November 2021 – All The Books and I

Thank you so incredibly much to Penguin Books South Africa and Puffin for this highly anticipated read! I was so excited when I opened my book mail to see this gorgeous book inside! I mean, look at that cover! 😍

Published: August 2021
Pages: 328
Pace: Medium
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction

In Take Me With You When You Go, two incredible authors in their own right come together to write a deep and emotional story that explores pain and heartache and love and kindness and the messiness of life and relationships and love and life. It’s primarily the story of a brother and sister.

Just as Bea is supposed to graduate from high school, she goes missing! Completely MIA! She leaves an email address in a place where only her brother, Ezra, would know to look and this is his one way of communicating with her. Bea and Ezra live in a household with a terrible mother who seems to only tolerate her children and a despicable stepfather who beats them up and loves to take his anger out on them. Their home is a horrible place to be and it all gets too much for Bea. So she leaves. We learn later there is a greater motive for her leaving as well!

The book, which is written as a series of emails predominantly between Bea and Ezra, explores the complexities of this life that they live as Bea shares her side of things and her new adventures with Ezra and he is left behind at home still dealing with the same drama, but without Bea. As they write to each other, they talk about their lives since they were little and share many stories and moments with each other. Eventually, Bea also reveals to Ezra what her leaving home is all about.

We meet incredible characters along the way such as Franco and his wife who give Bea a chance when it would have been highly understandable for them not to. In this case, it’s such a beautiful picture of when strangers become family!

It’s a tough read because it’s a situation so many kids find themselves in and I can definitely relate to some of their stories! However, I love how they both grow through this experience and realise things for themselves apart from each other. I enjoyed how brave Bea was as she left and had to fend for herself. It was equally endearing to watch Ezra solidify some of his relationships and work through some issues of his own.

Ultimately this book has a hopeful message. There are beautiful relationships and characters that I definitely grew to care about. One of my favourite things was the format of this book, written purely as emails between Bea and Ezra and a few others.

I am so glad I picked this one up. And once I picked it up, I couldn’t stop until it was finished. So I read it in one day! 😅

To add this book to your Goodreads TBR, click here.

To buy yourself a copy, please click here.

Until next time! 😊
Chevonn

Disclaimer: This is a book based on Christian principles and has Scriptures from the Bible in it. I read this book for the Leadership Academy that I am part of and this is my review.

Published: February 2018
Pages: ±230
Genre: Nonfiction, Business, Growth

Successive Breakthroughs is an inspirational book on how we, as people, but even more importantly, as believers, can live lives that see successive breakthroughs. We may see other people around us who seem to experience many breakthroughs in their lives and we may find ourselves wondering how they always seem to make that happen. We may just strongly desire to be people who see breakthroughs in our lives and may not have the tools or understanding that is required to experience next-level living. That’s where this book comes in. It’s packed with Scriptures and teaching that helps the reader to understand more deeply what a life filled with breakthroughs looks like and how we can attain it.

In this book, Ps. Andre uses Scripture, analogies, quotes, stories and his own experiences as a leader and a pastor to help the reader to see what our lives could look like if we changed our mindsets, adopted some new practices and increased our understanding around some of the fundamental truths of our faith. The book aims to inspire the reader to reject limitations and unlock dormant potential. It encourages us to become more positive and gives keys to having more successful relationships. It also brings a lot of clarity around important scriptures that have undoubtedly formed us in our walk with God.

I found this book absolutely inspirational and uplifting. I felt so encouraged and excited about who I could be, how I could look at life and faith differently, how God sees me and the life that I could have if I adopted some key truths into my life. Each time I put the book down, I already looked forward to the next time I would be able to pick it back up. Successive Breakthroughs is broken up into 4 parts: understanding breakthrough, living in breakthrough, the God of breakthrough and finally, keys to spiritual effectiveness. My absolute favourite part of the book was part 3 – the God of breakthrough. I love to read anything that talks about the awesomeness of our God and this was no exception. In this part of the book, Ps. Andre systematically unpacks the untruths about the hold and power we think the devil has over us. He also addresses things like curses and being demon-possessed and how we deal with those things, i.e., exorcisms and deliverance services.

I’ve always had this simple yet unshakeable belief that because I’ve been saved and bought with the blood of Jesus, that no demonic/satanic power can touch me but as I’ve explored this thinking with other believers, I’ve been met with many varying opinions and thoughts. Some of these conversations have left me confused and frustrated. So it goes without being said that I felt so validated reading this section of the book as I share the exact same sentiments as Ps. Andre where the power of God and the power of Jesus’s death on the cross are concerned. It was incredible to see how patiently and thoughtfully Ps. Andre unpacks how some of these thoughts and ideas around the devil have come to be part of the church and part of our faith but also how he is able to highlight that none of these occurrences or practices are mentioned anywhere in the Bible. And if something isn’t found in the Bible, then it cannot be what God intended for us and we certainly shouldn’t be wasting our time believing it or practising it.

My favourite quote from the whole book says, “Have you also realised that God has placed the Holy Spirit in you as a deposit guaranteeing your future? A part of the Godhead lives in you. God has an investment in you and He is not about to share you with the devil.” This was the most beautiful encouragement, to think that God has made a personal investment in me as a person by putting his Holy Spirit, who is part of the Godhead, in me. That’s mind-blowing. If we think of how much time and attention we give to things we invest in and how hard we work for those things to reach their maximum potential, then how much more would God want to see each of us, those he has made a personal deposit in, do well in this life and reach our full potential? We serve a seriously awesome God!

I love how conversational this book is. Ps. Andre really has a way with words and I found myself delighting in his choice of words and the varied vocabulary. And as much as there are important topics, the book still felt easy to read and understand. The stories and analogies were perfectly placed in order to add depth to the points he was making and the quotes scattered throughout the book were so interesting and thought-provoking. The book flowed so nicely and it was just such a pleasure to read. I could actually hear Ps. Andre in my head as I was reading the book and could imagine how he would say the words I was reading. One of the best things about this book is that what he is teaching comes largely from his own lived experience. So he isn’t teaching only from a theoretical place, but from his own life and leadership lessons.

I think Ps. Andre manages to challenge and convict the reader but with love and kindness. As the reader, I could sense his passion for seeing people living big, full, creative, amazing lives. But he also brings to our attention to the fact that it’s not possible to live a life like that without taking risks and exercising our faith. I so enjoyed how he talks about God wanting us to live life to the full and how God blesses and moves in our moving. He isn’t intimidated by our busyness or us trying new things, God gets excited when we try and get the full human experience – in the best way obviously. Just like we want to see our children get the most and the best out of life, so God wants to see us rising up and living large lives. Ps. Andre just paints such an exciting, inspiring and encouraging picture of the God we serve. It makes me want to live with a bolder, more alive and active faith than I already do. Sometimes I feel capped by what I don’t know. We all know the saying that goes I don’t know what I don’t know. And this is very true. This book has shed some light on things that I just didn’t know. The biggest example of this is that I can just live life with God and not be so concerned with rules and being right – some of the things that seem to bog me down. But there is joy and lightness in living with God. I can and should be 100% myself in order to have the impact God intends. We cannot make an impact on the world if we are a diluted version of ourselves or if we live so consumed by fear.

Speaking about fear, in Chapter 11, Ps. Andre talks a lot about the limiting effect of living in fear. It’s a difficult topic to address with people who do live in fear because fear leads to depression and depressed people are often delicate to deal with. I so enjoyed Ps. Andre’s view of adopting positivity. It always seems like a cop-out answer and it seems to minimise people’s difficult experiences but I truly believe if we took hold of the power of positivity, many people’s lives would look radically different. And the realisation that for those who do have this positive outlook, that it’s a choice they make each day. It’s not something anyone is born with but it’s something each of us needs to choose. Choosing positivity changes our mindset and outlook. And as Ps. Andre denotes, life is already tough enough, so we should try and do all we can to enjoy life and not add to its misery. This resonated deeply with me.

I highly recommend this book. It’s uplifting and encouraging. It deals with some really important topics for us as Christians and it gives us tools and a deeper understanding so that we can live lives that see breakthroughs. Ps. Andre also goes into depth about many of the things that would seek to hinder breakthroughs in our lives and this is helpful in that we become aware of the reasons we may not be experiencing breakthroughs the way we wish we were. It’s just such a phenomenal book. As a result of reading this book, I will endeavour to live life more fully and not be scared to try things or be who I am unapologetically. I think my biggest personal takeaway is that I don’t have to take life so seriously and be so hard on myself. It’s so easy to worry about whether or not we are living in the will of God or following God’s intended path for our lives. But it’s encouraging to read Ps. Andre’s thoughts that say as long as we are not doing anything that goes against Scripture, we can live freely and fully. God wants us to reach new heights, have greater faith and achieve greater things than we could ever imagine. And I now believe that in doing this, we bring glory to our Creator who is infinitely full of life and creativity and joy and love.

To add it to your TBR on Goodreads, click here.

If you would like to get yourself a copy of this book, please click here.

Until next time! 😊
Chevonn

All The Books and I

Book Reviewer

Month: November 2021

Book Review | Take Me With You When You Go by David Levithan and Jennifer Niven

Book Review | Successive Breakthroughs by André Olivier

Book Review | Matt and Mia’s Adventures by Antoinette Bradley Brown