Most of the book is good, but some parts of it are just too… well, wrong. “God, my servant”? Are you kidding me? And “all things are lawful”? I’m not buying it. Oh, but that’s right, I’d forgotten, sorry – “it wasn’t written primarily for me.” Uh huh.

That said, I can see why people like this book, because if you’re unsure of your faith, it can make you think and God’s overwhelming love is the main theme of the book. The quotes at the beginning of the chapters were special highlights. But there was just so much of it I couldn’t swallow, and sometimes it got so wordy that I had to push myself to focus, so if we’re talking in stars… I says 3 out of 5. Not something I’ll read again, but still glad that I saw what all the fuss was about.

Fascinating book! The things you learn… Wow.

Tom Clancy isn’t “my kind” of author. Not really. He’s a bit too technical and I was put off of reading anything by him because I was concerned I’d need to know a lot about the military.

Thankfully that wasn’t so, although I could have always asked my husband for his help – HE is the Tom Clancy fan. I’d wanted to read one of his books to try it on for size for awhile and he recommended this one.

The reason Tom Clancy’s books are always soooo thick is because you get a play-by-play-by-play-by-play recording of everything the characters do allll day long! What color suit Dominic was wearing, where and what they had for breakfast… all the time! If you dislike that, you won’t like Clancy, but if it’s not an issue, I don’t see any reason why you won’t.

Good author, and a pretty good book, too. Definitely draws you in.

For one thing, this ISN’T a secret. It’s regurgitated garbage that someone decided to market with a catchy name. “Shhh, it’s a SECRET. Do YOU want to know the SECRET?”

The most dissapointing aspect of this is how so much is focused on material wealth. A “four and a half million dollar mansion”, that Jack Canfield boasts of, for instance. Or “if you just believe, people will send you money”. While I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair, we’re not even talking about financial freedom. In short, it’s more like greed.

And while I agree that to a large degree, we make our own happiness and happiness truly is just a state of mind, something this book addresses, if you TRULY have depression, bi-polar or any other type of mental illness, you simply CAN’T just tell yourself you’ll get better and it makes me so mad to have this told to me in the form of a condescending little book.

The same goes for anyone who has an illness that isn’t mental. You CAN’T just wish yourself better if you have diabetes or epilepsy!

Full of history, science and other interesting info, A Walk in the Woods is hilarious to boot! I laughed so hard at points I nearly cried.

I personally hated it.

For one thing, the main character made you hate him. Cowardly, selfish, stupid and downright mean.

I enjoyed the history in The Kite Runner, and that was the books saving grace, but the resolution at the end isn’t even a resolution. THAT is how the main character found redemption for his past?

It’s not a long book but it took me a long time to get through this because I didn’t want to read it. I’d heard it was oh so good and I know there are plenty of people who like it, but I have certainly read many other, way way better books than this.

The poster below me says “cliched and boring.” That’s a very good way of putting it.

I’m a fan of children’s books, and while this was heartbreakingly sad, it was a good read. I think I might have hated it if I HAD read it as a child, though!

However, my little brother and sister love the movie, so…

I think harrowing really is the best one word to sum this book up.

In July 2006, Canadian mother Melissa Hawach let her ex-husband take their two young daughters, Hannah and Cedar on a vacation to his home country of Australia. Days before they were due to arrive home, all communication between her and her ex stopped and shortly after she learned that Joe, her ex, had taken both daughters to Lebanon, which was in the middle of a very bloody war.

This is Melissa’s story, written by her, on how she did the seemingly impossible and rescued her children.

I’ve always wanted to adopt children, in addition to having my own biological ones, and I’ve always been aware of the… shall we say ‘unethical’ side of adoption?

Even knowing that, this book was a real eye opener on just HOW unethical adoption got it’s start. It dispels the myths of “unwanted” children, so much so that every time I hear some pompous do-gooder talking about all the poor unwanted babies out there… well, it makes me angry and sick. Doesn’t any one ever wonder WHY there are so many so-called “unwanted” children?

The stories in Ann Fessler’s non-fiction book on forced adoptions in the United States between 1945 and 1973 are in the very own words of the mother’s who never got to keep their babies. Some never even got to see their child, but all were never given the option of keeping their son or daughter. “Sit down, shut up, do as we say. Haven’t you caused enough trouble? You’ll get over it,” was what they were told. They were ‘sent away’ to maternity homes where they were kept until they gave birth. Many suffered awful abuses at the hands of the doctors, the nurses, the maternity home staff, and even their parents. For example, the girl who was thrown across the kitchen by her father when she told her parents she was pregnant, the mother who made her daughter strip naked in the tub before her and then douche with Lysol!, and the taunting of the nurses and doctors, “I bet you’d really like to see your baby, wouldn’t you. I bet you’d like to touch him. Well, you can’t, you whore.”

For those who did challenge the system, they were told that they would have to pay back thousands and thousands of dollars for the “care” they received at the maternity homes and the hospital stay, and even the foster care for their child – with interest. When one girl refused to sign the paperwork to sign her baby over, her parents put her into a mental institution for a year before she finally broke and signed.

So much shame these young mothers carried around, many going on to marry and have other children, and most never telling anyone about what they had gone through. So much shame, guilt and upset, and the underlying reason for it? “What would the neighbors think?” was the main excuse given by parents as they drove their daughters to maternity homes where they dumped them until they gave birth.

The stories are all unique and differing, but they all have one very important thing in common. Not one of these girls wanted – ever, not even for a second – to give up their children.

The saddest part is how very much history hasn’t changed. To be sure, an “unwed mother” is not nearly the same “shameful” thing that it was during those years! But even now, the “unwanted” children are not unwanted by their mothers, but rather by society.

Ann Fessler herself was also an adoptee, and includes her own story at the end of the book. Throughout every chapter is statistics and information on every aspect of adoption; birth mothers, adoption before WWII, adoption AFTER WWII, adoptees, birth fathers, subsequent children, PTSD…

This was a great read, even though many parts were very upsetting, not just out of human empathy, but as a mother myself.

Absolutely, hands down, one of the very very very best books I have ever read. Ever.