overcome – The Nashville Wife Reads

author: Kristin Maher
publisher: National Center for Youth Issues

Wow. This is a phenomenal and incredibly important book.

“Shame is a powerful emotion for children, and when they get sucked into the Shame Game and start believing lies about themselves – that they don’t just MAKE mistakes, but they ARE a mistake – their world can become a dark place.”
( The Awfulizer )

-1- The art is adorable!! Every kid will love it, no matter the age.

-2- Putting a name and a picture to “shame” is such a new concept and its brilliant. So so so many kids (and lets face it, adults too) struggle with shame (me included) and it’s just not something talked about enough. This is so incredibly exciting to see not only this concept being brought out into the light (finally!) but also through such an intriguing and captivating story. I was reading a child’s book and I was captivated!

-3- The last page where there are 7 points. This page was probably just as important as the whole book if not MORE important. What is written here is something every SINGLE parent, foster parent, counselor, teacher, you name it, should be talking about.

This book should be in everyone’s hands that has a child, no matter the age. Whether it’s your own child or if you’re someone that works with or volunteers with children/young kids/young adults….This is important. And for $10?!? That is a STEAL for the art and the work involved in making this book.

If I could give 10 stars I would. BRAVO…

This book is not published until August 22, 2019.
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

Please consider clicking HERE to order this book if you know anyone with young kids or even a school or library you could donate to. It’s $10. There’s so much good that $10 purchase could buy 🙂 PS: I just bought mine! yay!

Thanks, Lovelies ❤

author: Katherine Center
publisher: St. Martins Press

A book with a story to tell that hasn’t settled on what type it wants to be is a little how I felt about How to Walk Away. If I had to pick, I would say it was a combination of Contemporary Fiction (aka Family Drama-lite-) meets Women’s Fiction meets Chick-Lit and it truly doesn’t know who it wants to be.

I toyed back and forth with giving this a 4 star review, a 3 star, or somewhere in the middle and landed on 3 stars. Here’s why..

The 4 stars of this book

There were a LOT of goosebumps going on. There were truly some good, deep moments where I genuinely appreciated the author’s writing. She didn’t always tie a neat bow at the end of everything (almost, but not always and certainly not on the most important part). She, many times, made me feel like this was true to life in some ways. SOME ways.

The 3 stars

I could technically claim 2.5 stars on some of this stuff but I’ll give it 3 because this IS chick-lit(ish) and so I need to be fair and judge off that. But there were too many times, in my opinion, where the author made it far too simple. A lot of glossing over of emotions, accepting things for what they are, and certain unemotional responses to where there should be something. She always made sure to throw it in there, it wasn’t just some emotional empty hole, but it was like “oh yeah and I was pissed. See me throw this. Okay we’re good now .I told you I was angry , let’s move on.” And She didn’t seem to stay consistent within that.

Overall, for the first time ever, I think I understand now when people say an author manipulated their emotions. I don’t feel like Katherine Center necessarily manipulated me but I do feel like instead of making this a great story just by excellent writing (which I know she is no doubt capable of), it was a good story based mostly off all the feels the book gave you. That was the heart of it. I don’t want that in a book. I want it to be real.

All this to say I will still pick up the next book Katherine Center writes. She is a good writer and I’m looking forward to seeing more of what she has to offer. Thank you for the work you do!

View all my reviews