Heart of Ice by Lis Wiehl with April Henry

Heart of Ice by Lis Wiehl with April Henry was the first book of the Triple Threat Novels that I have read.  The series is about three friends: a TV crime reporter, a lawyer, and an FBI agent.  In this book, all three woman come together to try to catch a psychopathic killer, who manipulates people into doing her bidding.  However, just because there is a killer to catch doesn’t mean that your personal problems slow down, which the FBI agent, Nicole, finds out.

            Since this was my first Triple Threat Novel, my opinion may be a little different.  First off, I requested the ebook and noticed some typing errors while reading it.  The book itself was very quick and easy to read.  If you are looking for a book to unwind, this one is good for that.  However, if you are looking for a can’t-put-your-book-down-because-it’s-too-exciting kind of crime book, this may not be the one.  For me, the plot was predictable and some explanations were too short.  I also didn’t feel that there was enough development of the character’s backgrounds to fully understand each of the character’s motives.  With that being said, the book was entertaining but don’t expect this to be a page turner that keeps you up reading all night.

This book was given to me for free by Thomas Nelson Publishing at booksneeze.com.

Unleashed: Release the Untamed Faith Within by Erwin McManus

Unleashed: Release the Untamed Faith Within by Erwin McManus tells us to leave a life of complacency and rules and live an untamed life, or as McManus puts it, the Barbarian Way.  This way is all about listening to God’s calling on your life and not being afraid to do something out the ordinary.  The book is set up in four long chapters which explain how to not just listen to God but follow Him.

            The book has a great message for those who are bored and stuck in a mediocre faith.  It calls us to break free of the ordinary to allow God to choose your path.  Although the message was good, I did not agree with how far some of the information was taken, such as rituals and traditions not being part of the Barbarian Way.  For the most part, though, the book had relevant stories which made good points about our culture’s tendency to live in a way where we don’t take risks in our faith and grow tired in our faith.

This book was given to me for free by Thomas Nelson Publishing at booksneeze.com.

This is Your Brain in Love by Dr. Earl Henslin

This is Your Brain in Love by Dr. Earl Henslin is a book on having a psychologically healthy brain for a better marriage.  The book focused on five different types of people: the “Scattered Lover”, the “Over-focused Lover”, the “Blue Mood Lover”, the “Agitated Lover”, and the “Anxious Lover”.  Within the chapter, there is a test to take to see if you have that specific tendency, ways to help the marriage, and also view on what part of the brain causes each one of these issues.

            The book did talk about all of these issues and can be helpful in a situation where a spouse has one of these psychological problems, but for the people who do not have those specific issues, I feel there is not much benefit.  However, the book was written well and did have interesting stories that opened my mind to problems that could arise in a marriage and how certain lifestyle changes can bring about more understanding and happiness between spouses.  It was also easy to read and did not get overly detailed when it came to the scientific brain scans.  I got a complementary copy of this book from BookSneeze®.

Out Live your Life by Max Lucado

Max Lucado’s book Out Live Your Life is an easy to read book that challenges your daily routine and your attitude towards life in order to help those people around us.  In his book, Lucado uses a number of stories, from the bible or more recent, to persuade readers to open their lives and hearts to those around them.  The stories are descriptive and they help to get the reader invested in the message he writes.  Lucado also gives scripture references to go along with his thoughts as well as a prayer at the end of each chapter and study questions at the end of the book.

I enjoyed reading Lucado’s book and would recommend this book to people who need a boost to get out of their ordinary routine.  This book is also good for those who are looking for a book that will challenge them but will not be too dense and slow to read.  This book made me think about what difficulties I have when looking for those in need around me and challenged me to break through those boundaries to do God’s work.  We have plenty of opportunities around us, we just get stuck in our daily habits and forget to look.  Booksneeze.com provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.

What good is reading?

I love reading and I read just for the enjoyment of it.  However, I am also very aware of the importance of reading.  I am an English tutor (please don't judge my grammar; I'm sure it is not perfect) and I tutor many students who are still learning English.  Doing this always makes me think of how hard English is as a language as well as how easy it is for me to speak and write it since I have grown up using it my whole life.  Since I started loving to read books when I was little, I attribute a lot of how I write to reading.  I have thought of many things that I feel reading does and does not do.

1. Reading makes writing easier.  In order to write, you need to understand how sentences are structured in the new language.  The first thing that we always did in my Spanish classes was to read a dialogue from our book.  Speaking the language does help too but being able to see the structure and read it out loud is what really helps someone to understand a new language.  When I was younger, I had at least five books that I was reading at all times.  Because of this, I was able to understand how to structure sentences to sound the best and make the most sense; granted, I still don't know everything.  Even though being an English tutor has made me more aware of the rules that go along with the language, before I was a tutor who knew a lot of the rules, I was still able to understand the correct way to word a sentence so people would understand.  This was because I saw how words were put together on a page.

2. Reading does not make you a better speller.  This was another thing that I learned from my childhood.  My mother likes to tell the story of how I would spell "spelling test" different every single week at the top of my spelling exams.  When she went in to talk with the teacher for parent teacher conferences, the teacher said I would spell better when I read more.  Sixteen years later, I have learned how to spell better, but that was mostly by trial and error.  I am, by far, not the best speller (my husband will attest to that) and I never really got better until I typed papers on the computer or sent out text messages that corrected my misspellings and allowed me to see the correct way to spell them.  While you are reading, you don't pay attention to how words are spelled, just what the collective words mean to the story. 

3. Reading can give you a better vocabulary if you do it correctly.  I am also not known to have a wide vocabulary, which I am finally coming to terms with.  Although reading can help you to understand words that you haven't seen before, you have to first read books that will stretch your vocabulary.  For me, many books I read are not very good for stretching my vocabulary because they are either beneath my reading level or right at my reading level.  In order to understand more words, you have to know the definition and see how to use them in context.  Now, I am not saying you should go out and buy a book that has a ton of words you don’t know; that doesn't help.  You just have to buy a book that will have a few new words that you consciously pay attention to in order to find the meaning in them.  That is where I fail.  If I do not know the word, I can still understand the meaning of the story, so I do not try and figure out its actual meaning by looking in the dictionary.

I know there are many other things that you may think that reading does or does not do.  These are just the ones that stick out to me the most in my own life as well as in the lives of the people I tutor.