June books

I didn’t include the books that I read in June in my June recap post so I thought I would write an entire post the books that I read. I figured that at some point I would want to write more than a couple of sentences about books that I’ve read each month (like I was doing when I included books in my month recap post) and the time has indeed come where I want to write more than a couple of sentences about each book. So here goes.

What if Jesus was Serious- Skye Jethani- non fiction. This book is about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and I read it because the pastor of the church we’re attending highly encourage us to read the book (the church went so far as give everyone a copy of the book) because the pastor was about to embark on a weekly sermon series about the Sermon on the Mount. I picked up a copy of the book at our church and was excited to read a book that our pastor recommended and that covered such an important part of Jesus’ teaching. I read the book and I did not like it. This is not a critique on the Sermon on the Mount- the subject of the book- but rather on the author’s interpretation of what various lessons/ parables from the Sermon on the Mount mean if Christians are going to practically apply them to their lives. To be sure, I agreed with some things that the author said but I disagreed with many and thought he was 100% flat our wrong on some so in totality, this book was not one that I liked. 

The author got covertly political in some places and it was (and is after I looked at the author’s various social media pages) pretty obvious that we are of different political ideologies. I don’t expect that I am going to see eye to eye with everyone politically and that is OK- I can, and have, agreed to disagree with people regarding politics. However, in this book, the author took pot shots at a particular politician and people who voted for him. Since I voted for that politician, I didn’t appreciate the author’s diminutive message and familiar trope leveled against this politician and the people who voted for him. (Note that he never mentioned any names. It was just fairly easy to discern about whom he was speaking.)

I had such strong feelings about the book that I considered emailing the pastor to share my concerns with the book to him. But then I decided to not email him- I didn’t want to be “that” difficult parishioner, full of complaints and negativity. I did decide, though, that if the pastor recommends any other of the author’s books, I will send an email to the pastor and share my concerns with him. 

Thunderhead and The Toll by Neal Shusterman- these are the last two books in the Arc of a Scythe trilogy. I read the first book in May. I’m lumping these two together because there are so many subplots and it’s hard to succinctly describe all the elements to the story so I am greatly paring down the plot. The trilogy is dystopian, set in the future where death by accidents and disease has been eradicated. To keep the population down, people called scythes glean or kill people- that is the only way people die. There is a code of conduct that the scythes are supposed to adhere to in their gleaning. The overarching drama is basically some scythes are “evil”and glean outside the rules by gleaning ruthlessly and some scythes are “good” and try to glean respectfully.  The trilogy consists of numerous subplots including lots of relational drama between characters.

I am not drawn to dystopian as a genre but I do understand why some like it.  I appreciated the books in this series in part because it seems much more “escapist” to read about a make believe world and it also stretches your mind to think about how you would react to the world that is almost completely different than the one we live in. I am glad that I read the books in the series but will probably not go out of my way to read other dystopian books. I picked up the first book in the series when I was subbing in the junior high (I guess the books are considered YA?) so that’s how I came to read the series. I have a great deal of admiration for the creativity and imagination of the author in coming up with the premise, the plot, the various subplots, and just an entirely different world than the one we live in. 

Fever- by Mary Beth Keane- this book tells the story of Mary Mallon, otherwise known as Typhoid Mary. She was an Irish immigrant who was the first known healthy person to pass typhoid fever on to others. She worked as a cook and left a trail of sickness wherever her employment took her. Mary was arrested and quarantined on an island for several years. She fought for her freedom, won it when a new health commissioner came into power, and was told to not work as a cook any longer. She got a job as a laundress but when a cooking job sort of fell on her lap she took it and... not long after, there was an outbreak at the hospital where she worked as a cook. The book paints a vivid picture of a loud and odoriferous New York City in the early 20th century, especially the city as experienced by the lower class like immigrants such as Mary. This was an interesting read- both about Mary and the life in NYC in that time period. The book is based on Mary Mallon’s life- I could find no information on how accurate the events in the story were to Mary´s life. The book is not considered a biography of Mary Mallon. 

Another Gospel by Alisa Childers- non fiction. This book is about progressive Christianity. Progressive Christianity is a belief system that challenges historic Christianity’s belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, the Virgin Birth, Christ’s death and resurrection among other things (but those are the biggies). Basically progressive Christians think that the Bible is an antiquated book and should be disregarded when what the Bible says is sin if that runs contrary to what secular culture says is ok. The author of Another Gospel began researching the claims of the Bible after she realized her Bible teacher at her church was a progressive Christian. The author does a great job of rebutting the claims of progression Christianity using apologetics. 

Choose Me by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver-  this was an Amazon First Reads selection (I think…). It is a suspense novel about a young woman who died apparently by suicide. Only it wasn’t suicide (of course!). I liked the book pretty well- it was well written and I guessed correctly whodunit. It was pretty forgettable. Within a week of reading it, I could recall very few details of it. But while I read it, it was an interesting read. 

Those were my June reads- some good books, one I didn’t care for much, and some that were OK.