Reunion by Lauraine Snelling

Coming soon in July...

Reunion by Lauraine Snelling!

Summary of the book:

The Sorenson Family are planning a family reunion even though their mother Dagmar has just passed away from cancer and will not be there to join them. Dagmar's daughter Keira has been going through her mother's house with the help of her best friend (and brother's wife) Leah. Keira is searching for her birth certificate so she can get her passport for a trip to Norway that her husband surprised her with and Leah is looking for pictures to make a family memory book for all that will be attending the reunion.

When Keira stumbles upon her birth certificate, she is shocked to discover that under the "father" section it reads: "Unknown." Hoping that she is reading this wrong and not wanting to devastate her brother Marcus (Leah's husband), she keeps the information to herself until she can look into the matter more.

Meanwhile, Marcus (a pastor in the community) discovers that his teenage daughter is pregnant and tries to decide what to do about it: should he hide the information or resign from the ministry?

While plans for the reunion continue to take place, each member of the family seems to have a secret that they are keeping from the other members of the family and it will all come to a head at the reunion!

My review:

This book gave great insight into how devastating a teen pregnancy can be. There are many great thoughts throughout the book on what should or could be done with a Biblical view of life. I felt that this book did very well at detailing how it affected each person whether it was Kirstin (the girl who was pregnant), Jose (the father of the baby), Leah (her mom), Marcus (her dad) or Keira (her aunt). The book definitely kept the focus on what God's Word says about life even though it was not easy for any of them when "push came to shove".

This book does a fantastic job of showing how important unconditional love is in the believer's life. By showing unconditional love in your life, you get to emulate God's love for us as sinners! What a great picture!

I did enjoy this book even though it focused on some hard topics. The author did a good job of weaving the story so that you really did get involved in the characters lives and wanted them to do the right thing. I know there will be many people that find this book controversial, but for those that try to live according to the Bible I would think this book would only be encouraging!

I received this book for free from Faith Words in exchange for an honest review. I was under no obligation to give it a positive review.





Bringing Up Girls by Dr. James Dobson

I can summarize this book in one word: disappointing, but I'll expound on why I say this as you continue to read. I was so excited to have the opportunity to review this book because when I found out back in the summer of 2010 that I was going to be having a little girl I wanted to read everything I could get my hands on that would help me with raising her. My little girl just turned 18 months old a couple of days ago and I finally had the chance to read this book, but not just read it but own it for giving an honest review on it. I was so excited to read this book and then I started reading it.

It starts out telling about all the horrors of raising a daughter in this day - lack of morality in our country being the main topic that invades so much. I found it quite depressing, but figured that the book was just opening up that way to emphasize how important our roles as parents are in raising our daughters. Unfortunately, it just continued. I was almost 200 pages into the book and it was still just doom and gloom! I was disappointed. Where was the "practical advice and encouragement for those shaping the next generation of women"? This book was anything but practical or encouraging. The majority of this book I felt more and more depressed that I'd decided to have a child in this world that we are living in. But unfortunately (and no I'm really not upset I have my child - she brings such delight to our lives!) I already had a child and didn't read this book ahead of time so I'd know that I shouldn't have a child.

There were only 3 maybe 4 chapters that I felt even talked about how to raise your daughter. The majority of the book was just article after article about the decline in morality in this world. The other portion of the book seemed to plugging other books that Dr. Dobson had previously written so that you'd want to read those. I can tell you that this being my first Dr. Dobson book that I've read and the way this content matter was handled, it will probably also be my last! I can not in good conscience recommend this whole book to anyone that is trying to read a book about raising their daughters.

If you are wanting to read a book that will deter people from having children, then you may have stumbled upon the right one though! If you do feel the need to buy and/or read this book - just skip to the final chapter entitled "The Last Word" because that was the closest the book came to giving any parenting advice.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Tyndale. I was under no obligation to give a positive review.  

Raising Your Kids to Love the Lord by Dave Stone

This book was so easy to read. I read it all in less than a day. But the lessons that can be learned in it are so valuable to any parent that wants to raise their kids to love the Lord. My daughter turned 18 months old today. While I realize we are in the very beginning stages of raising her, I figured that this would be the perfect time to read this book and get some good insights on what to do while raising her (you know, before we really mess up!).

I'm not sure what I really expected this book to tell me, but to me it all seemed like a review. But that is only because my parents raised me the way this author writes about. For me, this book was a review and so many of the things I've already started to implement in raising our little girl. However, I can see this book being so practical and valuable to someone that wasn't privileged enough to be raised by godly parents and who wouldn't know what to do.

By the end of this book, I had tears in my eyes because I realized just how lucky (and by lucky I know that luck had nothing to do with it and that God had everything to do with it) I was to have been raised in a family that instilled all of these life lessons in me at a very young age.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody that is trying to raise their kids to love and serve the Lord because it is so practical and down-to-earth! The ideas and principles aren't unattainable! I know because I was fortunate enough to be raised with parents that held on to these same Biblical truths.

I'm so glad that this book was written and I'm sure I will look to it often when I'm getting discouraged in my journey as a Mom.

I received this book for free under the BookSneeze program and I was under no obligation to give it a positive review.