day-related book I could review and post today. I do love a theme! There are some serious non-fiction books about voting rights and race issues in this country that I’ve read recently but I decided to go with a more light-hearted choice because it’s enough already. Enjoy!
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: May 14, 2019
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
When his mother became President, Alex Claremont-Diaz was promptly cast as the American equivalent of a young royal. Handsome, charismatic, genius―his image is pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House. There’s only one problem: Alex has a beef with the actual prince, Henry, across the pond. And when the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an Alex-Henry altercation, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.
Heads of family, state, and other handlers devise a plan for damage control: staging a truce between the two rivals. What at first begins as a fake, Instragramable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret romance with a surprisingly unstuffy Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations.
The President’s son does not get along with his contemporary across the pond, Prince Henry. When they accidentally get into a little scuffle in the public eye, their teams decide that the best damage control would be for them to appear to be BFFs in public. You can probably guess what happens from there. Of course, they must keep their budding romance secret. It could be bad for both their families if word gets out.
I’ll say right off the bat that if you want to enjoy this book, you must recognize it for what it is – a rom-com not wholly based in reality. It definitely simplifies the way American politics works and from what I understand it gets the succession line to the throne in England and other Royal facts wrong too. But this book is supposed to be fun, not a political science textbook, so I let all that go.
I loved the chemistry between Alex and Henry. They write emails back and forth to each other that were really funny. Especially Henry’s droll humor. He is the epitome of charming. And when they are together, it got pretty steamy. Reading about two young men being open and vulnerable with each other just made me feel good. This is the first book I’ve read by Casey McQuiston – I’ll definitely be reading more.
PS: I just learned that Red, White & Royal Blue is being made into a movie! Check out this link to see pics of the actors they cast as Alex and Henry. Holy smokes – so hot! It will air on Amazon Prime, release date TBD. Yay!
July 4th, 2022 in
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Hi friends! I accidentally took a six-month vacation from blogging. I have a lot of reviews to catch up on! I’ve been MIA because I really needed to focus on my health. I’ll copy and paste what I posted on my personal Facebook page a few months ago:
As of today (January 25, 2022), I’m on the waiting list to have a double lung transplant at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. The average wait time is 2-3 months but theoretically, the call could come at any time. At which point, I have been instructed to head for St. Louis within 10-15 minutes of receiving the call. I’ll be in the hospital for 2-3 weeks and then moving to some sort of temporary housing in St. Louis to rehab for three months before I can move back home. Travis will stay with me in St. Louis while I’m in the hospital and once I’m out, my dad will move to St. Louis to be my main caregiver as I’m required to have someone with me 24/7. McElhany family stress level is high but joyful. This is a good thing. It will be worth it in the long run. My bags are packed.
It’s been five months and I still haven’t gotten the call but what can I do but keep waiting? In the meantime, I’m just living life as normally as possible. I probably won’t post many updates here about this journey but you are welcome to follow me at the Facebook page that I specifically created for updates: Live Lung and Prosper
Now back to the book reviews!
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
July 2nd, 2022 in
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People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: May 11, 2021
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.
Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.
Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.
Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.
Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?
Alex and Poppy are total opposites. Somehow it works to make them best friends but not lovers. People You Meet on Vacation aspires to answer the age-old question – can men and women ever be just friends? Sound familiar? That’s because the author was inspired by the movie When Harry Met Sally. It even starts out with Alex and Poppy getting to know each other on a road trip. However, Alex is way nicer than Harry at much more reserved.
After Alex and Poppy bond on their road trip home from college, they decide to start taking a trip together every summer – as friends. They don’t really see each other in person in between summer trips because their lives are so different. Alex becomes a high school teacher in the small town they grew up in and Poppy moves to New York City to write for a travel magazine.
Something happened on their trip two years ago and they lost touch. After all that time with no contact, Poppy convinces Alex to take another trip with her. She actually doesn’t have to try that hard to get him to agree and this is where the book lost me. I found the way they reconnected to be a forced plot point. It just doesn’t seem likely that Alex would agree to go on a trip without any discussion of their issues or catching up at all beforehand. And once they got on the trip, I couldn’t feel much chemistry between them.
For a rom-com, I thought it was lacking in com. I like romances with more humor. Maybe it was because Alex is supposed to be kind of a boring, humorless person? I’m not sure. I know this book got a lot of hype when it came out and people loved it but it was just not my cup of tea. I’m not going to write Emily Henry off just yet though. I’ve heard her other books are better so I’m going to check at least one more out. If you’re a fan, which one would you recommend?
July 1st, 2022 in
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Marley by Jon Clinch
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: October 8, 2019
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
“Marley was dead, to begin with,” Charles Dickens tells us at the beginning of A Christmas Carol. But in Jon Clinch’s “masterly” (The New York Times Book Review) novel, Jacob Marley, business partner to Ebenezer Scrooge, is very much alive: a rapacious and cunning boy who grows up to be a forger, a scoundrel, and the man who will be both the making and the undoing of Scrooge.
They meet as youths in the gloomy confines of Professor Drabb’s Academy for Boys, where Marley begins their twisted friendship by initiating the innocent Scrooge into the art of extortion. Years later, in the dank heart of London, their shared ambition manifests itself in a fledgling shipping empire. Between Marley’s genius for deception and Scrooge’s brilliance with numbers, they amass a considerable fortune of dubious legality, all rooted in a pitiless commitment to the soon-to-be-outlawed slave trade.
As Marley toys with the affections of Scrooge’s sister, Fan, Scrooge falls under the spell of Fan’s best friend, Belle Fairchild. Now, for the first time, Scrooge and Marley find themselves at odds. With their business interests inextricably bound together and instincts for secrecy and greed bred in their very bones, the two men engage in a shadowy war of deception, forged documents, theft, and cold-blooded murder. Marley and Scrooge are destined to clash in an unforgettable reckoning that will echo into the future and set the stage for Marley’s ghostly return.
Most everyone is familiar with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Even if you haven’t actually read the book, you’ve probably seen at least one version in a movie. Marley is a prequel of sorts with the main character being Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner. The book starts when they meet at a boy’s boarding school, where Marley is already bad news. Scrooge is a naïve boy that he takes advantage of without Scrooge even knowing it. Their lopsided relationship continues when they go into business together. Marley makes all the shady business deals while Scrooge handles the books, blissfully (maybe willfully) unaware that most of their business is unseemly at best.
One of the most horrible businesses they are involved in is slavery. When Scrooge becomes engaged to Belle, her father tells him he won’t consent to her marrying him until Scrooge and Marley are divested of the slaving business. Scrooge sets to work on that much to Marley’s consternation. Scrooge is actually a sympathetic character for most of the book. He loves money and accounting but he loves Belle too. It’s Marley that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
This book is actually darker and gloomier than A Christmas Carol. A couple of parts are downright horrifying. And that’s what makes it so good. A Christmas Carol is a wonderful book of course, but it’s a spare novel focused on Scrooge and his redemption. Not much is made of the other characters. Luckily for Clinch, there is a lot of room to be imaginative. And he fills in the space wonderfully. Scrooge’s sister Fan and his fiancé Belle are full-fledged characters in their own right. I haven’t read much Dickens but my friends who have tell me that there are Easter eggs related to other Dickens novels throughout. I’m sure they are fun to come across for Dickens fans.
My book club read this book and had mixed reviews as a whole but I really liked it. I was impressed by Clinch’s creativity in crafting Marley and Scrooge’s backstory. Recommended.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
December 3rd, 2021 in
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No Words by Meg Cabot
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: October 12, 2021
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Jo Wright always swore she’d never step foot on Little Bridge Island—not as long as her nemesis, bestselling author Will Price, is living there.
Then Jo’s given an offer she can’t refuse: an all-expense paid trip to speak and sign at the island’s first ever book festival.
Even though arrogant Will is the last person Jo wants to see, she could really use the festival’s more-than-generous speaking fee. She’s suffering from a crippling case of writer’s block on the next installment of her bestselling children’s series, and her father needs financial help as well.
Then Jo hears that Will is off-island on the set of the film of his next book. Hallelujah!
But when she arrives on Little Bridge, Jo is in for a shock: Will is not only at the book festival, but seems genuinely sorry for his past actions—and more than willing not only to make amends, but prove to Jo that he’s a changed man.
Things seem to be looking up—until disaster strikes, causing Jo to wonder: Do any of us ever really know anyone?
No Words is the third book in the Little Bridge Island series but it’s fine to read as a stand-alone. The series has recurring characters but not a continuing storyline.
Jo Wright is the author of the popular Kitty Katz children’s books. When she’s invited to the first Little Bridge Island book festival, she hesitates to accept because best-selling author Will Price lives on the island and she does not like him one bit. Her agent assures her that he won’t be there so Jo decides to go. Guess who’s there when she gets there? That’s right – Will! He wants to make things right with Jo, if she’ll let him.
No Words was a fun, quick read. Meg Cabot is on the board of the Key West Literary Seminar so not only has she attended book festivals as an author, she’s been involved in organizing them as well. I feel like No Words gave me a little inside scoop about the literary world, which I loved.
Will writes Nicholas Sparks-type books (although Meg has said that he’s not based on a real author) and there are excerpts from Will’s book, The Moment because Jo is reading it. Those were filled with really funny, over-the-top melodrama. I loved how she satirized that type of book.
I felt like the chemistry between Will and Jo was a bit forced but overall, I enjoyed No Words. Meg Cabot is comfort reading for me. Her books give me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I’m reading them and No Words was no exception.
Other Megan Cabot books I’ve reviewed:
The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries #1)
All-American Girl (American Girl #1)
Ready or Not (American Girl #2)
The Boy Next Door (Boy #1)
Avalon High
Airhead (Airhead Trilogy)
Being Nikki (Airhead Trilogy)
Runaway (Airhead Trilogy)
Size 12 is Not Fat (Heather Wells #1)
Size 14 is Not Fat Either (Heather Wells #2)
Big Boned (Heather Wells #3)
Queen of Babble (Queen of Babble #1)
Queen of Babble in the Big City (Queen of Babble #2)
The Queen of Babble Gets Hitched (Queen of Babble #3)
Abandon (Abandon Triology)
(I received a complimentary copy of No Words for review.)
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
November 30th, 2021 in
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Happy Saturday everyone! We all know by now that I love to try clothing subscription boxes. Today, I wanted to tell you about my experience with Amazon’s clothing subscription box, which is called Personal Shopper by Prime Try Before You Buy. It’s available for Amazon Prime members and is only accessible from a mobile device. To get started with your style profile, click this link using your phone. That will take you to the style survey to get you started!
But first, I’ll explain the program a bit more. After you fill out your style survey, you can either send a message to your stylist with any special requests or you can live chat with one. For the box that I’m highlighting today, I messaged the stylist that I was looking for a new winter coat to wear to watch my boys perform in the half-time shows at the high school football games in the fall and winter. I said that I was looking for something warm without being too bulky and that was at least hip length
Before your box ships out, your stylist will send you a preview of the items they have pulled for you. It’s usually maybe 12 or so and you can choose up to 8 that you want to be included in the box. You can also swap out sizes and colors in the preview mode. Once your box arrives, you have seven days to try everything on and send back what you don’t want to keep. They provide the return packaging so it’s super easy to send back what you don’t want. Instead of a styling fee, there is a subscription fee of $4.99 per box. I get them every other month. You can get $10 off if you spend $50 or more using code TBYB10 so it’s a great time to check it out and see if you like it.
Here are the coats – I got to try on EIGHT coats in the comfort of my own home. I probably would have gone to at least two or three stores to look at this many options. This saved me so much time! Plus, I’m in the high-risk category for you-know-what so it’s nice not to have to leave the house. In the end, I chose the Steve Madden Women’s Puffer Jacket. I love it – it has everything I was looking for! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about how Personal Shopper by Prime Try Before You Buy works!
Here are links to all of the coats:
- 1. Kenneth Cole
- 2. Columbia
- 3. Tommy Hilfiger
- 4. Nautica
- 5. Calvin Klein
- 6. Laundry by Shelli Segal
- 7. Amazon Essentials – no longer available
- 8. Steve Madden
(This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a wee bit from qualifying purchases that allow me to offset the expenses of running this blog. Thanks for your support!)
November 27th, 2021 in
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September 26-October 2, 2021 is Banned Books Week. Every April, the American Library Association releases a list of the top ten banned books from the previous year and why they were banned. Here’s the 2020 list:
George by Alex Gino
Reasons: Challenged, banned, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, conflicting with a religious viewpoint, and not reflecting “the values of our community”
I gave George five stars! I think it’s a great middle-grade book that parents can read with their children to jump-start a conversation with them about what it means to be transgender. You can read my review here.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds
Reasons: Banned and challenged because of the author’s public statements, and because of claims that the book contains “selective storytelling incidents” and does not encompass racism against all people
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, drug use, and alcoholism, and because it was thought to promote anti-police views, contain divisive topics, and be “too much of a sensitive matter right now”
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted because it was thought to contain a political viewpoint and it was claimed to be biased against male students, and for the novel’s inclusion of rape and profanity
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references, and allegations of sexual misconduct by the author
This one got five stars from me also. You can read my review here. I read it a long time ago before the allegations against Alexie came out and it brings up an issue that I’ve struggled with. Can one separate the artist from the art? And is it a good idea to try?
Something Happened in Our Town: A Child’s Story About Racial Injustice by Marianne Celano, Marietta Collins, and Ann Hazzard, illustrated by Jennifer Zivoin
Reasons: Challenged for “divisive language” and because it was thought to promote anti-police views
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and their negative effect on students, featuring a “white savior” character, and its perception of the Black experience
Yet another five-star rating from me! You can read my review here. Funny how all of these banned books are actually really good. I highly recommend the audiobook. Sissy Spacek does a wonderful job narrating.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Reasons: Banned and challenged for racial slurs and racist stereotypes, and their negative effect on students
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and depicts child sexual abuse
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Reasons: Challenged for profanity, and it was thought to promote an anti-police message
Whadda ya know – five stars from me! You can read my review here. I just read this a few months ago so it will count as my banned book for 2021. I try to read at least one from the most recent list in anticipation of banned books week.
What’s your favorite banned book? You can find lists for previous years on the ALA’s website.
(This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn a wee bit from qualifying purchases that allow me to offset the expenses of running this blog. Thanks for your support!)
September 27th, 2021 in
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Pretty Mess by Erika Jayne
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: March 20, 2018
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Erika Jayne didn’t make it this far by holding back. Now, in her first-ever memoir, the fan favorite star of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills bares her heart, mind, and soul.
In Pretty Mess, Erika spills on every aspect of her life: from her rise to fame as a daring and fiery pop/dance performer and singer; to her decision to accept a role on reality television; to the ups and downs of family life (including her marriage to famed lawyer Tom Girardi, thirty-three years her senior). There’s much more to Erika Jayne than fans see on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Pretty Mess is her opportunity to dig deep and tell her many-layered, unique, and inspiring life story.
As fun and fearless as its author, this fascinating memoir proves once and for all why Erika Jayne is so beloved: she’s strong, confident, genuine, and here to tell all!
If you’re a fan of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, you know that this season is getting goooooood. Erika Jayne’s (aka Erika Girardi) husband, high-powered attorney Tom Girardi, has been accused of funneling over 20 million dollars of his clients’ settlements into Erika’s LLC, EJ Global. This is money that was supposed to go to the victims of a plane crash, including widows and orphans. Not good. The big question is…Did Erika know where the money in her LLC was coming from? The season started filming right before the story broke and more information comes to light every week. Bravo couldn’t have asked for more drama! If you’re not a fan of the show, you can watch the documentary The Housewife and the Hustler on Hulu if you want to get up to speed quickly.
Anyway, Pretty Mess came out in 2018 so there is no mention of any of that. However, I read it to see if there were any clues that Erika might have been in on Tom’s schemes. And the answer is, not really. However, Erika Jayne was never signed by a record label – she’s entirely self-funded and it doesn’t sound like she makes that much money performing. I would venture to say that she probably loses money because she is spending a boatload on costumes, and glam, travel and making music videos for her songs. Also, who knows how much she pays Mikey, her right-hand man and creative director. I’m sure he doesn’t come cheap.
Sadly, there is only one chapter about her experience on RHOBH and its light on details. She goes into a lot more detail about her time on Dancing with the Stars. I did enjoy reading about her pre-Housewives life though. I didn’t know much about her because she rarely talks about her past on the show. She opens up quite a bit about her relationship with her parents and grandmother. Fun fact: It was ghost-written by Brian Moylan, who wrote The Housewives: The Real Story Behind the Real Housewives that I reviewed a few weeks ago.
Pretty Mess was a quick, fun read that fans of RHOBH will enjoy. I checked it out from the library because I felt weird about giving her money while she’s in the midst of this legal scandal. If you’ve been following it, let me know what you think…Did Erika know??
August 24th, 2021 in
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One Two Three by Laurie Frankel
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: June 8, 2021
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
In a town where nothing ever changes, suddenly everything does…
Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne, but the Mitchell triplets are especially beloved. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone knows, and no one doubts it just because she can’t speak. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed―tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her sock drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.
For a few weeks seventeen years ago, Bourne was national news when its water turned green. The girls have come of age watching their mother’s endless fight for justice. But just when it seems life might go on the same forever, the first moving truck anyone’s seen in years pulls up and unloads new residents and old secrets. Soon, the Mitchell sisters are taking on a system stacked against them and uncovering mysteries buried longer than they’ve been alive. Because it’s hard to let go of the past when the past won’t let go of you.
Three unforgettable narrators join together here to tell a spellbinding story with wit, wonder, and deep affection. As she did in This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel has written a laugh-out-loud-on-one-page-grab-a-tissue-the-next novel, as only she can, about how expanding our notions of normal makes the world a better place for everyone and how when days are darkest, it’s our daughters who will save us all.
Seventeen years ago, Belsum Chemical set up shop in Bourne and turned its water green. Since then, most of Bourne’s residents have come down with or been born with health problems, including the Mitchell triplets, who refer to themselves in birth order number, which also corresponds to the number of syllables in their names. Mab, or One, is a “normal” sixteen-year-old girl. She’s on the track for high-achieving kids at school. Monday, or Two, is on the autism spectrum. When the town library closed, she took custody of the books, which are now crammed in every nook and cranny of their house. She knows the exact location of every single one though. Mirabel, or Three, has what appears to be cerebral palsy, although I don’t think it’s ever specifically stated. She is in a wheelchair and has the use of just one arm and hand. She uses a voice machine to communicate.
The triplets’ father, who worked in the chemical plant, died of cancer before they were born. Their mother Nora has been trying to get a class-action lawsuit going against Belsum ever since. Then one day, Nathan Templeton, the son of Belsum’s founder, comes to town promising a new beginning. But can he and Belsum be trusted?
One Two Three alternates between the first-person perspectives of the three girls. Each has a distinctive voice and their own fully developed personality. It’s a heavy story but there is some humor as well. Especially from Monday, who is endearing, yet frustrating in the way that overly literal people often are. Mirabel, because she has been an observer of people for her whole life, is wise beyond her years. My favorite line from her is:
“There are two kinds of people in this world: the ones who split the world into two kinds of people, and the ones who know that’s reductive and conversationally lazy.”
I enjoyed One Two Three quite a bit. I like books that are about the people in small towns or communities pulling together to help each other out, as long as they don’t get too cheesy. One Two Three certainly doesn’t. If anything, it’s a little on the darker side, but not in a bad way. This is the third book of Laurie Frankel’s that I’ve read and loved – she’s officially going on my list of favorite authors!
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
Other books by Laurie Frankel that I’ve reviewed:
Goodbye for Now
This is How It Always Is
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
August 6th, 2021 in
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Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Narrator: Matthew McConaughey
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: October 20, 2020
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable—you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
Oh dear…This book was not what I expected but it was what I SHOULD have expected. There are a few tidbits from Matthew’s childhood and early adulthood. He writes even less about things that have happened to him since he became famous. Most of it is corny and/or trite “wisdom” that sounds profound until you stop and think about it for half a second. Some examples:
“We cannot fully appreciate the light without the shadows. We have to be thrown off balance to find our footing. It’s better to jump than fall.”
Or
“We catch more greenlights by simply identifying where the red lights are in our life, and then change course to hit fewer of them.”
Basically, this book is one of Matthew’s Lincoln car commercials in book form. If you think that his voice is so sexy that you’d listen to him read the phonebook [I don’t – he’s never been my type.], then this is a great audiobook for you. Otherwise, you can skip it.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
August 3rd, 2021 in
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