Book Reviews – the February Edition

Woo hoo! It’s not even the last week of March & I’m doing my February book reviews! Go me!
 

Daylight (Atlee Pine #3) and Mercy (Atlee Pine #4) ★★★★ each, by David Baldacci. The thrilling conclusion of the Atlee Pine saga! Atlee solves the mystery of her sister and her parents in these two installments. I really enjoyed the third book because it was a John Puller crossover, but the fourth book was pretty darned good too. You do have to suspend reality quite a bit – but that’s what reading is for, right?  

 

Old Music for New People ★★★★★, by David Biddle.  I started following Jesse Biddle (former Atlanta Braves relief pitcher) on Instagram, and he shared some things that his dad posted which I liked so I started following him too. And lo and behold he is an author! I absolutely loved this novel, which is about a summer in the life of Ivy Scattergood and her family. They are spending the summer in Maine as they always do. This year they have an unexpected guest: her cousin Robert. Except that on the flight from California Robert transformed into Rita. It’s a summer of self-discovery for almost all the Scattergoods as they try to figure out what they think about their transgender cousin and it is just fabulous. I wasn’t even annoyed that the main character was a teenage girl (they are usually Very Annoying to me).

 

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right  ★★★★★, by Lisa Sharon Harper. This book is an exploration of what it might look like to bring shalom to the world (actual shalom). From the Goodreads blurb:

 A Vision of Hope for a Broken World

Shalom is what God declared. Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like.
Shalom is when all people have enough.
It’s when families are healed.
It’s when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity.
Shalom is when the image of God is recognized in every single human.
Shalom is our calling as followers of Jesus’s gospel. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every relationship.

Doesn’t that sound amazing? This is what it would look like if we quit using scripture for our own ends and actually did what Jesus would do. 

I’ve finished three books so far in March. It’s looking like I’ll get another couple finished by the end of the month so I’m just trucking along this year. Unless something crazy happens I might actually meet my book reading goal. What fabulous things are you reading?