Carrots review

Carrots by Colleen Helme
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let's start with what I liked. The main character is a middle aged, happily married stay at home mom. She isn't some SUPER mom that has perfect hair and make up, making gourmet meals for her kids while working at a high powered job and still keeping it sexy for her hubby. She wears sweatpants, is concerned about the mega sexy young lawyer her husband works with, occasionally gets side tracked and forgets to do something for her kids and has real life struggles. I love that about this book.

What I didn't like was all of the "I" statements throughout the book. It is written in first person, so there are repeated sentences that include:

"I sat...", "I took...", "I pulled...", "I thought...", I passed...", "I went...", "I think...", "I've still...", "I need...", "I hadn't...", "I decided...", "I'd lost....", "I'd deal...", "I concentrated...", "I still....", "I haven't...", "I think....", "I had....", "I realized...", "I managed...", "I really...", "I haven't...", "I guess..."

All of those are from ONE page (273) of the book. I like Shelby (the main character) but I didn't like reading "I" ALL THE TIME!

The story is interesting, if a bit far fetched for me. Shelby witnesses a bank robbery at her local grocery store and receives a head injury during the robbery. As a result she suddenly is able to hear the thoughts of the people around her. This inadvertently leads to her becoming involved with a local crime boss. Not a bad summer read, but I was able to read it through Amazon's Prime lending library. I didn't like it enough to purchase the next book in the series.

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1,000 Gifts review

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lots of quotes from this book were added to my commonplace book. Lots of poignant thoughts and meaningful paragraphs. However, the flowery writing and (overly) poetic sentences made it difficult to fall into every time I picked it up. It would take several pages to adjust to Ann's writing style before the words could penetrate my soul and speak to me. Once I fell into the language, though, it was nourishment and a reminder of God's love for each of us. Voskamp issues a call to return His love through gratitude and shows us how doing so inevitably draws us into a deeper, fuller relationship with Him.

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