Revelations in Context

A book in the published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Revelations in Context gives background stories and circumstances behind the Sections, or chapters, in the book Doctrine and Covenants.

There are many wonderful, insightful, and helpful sections and scripture verses in the D&C. It explains many doctrines that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want and need in the Church to help it function. This book give context to those revelations and more background to the people they were given to.

Each specific chapter in this book is written by a different person. Individual historians have studied and produced a simplified explanation behind what was going on at the time these revelations were given. They've dung into historical record and letters to get the true stories behind the questions asked. In each section heading of the D&C, we are given a brief explanation as to what is going on, this gives a much deeper, yet still simple, understanding of the circumstances the early Saints and pioneers faced.

I think it is a good reminder that Revelation comes step by step, little by little, here and there as we ask for it and as God deems us ready for it. There are times when people aren't ready for the changes that need to be made, so time is taken, challenges and trials are given, so then people may be ready. Some changes may seem stark and abrupt, other changes we might see if we are attuned and diligently study the works and scriptures and doctrines we are given.

It is an intersting read and if you're wanting to dig into history a bit, read on.

Girl in the Blue Coat

World War II stories are hard to read at times. This one is no exception.

Amsterdam, 1943. Hanneke (the audiobook had it sound like Hanika) works in her own little way to resist the Nazi occupation by being a black-marketeer in finding things that people need. But suddenly one of the ladies she normally finds things for has a missing girl that she wants found. Only this girl isn't supposed to be there. She is a Jew and has somehow vanished. She can't go to the guard, obviously, or other authorities, so how is she going to find this girl in a blue coat?

This was a very well done piece. It was written well and kept me very engaged the whole time. While Hanneke and the rest of the characters may be fictitious, the actions and events were very historically sound. The black market, the college resistance fighters, the theater and nursery across the street that helped save hundreds of people who would have died... These are all amazing things that Monica Hesse has portrayed beautifully, realistically, and powerfully. I very much enjoyed this and am even more interested in the other stories Monica Hesse has written.

I enjoyed the characters and how they felt lifelike. There situations and reactions to their circumstances were real and made me worry for them more than I worry for many of the other characters I read about.

I think Monica Hesse was a very brave woman to end the story the way she did. This is war and wars often down have happy endings for everyone involved. The ending was fulfilling and the focus of the story was different than most would suspect, which is also a very brave move for the author to do walking the fine line between what the plot needs and what the audience wants or expects. And I think she pulled it off well.

Good on you Monica Hesse. It was a very good book and one that I probably wouldn't mind reading or listening to again.

Sense and Sensibility

Jane Austen's first published work Sense and Sensibility has been read over and over again for more than 200 years. It is a classic that has been loved and survived the years because it's a good book full of vibrant characters and an engaging story.  

After the death of their father, Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, and their mother are forced out of their home to live in a cottage in a different county while their half brother and his wife take over the family estate. Their time in this cottage, making new acquaintances and enjoying the countryside, is quickly changed to lovestruck conversations when Marianne is saved by a young gentleman and love blooms. For Elinor though love is a trying thing when she learns that the man whom she admired is in love with someone else whom she also is acquainted.

I think this book has stood the test of time, unlike many of the other romantic stories of the time, because it hits home more than some of the others. The things that Elinor and Marianne deal with, loss of father, home, loves, sickness, surviving monetarily as well as plain surviving your family relations and acquaintances. These are things that we all struggle with at one point. We read things that are often similar to our own lives via theme or circumstance. Sense and Sensibility does that, even to today, which is fascinating. There have been many critics, papers, articles, and readers of this book over the years and if you search them out can find a lot of enlightening information and opinions.

I like the play on opposites that is presented here. Elinor is the sensible one in the family (rather logic based) and Marianne is full of sensibilities (and can often let her emotions run rampant). Willowby vs Colonel Brandon, The Ferrar's brothers, John Dashwood vs Sir John Middleton, even the rolls that men play vs women and how they are portrayed (hunters vs mothers). The way Austen plays with opposites is engaging and can be thought provoking.

The characters, though, aren't only opposites of one another, but they are their own people. They aren't merely a stereotype but do have their own personalities and quirks that make them unique.

This, again, is an older book. Classic for a reason, but not everyone's cup of Sleepy Time tea. It's language is different and more wordy than what present novels give. There were times when I needed to put it down because my head was starting to ache or I couldn't pay attention because of how the language was constructed. It is what it is. I also have the Oxford World Classics edition which honestly read more like a textbook than a novel which might be published in a different format. But it did have a lot more insights, critiques, and definitions which were very much helpful and fun to look up without having to go very far. It also had a good introduction by Margaret Anne Doody who has done many other critiques and papers for the Oxford World Classics company. Again it was very enlightening to aspects that I didn't see my first "read through" during college. In the end, be forewarned that it is older, wordy, and "harder" to read for the "modern" reader.

Read it. Enjoy it. Take it slow if you need and please go and find articles about it. They can be very enjoyable.

Lady Susan

Jane Austen is a well known name for many of her works. Mainly Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, &c. but there are some of her works that people don't know. Lady Susan is one of those, though it has risen in popularity though people may not know it.

Lady Susan is a story written in letters between the different characters about the flirtatious whims of Lady Susan. After making a quick leave from friendly relations, she imposes herself on her brother and his family for a time. She is an expert in the ways of speech and a ridiculous flirt. Mrs. Vernon--Lady Susan's sister-in-law--after being invaded by this woman with a sour reputation, has a full house when her brother, also a lover of flirtation, comes to meet her and have lively conversation. But then Lady Susan starts captivating the young Mr. De Courcy. She has snatched away his sense and has him completely wrapped around her finger. Other characters are introduced that shed light on Lady Susan's character, or lack there of, which characters include her daughter and a certain Mr. Manwaring and Mr. James. People all around her can see her intentions and falsehoods, yet are still bewitched by her words.


This story has recently been retold in the movie adaptation "Love and Friendship" (Not to be confused with Jane Austen's satirical story "Love & Freindship," which is also funny, but different). I think Kate Beckinsale did an amazing job at this proud, rather obnoxious character.

I think Jane Austen did an expert job with the letter writing between characters. It gave enough information to not lead the reader astray, but also make it feel like they were letters to friends or family. There was even voice change, even slight at parts, between the different writers, which (as a writer) was fascinating.

I really like the characters. I like they they are a family that has to work through a family problem and that this story doesn't have a "we fixed her and she's not who she was." There is no way to fix Lady Susan because she doesn't think she needs fixing. She is insufferable, but she doesn't think so.

I like how this also shows Jane Austen's humor. Honestly, how many people were writing books like this where the title character is willingly being a lover to a married man and thinks its the wife's fault, and writing this story at the turn of the 19th Century? I mean this two decades before the Victorian Era where they were the most prude and proper society. Twenty years, that's not a lot. (Yes, I know Shakespeare made fart jokes, let us move on.) That is not what we think of when we think Regency, not initially any way.

It is a great read. A short read comparatively, though it comes from a different age. Therefore, writing style and wordage's are different. (Similar to the Hardy Boys, The Belgariad, and Shakespeare.) That change in age can take some getting used to, but once you do it flows so quickly. I love it.

Enjoy the book. Watch the movie and enjoy that too.

The Moon And More

Sarah Deaden is really good at writing young adult romances while also hosting life on the page.

The Moon And More is about Emaline and her romantics summer on a beach. Unlike most vacationers, Emaline works at the beach in Colby at her families business renting beach houses for the typical vacationer. New people come in and out of the renting houses all the time, but one house is being rented for two straight months--a very odd occurrence--while they work on a documentary about a man who is just a regular laundromat business man,  right?

Not only are these new people but Emaline's father is making a visit for the summer. He relations wither father have always been strained with his life being so very different than her and her mother's and the rest of her blended family. Her summer is full of boys, family, film, and work to, hopefully, the Best Summer Ever.

I like the way Sarah Dessen writes her books. It is fun to see hints of previous characters from previous books, familiar places, as well as life--not only romances that bloom throughout its pages. There is romance through all of her books,  but there are also bigger questions being asked as well. Bigger situations that exist around her characters more than just, "Does that guy like me?"

Here dealing with a flaky father, disloyalty from a boyfriend, leaving for college, work, a new guy who knows she's too good for her little town, and finding time to watch out for her half brother, Emaline has a lot on her plate. Like real life. I very much enjoy that. And what is great is that Sarah Dessen makes it flow. She makes the chaos of life flow in her stories so then we don't get lost as readers.

There was some language and there was talk of sex though nothing graphic (in the end, I don't really know if it was all that needed. There didn't seem to be much of a purpose to it, which I feel there needs to be in it is put in there).

I was a good book and well done. 

*Spoilers from here on*

The characters here, though there are many, are developed and all have their own story,  their own reasons for being themselves. Benji and Morris are probably my favorite characters. Mainly Morris because of how much growth and development he has throughout the story and how much he is willing to change. He is willing to put Daisy's good ahead of what he wants even though she is very much willing to keep things going. The fact that he made assistant instead of Theo made my day (literally, though it's kind been a bad day). Going from lackless and pretty much unmoving on the job to scrambling for an art show was awesome. He had a very good story arc. He was also pretty cool with Benji, who was probably the real man (at age 10) of the story. 

I also really liked that Emaline doesn't "end up" with any of the guys. She left Luke for good cheating  on her and didn't go back to him by the end of the story, which was a big relief to me. Then there is Theo. He was new and invited her to push herself and try new things, he wasn't a prince charming character either (which Sarah Dessen doesn't really write, no one is perfect in her books). He definitely had his flaws and in the end they overcame how "good of a pick" he was for her. His Best Ever's would probably get on my nerve along especially when making a spectacle in front of people in public places. She felt very much embarrassed as would almost any girl. He also seemed far more excited to for work and hanging out with Clyde (his interviewee) more than he actually did with her unless it was his Best Ever events. That is no kind of thriving relationship. 

I guess Emaline kind of chose Benji at the end of it. If you had to pick one. 

Not If I Save You First

A survival stand alone.

One would suspect the President's son and the President's Head of Security's daughter would become friends, right? They have. They know every nook and cranny in the most famous house in the world. But after an incident, Maddie's dad is injured and they leave the luxury of the White House of the barren forests of Alaska. Six years pass and not a single letter has come back from the White House even though Maddie has sent them religiously. Maddie has learned to survive with the help of her bedazzled hatchet with no one else around for tens of miles--no one but bears that is.

Suddenly, Logan is here. In Alaska. Six years of no reply and he is here. And Maddie hates him. Can't stand the sight of him.

Her father leaves to go rescue someone before a storm and Maddie is left to watch over Logan (with the help of his Secret Service agents just outside the door). But suddenly, the agents can't be found and Maddie is thrown off a cliff and Logan is taken hostage by a Russian who forces him to cross the wilderness. Maddie is injured but managest to follow the two young men. No one gets to kill Logan except her. That is the rule.

It was a good story, much like the many that Ally Carter has written, and this race for survival was fun. Unlike her other books, this is a real place. Not some made up country where she can do her own political thing. She did her research well, from my vantage point.

The kids also felt very real to me. They were who would bedazzle a hatchet or make multiple social media accounts that your parents wouldn't know about. This one is very different from Ally Carter's other books where they are so many characters; here the pertinent characters number four or five. And I think it worked well enough. Maddie's voice was very prominent and sounded very much like a teenage girl who at least used to adore some frills and bedazzling. I very much liked her voice.

It isn't my favorite book  in Ally Carter's arsonal, but it was decent. It still had the "heist" feeling that I got from the Heist Society where Maddie is very smart and thinks ahead. I also really like how she jumped points of view with Maddie and Logan. It was needed to tell this story, and I think she did it well.

If you want a standalone book, feel free to pick it up and enjoy. A quick read, but full of adventure.