BOOK REVIEW: Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up, Elizabeth Smart

★★★★★

I vaguely remember the media coverage surrounding Elizabeth Smart's disappearance and subsequent rescue. She's only a year older than I am, and I didn't really pay attention to news until I got to high school at least. I remember her disappearance and her eventual rescue, but I didn't know any of the details. When I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway, I decided it'd be better to have more of an understanding of her ordeal. I listened to My Story on audiobook and found it moving and uplifting.

The subject of Where There's Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up is fairly self-explanatory. What I appreciated most about the book, though, is that it's not just Smart's story of moving on from her ordeal. In each chapter, she interviews one or two people who have been through or are currently dealing with difficult circumstances, and she doesn't shy away from those whose stories are far different than her own. In this way, it's not Smart telling the reader there's only one way to move on and that's her way. Instead, she presents other peoples' stories and examples in ways that allow the reader to see there are many roads to recovery. I also found the book to be well structured. Smart uses the interviews as well as her own experiences to highlight the themes of each chapter, among them hope, loss, faith, forgiveness, and more.

The one quibble I had is that during one chapter, a mother who lost her daughter to suicide after not being weaned off properly advises alternatives to antidepressants such as exercise and being in nature. The truth is just that everyone needs a different combination of healing options. While certain people do react poorly to antidepressants, they're extremely helpful for other people. I just think it's a tricky topic and Smart could've spent a bit more time on it.

Nonfiction, especially titles in the self-help category, tends to be subjective in a different way than fiction, so I find that I can't really judge this book or recommend it in the way I do novels. The only thing I can say is that if you are even a little bit intrigued, it's probably worth picking up.

Overall, I really enjoyed this reading experience. I dogeared a lot of pages and quotes to return to. I'm probably going to pass this on to my mom because I think she'd appreciate it, too. One of the marks of a really good book, for me, is if it keeps me thinking afterward, and this one certainly has.

BOOK REVIEW: The Wife Between Us

Disclaimer: NetGalley provided this copy in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen.

The tagline for The Wife Between Us is, “A novel of suspense that explores the complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.” The synopsis doesn’t tell you anything, really, because it’s hard to talk about the plot without giving anything away. The books starts out alternating between two points of view. One, told in the first person, is Vanessa’s. She’s recently divorced and has found out her ex-husband is getting remarried to a younger woman. The other point of view, told in the third person, is Nellie, who is the younger woman marrying Richard. On the surface, it seems fairly standard, but the seeming simplicity of the plot is meant to draw in the reader and make them question what they know.

In this respect, The Wife Between Us is very good at keeping the reader off-balance. Hendricks and Pekkanen make full use of their unreliable narrator, to the point that when you think you’ve got your feet, they add another wrench to the mix. However, I almost felt like some creative decisions, particularly one at the end, were made for the sake of throwing readers for a loop. In that sense, it’s a thrilling read. The writing is smooth, and the story keeps you interested.

One of the things that’s always on my radar as I read is how female characters are written and treated. Without giving anything away, I was pleased with how this tackled issues women, in particular, face and how it portrayed relationships between women.

My biggest complaint is that after each big revelation, the pace slows way down. This could have been cut by fifteen or twenty percent, and the story would’ve been much tighter. Although it was an enjoyable read, it left me a little unsatisfied. You rush right through it, which makes for an enjoyable reading experience, but it doesn’t stay with you for very long. That knocks it down to a 3.5 for me, but I rounded up because no half stars.

I would recommend this to readers who enjoy fast reads and to fans of suspense novels, especially ones who want something familiar but a little different.