August Reads
Updated: Aug 24, 2021
Do you usually read more or less during the summer? For some reason, this summer has been a bookish one for me, and I have two very different yet equally delightful reads to share with you this month!
How Far You Have Come
About the Book:
Beauty in the brokenness. Hope makes way for healing.
This exquisite weaving of poetry, prose, and illustrations is an invitation to embrace the beauty in your story. This is a call to reconcile the difficult moments in your past, embrace the longings of your present, and celebrate the goodness that shines through you as you step into who you were made to be.
In How Far You Have Come poet, artist, and dreamer Morgan Harper Nichols offers reflections on her life as she inspires you to consider how your history makes you who you are today.
With stories of sunsets, lonely roads, and exhilarating personal discoveries, Morgan shares her personal growth in a way that shines light on our own journeys. This is a book of pressing on and pressing in, of transformation and surrender, of meaning in the losses and wild anticipation for the splendor still to come.
My Thoughts
You're not defined by your past, but you are shaped by it.
In this book, Morgan uses the setting of a road trip to share her signature poetry addressed to the reader, and anecdotes built on her personal testimony. Let's face it: an author and artist who can meld poetry, prose, and art, and do it all well while also singing and songwriting... she's rather a talented individual. MHN has the unique gift of making her reader feel at once seen, known, and loved.
Morgan's honest and heartfelt writing encompasses a coast-to-coast road trip. Each state: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, are a chapter with a distinct theme and color scheme.
If you -- or someone you know -- needs a gentle reminder to face your past and find healing in where you're going and who you're becoming, get this book. Zondervan's pretty gift book design makes this the perfect "I love you" gift to a friend or family member!
I reviewed Morgan's previous book, All Along You Were Blooming, last year. Click here to see my review!
About the Book
I'll admit, books with multiple POVs and timelines are not my favorite. They tend to be choppy and I always feel impatient while reading. It can be done, but head-hopping for the fun of it? Nope, no thanks. So this book automatically lost a few points for me personally, but I still fell in love with the gentleness and wisdom of this story. The meandering, cozy story of adoption and middle-class family life in the 70s and 80s, up to the present and Wendell-Berry-reading Bruce stole my heart, along with the rest of the family.
Author Susie Finkbeiner has an uncanny knack for family relationships that come to life. I did notice a few holes and missing links in the plot, which bothered me, but in a way it fits the imperfect reminiscing of the characters, I suppose.
Minh and her family's journey to grapple with the circumstances surrounding her adoption from Vietnam to the States was not an epic page-turner, but instead, delicate and bright-eyed, like a small sparrow.
"Emily Dickinson said that hope is a little bird, singing her heart out during a terrible storm. ...It's the nature of small birds to sing their hearts out. And it's the nature of God to hear them."
Read my review of Susie’s last book, All Manner of Things, here!
*I received free copies of both books from the publishers and was happy to provide my honest review. I was not required to post a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own.*