Holding the Lantern to: It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

A friend suggested It Ends With Us earlier this year, and honestly I thought it’d be like every other book I’ve read in the past few years. Enjoyable. Maybe quotable for a while. And I’d take away something that’s going to be ingrained in my being, without the necessity of associating the book with it.
Little did I know it would become something so close to my heart.

Have a Little Faith (Review)

A break between my exams saw Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith on my desk. It is hardbound, with a jacket that gives the impression of being a beloved old prayerbook, or something akin to an old diary of someone you just met.

Now that I’ve read it I can’t think of any cover more befitting of the story told within its pages.

The chronicles of the Reb and the Pastor are brought along side by side, and portrayed almost simultaneously. They run in tandem, each their own little world, and though worlds apart, each connected to the other through something inexplicably human, something that beats at the very core of our conscience.

The feeling of embarrassment at having to deal with a childhood mentor on a personal level is one I share with Mitch, although I was hardly recognized enough to be asked for a eulogy. (Not that we do eulogies in our faith; remembering the dead mostly consists of praying for them, preferably at their graves.) The confusion and nervousness were palpable from the first page. And just like being around Al grew on Mitch, the book grew on me too. It felt somewhat like I think it would if I could get to know my grandfather now. He was no preacher, but he was wise beyond anything I could hope to achieve. Reading about the Reb Albert felt like living an opportunity I never got.

Henry’s story had many more ups and downs. If the portion about Al was akin to catching up with childhood friends, the portion about Henry would be making new ones at college. Much more nerve wracking and full of uncertain potholes. The former feeds fuel to the age old fire of bonding and faith, and lends light to the ignition of the later, which seems to spread out into uncharted waters.

There were a couple of things that struck a cord in my heart.

Maybe all you get are chances to do good, and what bad you ain’t much bad at all. But because God put you in a position where you can always do good, when you do bad, its like you let God down.

~Cass

This. In a world where there’s nothing to stop anyone from doing evil, it is faith put in these simple words that holds the lens that could change someone’s paradigm.

Why keep serving God? …Where can you go from God? He’s everywhere.

…You can’t work your way into heaven. Anytime you try to justify yourself with works you disqualify yourself with works. What I’m doing here, everyday, is only my way of saying ‘Lord, regardless of what eternity holds for me, let me give something back to you. I know it don’t even no scorecard, but let me make something of my life before I go.

‘And then, Lord, I’m at your mercy.’

~Henry

All the sufferings and mistakes in his life taught Henry a powerful and all encompassing lesson. These words are the gist of that lesson. Us puny little humans could never even hope for our actions to measure up and make us deserving of prizes. God’s prizes come from His love and His mercy, and if He decides that I don’t deserve His mercy there’s nothing I can do. But I can make other people’s lives better, even if its just a tiny thing, because my actions can measure up to that.

The messages carries forth in this book may sometimes seem trivial and easily derived from common sense, while at others far fetched. Nevertheless, they are important codes to love by, and it is definitely for you if emotional stimulation is what you need in the realm of faith. The human soul relies on emotional instincts when it comes to the question of these things. The unlikely routes as are portrayed, shows us many facets, shared by almost all major religions, that would otherwise not shine.​

2016 in Books

Since starting this blog, I’ve done a year-in-books post every year, whether it’s before Jan 1st or after. Every year, the first thing I do when I log on to Goodreads.com in the beginning of the year is set up the reading challenge. Usually, people put in a number a bit higher than the previous year. I do something different. I put in 10.

Here’s why I do that. I don’t exactly consciously think Hey I need to read this many books this year. (I bet no one does that.) But 10 is like a rudimentary number. I know that if I don’t clear a challenge as simple as that I’ve either had a really bad year or I’m a huge disappointment.

And besides, when I finish the 20th book, and log that in, the reading challenge percentage becomes 200. Isn’t that just so satisfying?

Last year, I read all of these books:

Ella Enchanted

Warning. Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.

I remember that as a child, Cinderella was my favorite Disney movie. It was so fascinating. Evil people who are evil for the sake of being evil. A ton of animal friends. (I really hated the cat, though. Seriously.) And at the very end, a dream come true. It was everything my mind could encompass.

However, as the years progressed, and I had Cinderella retellings coming my way, I realized that I liked the retellings a lot more than my childhood favorite.

Here’re the things that caught my eye when I thought about why Ella Enchanted felt more believable.

ARC (NetGalley) Review: There Is a Generation by W. H. Buzzard

There’s a lot more to adventure than mythical creatures and magical powers. Adventure could be set off with that one moment when the person walking through the door takes your breath away. It could be you finally having had enough of life giving you lemons.

ARC (NetGalley) Review: Dove (The Freedom Series, Book One) by M. H. Salter

Here is my review of the second book I was approved for advanced review.

ARC Review (NetGalley): Keep Me Posted by Lisa Beazley

Before I delve into talking about this book, I want to highlight the fact that this is my first ever ARC review, so please bear with.

Professional Reader

If there’s true love on this planet, my first is reading. Of course, writing is a ver close second, but I digress.

Reading, for me, means a whole plethora of things. It means being understood, it means understanding. It means escaping reality, and sometimes it means learning to see reality in a whole different light.

Why I’ll never read Ayn Rand again

The size of the book was enormous. It was really wordy, and it was almost as long as all the LOTR books combined. I didn’t regret it when I read it. It was really fluent and felt really true, and the values presented just seemed so right.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

This Friday I finished reading A Tale of Two Cities.

Yes. Yes, it’s the Dickens one. God knows that I’m lagging behind on the majority of the classics, despite the repetitive reminders to read them. This year, I decided to read as many classics as I could get my hands on.

Now, the reason behind this particular post is very simple. I simply can’t seem to be able to think of a very many things without making connections to Two Cities. Again, I know that I’m talking and writing more and more like Dickens these days, like what happens with most of the books I read.

Yesterday I met the Principal of our school, and he asked me what I was reading since he saw my Goodreads update on Facebook. (I did NOT know he saw that.) I told him about Two Cities, and of course, a conversation about characters and the story in general, ensued, in the middle of the lobby. We agreed on a number of things:

1. Madame Defarge’s knitting registers don’t make sense
2. Sydney Carton was very intriguing
3. The story was good, and it would provide a very enjoyable read at the age of 15, but neither of us are 15.

Of course, there were a lot of things going on, and we couldn’t possibly have held a book club discussion on it at the time. However, I thought I’d take this chance to put out my thoughts on the book.

WARNING. THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS.