Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

books

Searching for a place you already have: Review of Home by Ginny Yttrup

My favorite thing about Ginny Yttrup’s books are the way they deal with real-life women’s issues without glossing or sugar-coating or down-playing. Her characters are relatable. They don’t always do something extraordinary, but they overcome something in their lives that is holding them back from truly living. These characteristics set her fiction apart: there is women’s fiction and then there is Ginny Yttrup women’s fiction.

Her latest release, Home, encompasses all of these favorite elements. The main character, Melanie, is a writer, but she is struggling to live in the present. Her neighbor, Jill, is afraid of bad things happening, which manifests in OCD behavior. When she discovers the root cause of it all and confronts her past, she learns to live free. Melanie’s husband, Craig, is struggling to make the finances work out. He faces giving up the house he built for them and facing an unknown future.

(Disclaimer: I received an advance copy of the book from the author. Opinion reflected in this review is my honest one.)

Yttrup has a gift for writing in multiple points of view. Each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective, but it’s not confusing or overwhelming. When done well, it’s beautiful and brilliant, and Yttrup does it well.

You really can’t go wrong with any of Yttrup’s books. Two other books of hers I’ve read and enjoyed are Lost and Found and Invisible.

If you need more of a sense of the tone of this newest book, check out this book trailer:

 

What if you could be more you?: Review of Loveable by Kelly Flanagan

I make it no secret how much I love to read, and though I cannot guarantee that my tastes in books will align with yours, I generally try to review and recommend only books that are worth your time. You can be mostly assured that if a book makes it to the review space on my blog, then it’s been worth my time.

Even then, there is the rare book that rises above the worth-your-time category and rests firmly in the you-must-read category.

Loveable is one of those books.

First, a couple of things you need to know:

  1. I received an advance copy of the book from the author and my opinions in this review were not influenced by that act.
  2. I went to grade school, middle school and high school with the author which means I am as excited for the release of his debut book as I would be my own. True story.
  3. Kelly is a psychologist with an eye for the divine in the world. His blog posts are some of my favorites. You might have even seen him on the Today show because one of his posts went viral.

Now, the book. What I’m about to say is rare:

You NEED to read this book.

About once a year, I read a book that I consider a must-read, and if I consider it a must-read, then I can’t stop talking about it or recommending it. Just recently, I recommended a book I read three years ago and can’t forget. Last year, I attended a writing conference for the first time so I could tell the author who was the keynote speaker how much one of his books changed me. If I consider a book must-read, I am practically evangelistic about it. (Annoyingly so, I know.)

If I could only recommend one book this year, it would be Loveable. And yeah, I understand that it’s only March. But what Kelly has to say here is not just important. It’s life-changing.

I have a lot of favorite lines in this book, so I won’t list them all here. But I do want you to get a sense for what the book is about and what it can do for your soul.

This was one of the first lines to speak to me:

From there, Kelly leads us through three acts of this play we call life: Worthiness, Belonging and Purpose. And he reminds us that this is not a linear, straightforward climb up a mountain. It’s more like circling the mountain on the way to the top. We will likely cycle through these three acts more than once in life.

It’s a beautiful journey. By first recognizing our worth and then reaching out to others, pursuing our passions (i.e. finding our purpose) becomes more meaningful because it is deeply rooted in a confident sense of who we are and have always been

Kelly speaks often of the Little One inside all of us, and I will admit that at first that seems awkward. But, when we examine our wounds and the needs we have, it’s not hard to accept that there’s a Little One who needs to know he or she is loved and accepted. (Fair warning: you might need to read with a box of tissues in one hand and the phone number of a good therapist in the other.)

To get the most out of this book, read with your heart and mind open to the possibility of a changed life. And while Kelly is a professing Christian, this book is accessible to those who might not share that belief.

Have I convinced you? If not, then hop on over to Ann Voskamp’s blog and read an excerpt from the book. Then decide. I hope you will say yes for you.

P.S. In case you’re curious, the other books I almost always recommend as must-reads are Outlaw by Ted Dekker and Sleeping in Eden by Nicole Baart. Both fiction.