Righteous Warriors-The War Chapters

I love John Bytheway! He is so funny and I love that he writes specifically to teenagers because then I can understand it too. :) But I enjoyed him as a teenager too.

For Book Club this month we read one of his books about the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. I read this book several years ago and before I read this book I usually fell asleep during the "war chapters" or didn't really pay any attention to them. Now they are some of my favorite chapters. It is so interesting to me to see all the military tactics that are used but also see where the Lord helped his Righteous Warriors. And I love Capt. Moroni and Helaman as it is but to learn more about them and their character just increases that love.

I appreciated how he wrote this book. He talks about certain verses and discusses them. Often times he gives bullet points such as "Observation" or "Major Lesson" and it helps to break things down. Then at the end of the chapter he lists the lessons that are learned in the chapters he discussed. If you need a quick reference that is very helpful.

My other favorite books of his are the "What I learned in High School" books. He wrote two of them and they are awesome! I've used them in lessons before because he has great quotes in there from other prophets and also great insight on things. He also has great talks on CD that I recommend. I think one is called "What are you Carrying in your Backpack?" and if I remember correctly this one talks about the Book of Mormon but more specifically about Jacob. If that's not the right one, oh well, whatever the one about Jacob is it's a great one! I love all of his stuff. I don't think I've read one or listened to one that wasn't good. He has a great talk specifically for mothers and the women of the church that I also enjoy.

If you haven't read or listened to any of John Bytheway's things then you are missing out! Go check him out (not literally-he's married!)

Gravity vs. The Girl

Gravity vs. The Girl by Riley Noehren was a pretty good book. I don't know why, but every time I read this book Gravity won...I would fall asleep or lose all of my energy! It wasn't a boring book by any means. I actually really liked it and I felt like I was really getting into it...but I fell asleep every time. I wasn't always laying down when I was reading it either. I don't know, quite the mystery.

Anyway, despite that it made my gravity increase, this book was very interesting. It's about a young woman who has a midlife crisis, essentially, when she turns 30. She's a big shot lawyer who, when the books begins, has been in her bed and in her pajamas for about a year eating mostly jell-o cups. She is then "haunted" by 4 ghosts of her past self: 6 year old, attorney, law student and high school. It's about her journey out of bed and out of her pajamas and how she deals with things to make the ghosts go away.

For me, this was a great perspective on life. Sometimes we think we've dealt with things but we find that those incidents creep up on us at some point in our lives and now that we're in a different place we can try to finally resolve them. This book was a little depressing to me because it was a little true to life for me. Not the attorney part or the ghost part, but the spending your life in bed and in pajamas part. I'm sad to admit it but the past nine months I have found myself just in a complete rut with absolutely no energy or motivation to do anything. I pull myself out of bed to take care of the necessary things for my children...but then I crawl right back in when I'm no longer needed. My house is atrocious, I only shower when it is absolutely necessary and because I'm too lazy to wash my make-up off when I actually do put it on I'm breaking out worse than I ever did in high school. So this book was kind of a wake-up call on just how pathetic I let myself become.

It has a great ending and I was really pleased with how the author wrapped things up. I hope my life has a happy ending as well. I haven't had any ghosts come to help me yet...if things get that bed I'll probably just think I'm dead!