Oct 11, 2025 - A Bit of Everything Under the Sun
Remember how last week I said it was surprising to me that I'd been able to theme everything so well when I normally have a ton of books going that I finish at random?
Yeah, so apparently this was "finish half the books Singer was in the middle of" week, and there is no rhyme or reason to how they're organized that I can see (although if you can see a pattern please don't hesitate to point it out.). This is going to be a long, largely random weekly round-up with four different books representing four different genres.
Here we go! Our first book is a Christian nonfiction work that I've been working my way through and finished this week.
Author: John Mark Comer
Genres: Nonfiction, Christianity, Theology
Star Rating: 3 Stars
Review Type: I was simply curious
My Tags: nonfiction
Synopsis*
You’ve heard people say “Who you are matters more than what you do”. Does the Bible really teach that?
In Garden City, popular pastor and speaker John Mark Comer gives a fresh take on our calling and our purpose, with a surprisingly counter-culture take. Through his creative and conversational style, Comer takes a good look at Genesis and the story of a man, a woman, and a garden. He unpacks God’s creation and his original intent for how we are meant to spend our time. Here, you’ll find answers to questions like “Does God care where I work?” “What about what I do with my free time or how much rest I get?” “Does he have a clear direction for me?”
Review
I was so conflicted with the last John Mark Comer book I read, and here I am being just as conflicted with this one.
Here's the thing, his conclusions are good. If you've studied a theology of work and rest before, then it won't be anything groundbreaking, but they're solid conclusions worth thinking deeply about.
His use of Greek and Hebrew is not.
The way John Mark Comer defines words and argues from their definition in this book flies in the face of most linguistic and translation theories about how languages work and how to work with them. Now, that wouldn't be a problem if his use of the original languages was just one of the ways that he built his argument, but almost all of his arguments are built on choosing a specific Greek or Hebrew word from a key passage, defining it in a way that doesn't really work well with linguistic and translation theory, and then building the rest of his argument on that. Again, I agree with his conclusions--it's just that his actual argumentation cuts his credibility and makes me hesitate to recommend what would otherwise be a good entry-level book on the theology of work and rest.
That being said, John Mark Comer is solid when it comes to arguing from the metanarrative of Scripture. Any arguments he makes that he bases on a story or a passage or the Bible as a whole are solid.
So I'm conflicted. This book makes good and important points about the value and importance of work as well as the value and importance of rest and about a third to half of the argumentation is solid and convincing. I just wish the other half to two-thirds wasn't built on arguments that are weakened by their misuse of linguistic and translation theory.
I'd recommend this book for: People who want to start thinking through a theology of work and rest and are willing to sift through the original language arguments that bothered me.
Find this book on GoodReads and StoryGraph!
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Ok, be prepared for a total genre shift. The next book is nothing like the previous book and is actually a sequel. The first book of the series is The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love, and you can read my review for that book here on GoodReads or StoryGraph.
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Author: India Holton
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Humor, Romance
Review Type: Continuing an ongoing series
Place in the Series: Book 2
Series Type: Unfinished
My Tags: fantasy-series, historical-fiction, region-europe
Synopsis*
Professor Elodie Tarrant is an expert in magic disasters. Nothing fazes her--except her own personal disaster, that is: Professor Gabriel Tarrant, the grumpy, unfriendly man she married for convenience a year ago, whom she secretly loves.
Gabriel is also an expert in magic disasters. And nothing fazes him either--except the walking, talking tornado that is his wife. They've been estranged since shortly after their wedding day, but that hasn't stopped him from stoically pining for her.
When magic erupts in a small Welsh village, threatening catastrophe for the rest of England, Elodie and Gabriel are accidentally both assigned to the case. With the fate of the country in their hands, they must come together as a team in the face of perilous conditions like explosions, domesticated goats, and only one bed. But this is easier said than done. After all, there's no navigational guide for the geography of the heart.
My Review
This is another hard one to rate properly. I came into this book with pretty high expectations, having loved The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love last year. Everything about that book felt perfect to me--from the witty characters to the zany (but accurate) depiction of academia to the magic system to the budding romance. My one complaint had been a single spicy scene that had taken me by surprise.
I came into this book expecting much the same thing (zany academia, interesting magic system, wholesome romance, will probably need to skip one scene for spicy purposes). Some parts of it were exactly as I'd expected. The magic system still fascinated me, the zaniness that is academia felt properly represented, and I did end up needing to skip a scene because of on-page spiciness.
What I didn't love quite so much was the romance. The romance in this book felt significantly more motivated by sexual attraction than character development and growth. Don't get me wrong--character development and growth did happen--but so much of the book consisted of the two leads mentally undressing each other that I didn't get to see the same delicious growing together that had captured me in the previous book. When things did start to go smoothly, I was left wondering what had truly changed (besides forced proximity) to make the course of love run smooth(er). My guess is that the characters' preexisting relationship caused the romance to shift, so I'm looking forward to book three where there will be different characters with a different dynamic so I can once again return to this lovely little world where magic, academia, and romantic tension tend to make things spontaneously combust.
I'd recommend this book for: People who want a fun, light romance with zany worldbuilding and don't mind sexual content.
Find this book on GoodReads and StoryGraph!
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Here's another hard genre shift! This time we jump over to France and Germany for a WWII historical fiction story with a much more sober story and more contemplative themes.
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In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
Review
Guys, I did it. I finally read the book.
This book has been staring at me from my bookshelf for about six years now just waiting patiently to be read. I'm honestly not sure why it's taken me so long to actually read it. It was a gift, and normally I read those pretty quickly, and also it was highly recommended to me by one of my family members, and normally I try to read those recommendations pretty quickly as well. I guess I just kept getting distracted?
Whatever the reason, I'm glad I read it now. It's beautiful, haunting, and sad and in many ways captures the essence of a good work of literary fiction. It's a story about war, but, more than that, it's a story about how people react to war. I find it fascinating that a diamond--a stone forged through intense pressure--plays such a significant role in a story about how the pressures of war create situations where people have to decide what kind of person they will be and how they will handle the consequences of their choices. There are no black and white answers or characters in this book, but there are the beautiful nuances of good and evil that lurk within every person's heart and color a person's motivations. Can you look at your enemy and see the shared humanity within his or her heart? Once you see it, what will you do?
I'd recommend this book for: People who love a contemplative read with deeply nuanced characters and thought-provoking themes.
Find this book on GoodReads or StoryGraph!
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And another hard shift! This time further back in time to Medieval Europe for a Beauty and the Beast retelling. (It occurs to me that I could have said this post was themed based off of European adventures, but Garden City by John Mark Comer doesn't really fit that picture, so maybe not.)
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Author: Cyla Panin
Genres: Fairy Tale Retelling, Horror, Young Adult, Gothic
My Star Rating: 3 Stars
Review Type: I was curious
My Tags: faerie-tale, region-europe
Synopsis*
Seventeen-year-old Marie mixes perfumes to sell on market day in her small eighteenth-century French town. She wants to make enough to save a dowry for her sister, Ama, in hopes of Ama marrying well and Marie living in the level of freedom afforded only to spinster aunts. But her perfumes are more than sweet scents in cheap, cut-glass bottles: A certain few are laced with death. Marie laces the perfume delicately—not with poison but with a hint of honeysuckle she’s trained her sister to respond to. Marie marks her victim, and Ama attacks. But she doesn’t attack as a girl. She kills as a beast.
Marking Ama’s victims controls the damage to keep suspicion at bay. But when a young boy turns up dead one morning, Marie is forced to acknowledge she might be losing control of Ama. And if she can’t control her, she’ll have to cure her. Marie knows the only place she’ll find the cure is in the mansion where Ama was cursed in the first place, home of Lord Sebastien LeClaire. But once she gets into the mansion, she discovers dark secrets hidden away—secrets of the curse, of Lord Sebastien . . . and of herself.
Review
I wanted to love this book, but I just didn't.
This is one of the more original takes on Beauty and the Beast that I've seen in fiction, and for that it has my respect and appreciation. The author also created a pretty tantalizing premise that had me excited for the thematic discussion that would follow. From the opening chapters, I found myself asking the questions "How far should you go to save your family?" and "When is it right to protect someone from the consequences of their actions?" and "How do you live with your answers to the previous two questions?"
Unfortunately in my opinion, the rest of the book failed to deliver on the promise of those first few pages. The writing relied heavily on telling over showing as well as YA tropes over truly wrestling with the moral quandaries presented by the premise. As a result, the book failed to actually flesh out the full complexities of the premise and that made the ending feel cheap and not fully earned. I had been hoping for so much more depth and nuance, and so I was more disappointed by the flatter characters than I would have been if I'd just been expecting a comfort read.
While this wasn't the book for me, I do think it would be an interesting conversation starter with a teen reader about those moral questions I mentioned earlier. It's an important conversation to have and to think through before you're in a situation where you have to make a choice, and this book could be a good way to start that discussion and get a teen reader thinking about the best way to handle those situations.
I'd recommend this book for: Teens who want to start thinking about moral issues and enjoy YA themes and tropes.
Find this book on GoodReads or StoryGraph!
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I do believe I'll likely finish at least one more book this week, but the weekend is going to be so crazy that I won't have time to write a review until next week at the earliest, so you'll have to wait until then for the last of this week's reads. Maybe next week I'll be able to have a more coherent theme with the books I finish as well? A girl can dream at least.
Until next week!
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