Here are 13 memoirs of individuals who were either born into or found themselves stuck in a high-control family or group. All of them managed to make their way out, some at the risk of their own lives. These stories are true, and if they were marketed as fiction, you’d probably throw them in the trash, because they wouldn’t be believable.

What’s the point in reading books like this? Well, if you’ve ever been in a high-control group, you will find affirmation that what you experienced was wrong, but that it made sense that you couldn’t see what was happening to you. If you’ve never been in that kind of environment, praise the Lord, but maybe reading these memoirs will give you compassion toward people you meet who have been.

High Control Groups—Not Religious

Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

I’ve mentioned this book several times recently, and yet I will say again that this is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. Giuffre’s childhood was horrific in her high-control family, and then she found herself caught in the clutches of uber-predators Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The bravery and courage she showed in seeking justice and writing this book are tremendous.

Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show by Bethany Joy Lenz

I never watched One Tree Hill and didn’t really know who Lenz was, but this was as funny as a book about accidentally finding yourself in a cult can be. Surprisingly as well, the author seems to have become a Christian once she escaped the cult. It’s always amazing to me when someone who comes out of a high-control family is willing to engage with the Bible, because I can understand how past trauma could close you off to anything that has ever been associated with high-control groups. This was one of the best nonfiction books I read last year.

Member of the Family: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness that Ended the Sixties by Dianne Lake

This is a fascinating story about a woman who found herself in Charles Manson’s cult when she was only 16. She was not involved in the Patty Hearst murder, but she was very close to being part of it. I think the second half of the book about her life after she escaped was the most fascinating party, especially as she shares how she decided to explain to her children decades later what the earlier part of her life as like.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

This is a story about a girl born into a high-control family where she experienced abuse mostly in the form of neglect. These kinds of stories are heartbreaking, but I think they are important to read, because when you do you see that there were so many people who almost saw what the children were going through but didn’t have quite enough curiosity to ask more questions and get them help. It has helped me to develop a better sense of when I might want to ask questions when I suspect something might be wrong.

The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke

This is not a book I recommend whole-heartedly, mostly because I don’t think the author had enough distance from her situation before she wrote it. Shari Franke is the daughter of Ruby Franke, the creator of the YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which has now been shut down. Ruby is in prison for aggravated child abuse against her own children, some of which was documented for all to see on her YouTube channel. Shari’s experience is terrible, and I don’t fault her for writing about it, but I think a little more distance would have served the book better.

Raised by a Serial Killer: Discovering the Truth About My Father by April Balascio

This book isn’t about a cult persay, but the author’s experience in her father’s home is definitely a high-control environment, because he is trying to escape being found out for the numerous people he kills over the years. My interest in this book is similar to these other cult memoirs because you see her wrestling with what the outside world is really like and trying to process her childhood experiences. That said, I believe the author self-published this book, and it could have used a good editor. I don’t recommend the audiobook, either, because the author’s cadence and pronunciation is distracting.

High Control Groups—Religious

This second section contains books by people who were in high-control groups with some kind of religious basis. Some were vaguely Christian, some were Mormon, and some essentially made up their own religion.

Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett

This is one of my favorite memoirs of all time, cult-related or not. The audiobook version of this book includes some of the author’s original music, so it’s worth going that route if you have access to it. Mikel Jollett was born into the Synanon cult and was separated from his mom for many years with other children also born into the cult. He eventually escaped, but it took years for him to be able to reckon with his experiences. This is an honest look at what compels someone (in this case, his mom) to stay in a high-control group. What I love most about this book is the lengths to which the author was able to find a life where he could thrive.

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

This is one of the most famous memoirs of the last decade, and for good reason. It was one of the first books I ever read from a person who grew up in a high-control family. This was also the first time I ever heard a reference to Ruby Ridge, when the author’s father claims the government’s actions there are justification for the lengths he goes to protect his own family from government interference. Westover grew up unsure of her birthday, without a social security card, and without access to consistent healthcare. It wasn’t until she went to college that she became, as the title says, “educated.” Once she learns more about the outside world, she has to figure out her relationship to her parents.

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I remember bustling around the kitchen in the first house we ever bought in Columbia, South Carolina, when our daughter was a baby. I had just discovered audiobooks and was venturing into the genre of narrative nonfiction. That day, I started listening to Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, and while I did have to turn the speed down to 1.25x so as to be able to fully understand the Irish accent of the narrator, I was immersed.

I went on to read Keefe’s next two books, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty and Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, and whenever I think about his books, I find myself wondering when he will write another book. You can imagine my delight when I realized his newest book was published earlier this month. It only took a week or two for the audiobook to be available on Libby, and I dove right in. It was the best nonfiction book I read this month, and I’ll talk about it below, but it was just further confirmation to me that narrative nonfiction can be just as compelling as fiction, if not more. If you don’t think you like nonfiction, I hope you’ll give one of Keefe’s books a try.

Zooming out, I managed to read 16 books this month—only one shy of my goal—but it was by the skin of my teeth. I read 9 books in the first half of the month, and 7 in the second half of the month, but I finished four of them in the last two days of April due to some marathon reading sessions. When I realized I was going to be several books shy of my goal, I decided to press on and finish two books that I’ve been plodding through for months. I wasn’t enjoying reading them anyway, so I forced myself to finish them so I could be done with them.1 Both of them were on my Kindle and now I can be free to enjoy a new book on my Kindle.

The reading slowdown was entirely due to starting a new part-time job and went from working about 6 hours a week to 20 hours a week. My free time has decreased and so has my reading. Additionally, I was exhausted at the end of the day and could not bring myself to read at all before bed. I am going to have to be much more intentional about reading going forward. (Challenge accepted!)

For the last while I have been picking one book in each category—fiction, nonfiction, and spiritual—and choosing the best in each. Think of it as a mini Academy Awards of books every month.

📗 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

When I posted about the books I was taking on a trip earlier this month, several people mentioned how much they loved this book, so that was the one I started with. I flew through it in 24 hours thanks to the complete lack of obligations and found myself almost weeping by the end. It is a beautiful, hilarious, tragic book with memorable characters and one of the things that makes a fiction book five stars for me: the characters are dynamic, not static, changing and growing through what they experience.

📗London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe

I was surprised when this book started out with talking about only one family. His other books have explored circumstances on a more macro level, and I wasn’t sure where he was going. It starts with the death of a 19-year-old boy that no one can explain, and the path to the answer involves Russian oligarchs, the Ugandan South Asian community, and a grieving mother and father. I listened to it every chance I got; if I had been reading the print version I think I would have flown through it even faster.

📗Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Communities, and Promotes Human Flourishing by Jonathan Leeman

The title of this book might not sound all that thrilling, but if you are someone who has experienced abuses of power in your church, workplace, or home, this book will be a breath of fresh air. I felt affirmed when I revisited painful experiences from my past and compared them to how the author describes just and righteous behavior in those contexts. This is a book that I think every Christian should read.

I only read four fiction books this month, and they were all very different. It was honestly a meh month for fiction—I tried many more than this and abandoned almost all of them (more on that below).

📗This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum

New, somewhat popular books always make me nervous. I know I sound like a book snob, and maybe I am. I’m sorry. This book was a pleasant surprise. It’s about two friends, a man and a woman, who start a podcast together. Over the years, both of them get married, and the book is a back and forth from the present to the past. The book opens with the female podcast host and her husband going missing, and the rest of the book is the male host trying to sort out what happened. The audiobook had a male and female narrator for the respective chapters, and the chapters where their podcast was happening almost made me wish it was a real podcast!

📗Blockade Billy by Stephen King

This is a short book—a novella—that I also took on my out-of-town trip earlier this month. I’m trying to read through all of King’s works eventually, and this was waiting for me at the library right there on the shelf. It’s very short, but King still manages to pack a great deal of horror in a small number of pages. Despite not knowing or caring about baseball, I still managed to track with the baseball terminology.

📗The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

I wanted to love this book so badly. I count Adams’ Watership Down among my top ten favorite books. A book about two dogs who escape from an animal research facility and are hunted because they are believed to be carrying the bubonic plague? It’s like it was written for me. Sadly, this book was difficult to read. There is a note at the beginning about the dialects that are used for some of the characters, and maybe if I were British it would have been easier to decipher, but there were whole paragraphs and pages I had to skim and guess at the meaning from context because they were unreadable to my Americanized brain. Additionally, there are so many references to places that had no meaning to me and thus only served to confuse me further. The seemingly hand-drawn maps were not helpful. There is also a good bit of commentary on British bureaucracy, which was not relatable. The book is meant to be a subtle polemic at climate change, industrialization, bureaucracy, and animal experimentation, and while I “got” the jokes, I struggled to keep wanting to pick this up. That said, the ending of the story was wonderful. I just wish we had gotten there a lot faster and with a lot more familiar words.

📗Devoted to God’s Church: Core Values for Christian Fellowship by Sinclair Ferguson

I only let myself pick one spiritual book as the best book of the month, and I was torn between this one and the one I chose. Dr. Ferguson is my favorite Christian author, my favorite pastor who isn’t my husband, and a man who has my greatest respect for his character, compassion, and integrity. This is a book every Christian should read. If you are involved in the local church, it will give you great encouragement. If you aren’t, it will challenge you without guilt, but by showing you how wonderful it is to be part of a local body of believers and how that is how God designed it from the beginning.

📗Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 by Dallas Willard

I bought this book at McKay’s in Nashville a few weeks ago because I hear Dallas Willard quoted all the time but had never read anything he’d written. I found myself profoundly disappointed after finishing the book. While Willard had a lot of good things to say, I found that he treated his own speculations as fact; that he made claims about what God thinks and wants that were not based on Scripture; and that he failed to explain the gospel. As a result, I would not recommend this book to anyone. That said, a day or so after I finishing it, I ran across this article by Scot McKnight which helped me understand better where Dallas Willard fits into evangelical thought.

📗Eat, Drink & Be Merry: A Gospel Call to Pure Enjoyment by Ray Ortlund

My husband got several copies of this for our church’s free resource table, from which I grabbed a copy to read (I’ll now return it for someone else to read). He asked me what I thought and I told him Ortlund was just a little bit too happy and it got annoying. Being a bit of an Eeyore myself, I know I’m probably being too hard on the guy. It’s a good book, based out of Ecclesiastes, and the target audience is Gen Z-ers who are struggling with the meaning of life. My only other criticism is he quoted books written by two of his sons multiple times, and it started to feel like nepotism (or is it reverse nepotism?).

📗With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray

I started this book waaaay back in February when I was preparing to teach at our women’s retreat at church. I was also reading numerous other books on prayer and didn’t finish this one. It is a solid book, but it would be best read one chapter a day consistently for a month. It took me three months to read 31 chapters and I jammed the last many into the last week just to finish it. It got pretty redundant by the end, but it was still an encouraging book.

In lieu of anything better, I have listed the nonfiction books I read this month in order of shortest subtitle to longest subtitle—because seriously, subtitles are getting out of hand.

📗Stay True: A Memoir by Hua Hsu

Kudos to Mr. Hsu for choosing an extremely short subtitle. I can’t remember how I ran across this book, but I love a memoir and the author’s background looked interesting. It is the story of him growing up in America as the son of immigrants and of a tragic situation that occurred when he was a young adult. While I certainly am not trying to judge his experience or his response to the tragedy, I wasn’t ever really excited to keep reading. It was fine.

📗The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham

John Grisham is one of my favorite fiction authors, and I had no idea he wrote a nonfiction book two decades ago. This is the story of a great injustice, of a wrongful conviction that sent a man to death row for more than a decade. However, the middle of this book got really bogged down. I think Grisham the fiction writer was trying to include more intrigue in his nonfiction book when he’d have been better off cutting the length of the book down by about a third. That said, it was still a compelling story.

📗End of Days: Ruby Ridge, the Apocalypse, and the Unmaking of America by Chris Jennings

Chelsey, how many more books do you plan to read about Ruby Ridge? Well, this will probably be the last one. I think I pretty much have the timeline memorized at this point. While this book zoomed out and looked at greater cultural and religious trends in the 80s and 90s, I think the better book on the tragedy is still Jess Walter’s Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family. In fact, Jennings quotes Walter’s book a good bit in this book.

📗The MAGA Diaries: Life Among the Fanatics, Extremists, and True Believers that Created the Modern Right by Tina Nguyen

This was an interesting book written by a woman who spent her formative years in far-right Republican circles. What I appreciated most about this book was that she treated both sides of the political aisle fairly. She did not disparage anyone; she simply stated the facts and described her experiences from her own point of view. If this aspect of American politics interests you, I’d recommend this one.

📗Killer in a White Coat: The True Story of New York’s Deadliest Pill Pusher and the Team that Brought Him to Justice by Charlotte Bismuth

I think this was my least favorite nonfiction book this month. The story that the book is purportedly about is fascinating—a doctor who used his weekends to sell prescription drugs to vulnerable people so he could pocket the money. But the book was a slog because the author interspersed details of her personal life what felt like every other chapter. There would be a chapter about investigating an aspect of the case, and then the next chapter would be about how her children were coping with the aftermath of her divorce. Perhaps she saw this book as a memoir, and in that case, the format makes more sense, but that is not how the book presents itself at the beginning, and I found myself more and more annoyed at her as the book went on.

Also, the book was originally published with the title Bad Medicine: Catching New York’s Deadliest Pill Pusher in 2021, but the audiobook, Kindle version, and paperback all have the newer title listed above, so keep that in mind depending on what version you want to read.

📗Starstruck: A Journalist’s Pursuit of a Fugitive Pop Star, Her Diabolical Maestro, and Their Teenage Sex Cult by Christopher McDougall

This almost became my top nonfiction book of the month. The word “cult” in the subtitle caught my eye. I had no idea who Gloria Trevi was until I read this book, and it was a horrifying read from start to finish. Gloria and her manager Sergio Astrade were basically the Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein of Mexico in the 1990s, but possibly outdid Epstein and Maxwell in their cruelty and abuse. I am done reading about sexual abuse for a while.

This Substack is a place where those who abandon books can feel safe. Every month I end up DNF’ing at least a few books. This month felt like it had more than usual, probably because I abandoned the give audiobooks one after another before I settled on one I wanted to finish.

📙 Writers & Lovers by Lily King—I read Heart the Lover last month, and it was fine, but I heard this one was better. There was some sexual content in HTL but not enough to make me discard the book. This one had more than I wanted to read in the first 10% of the book.

📙Les Misérables by Victor Hugo—after making it only 4% through the book in 4 months, I have accepted the fact that this is not the season of my life when I will be able to dive into a classic. One day, when my kids don’t have to be driven everywhere and my brain is less scattered, I will try again.

📙 Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang—Books about religion often appeal to me, and I’m not opposed to reading a book by someone who doesn’t have the same religious views at me. But I felt like this book was not going to give Christianity a fair representation. To be clear, I am opposed to Christian nationalism, spiritually abusive pastors, and anyone who claims the name of Christ while behaving in ways opposed to Scripture. If the topics of evangelicals in America in the current age is of interest to you, I’d recommend The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta.

📙Good Daughtering: The Work You’ve Always Done, the Credit You’ve Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough – An Essential Guide for Adult Daughters to Navigate Family Dynamics and Boundaries by Allison M. Alford2 —I barely even started this, because after thinking about it, I realized I don’t really need to read this book. I am an oldest daughter, but I have good relationships with my parents and my sisters and in-laws.

📙Discontent by Beatriz Serrano—The premise of this sounded interesting but there was too much sexual content in the first few chapters for me to want to continue.

📙Upward Bound by Woody Brown—This was my biggest disappointment of the month. I first heard about this book on Ron Charles’ Substack, and having spent many years of my life working with individuals with autism, including some who were nonverbal, I was fascinated by the premise. However, while I was waiting for it to come available through Libby, I learned about controversy surrounding how the book was written. You can read more about the controversy in this article in The Atlantic (I think you’ll have to make a free account to read it). I made it through a few chapters and just felt icky. Feel free to give it a shot, but I couldn’t finish.

You can see some of the books I purchased in my post about my visit to McKay’s. In addition to those 5 books, I also bought the following:

📘Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry—Berry’s book about Nathan’s wife, Hannah, is one of my favorite books of all time. I am excited to read this one, the first of Berry’s novels about characters in Port William. I bought the print version so I can start building a shelf collection.

📘Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier—This was a deal on the Kindle one day and I’ve heard so many people talk about it, I decided to grab it.

These are the books I’m carrying with me from April into May. I hope to finish at least three of these before the end of next month.

📖 52 Weeks in the Word: A Companion for Reading Through the Bible in a Year by Trillia Newbell (using to stay accountable to Scripture reading)

📖 How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (personal development)

📖 On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga #1) by Andrew Peterson (reading out loud to my kids)—I said in March that we’d finish this in April if it was the last thing I did. Well, it was not the last thing I did. We still have about 10 chapters to go. But my kids are engrossed and asking to read it. The problem is that at least half of the nights of the week, my husband or I are not home to read to them, or the kids have been up late at church or something else and we don’t have time. The good news it, when we start the second book, we’ll be almost to summer and we’ll be able to read more consistently!

📖 This is Happiness by Niall Williams—I started this on our trip to Tennessee and didn’t get far. I have two plane trips in the next month and I’m hoping this can be my airplane read.

📖 Buckeye by Patrick Ryan—I’m a quarter of the way through this one and I am eager to see where it’s going. I heard it recommended by a lot of people and so far it falls into the category of “sweeping family saga” that I love so much.

📖 Traumatized Church: What Paul’s Relationship with the Corinthian Church Teaches Us About Helping Those Who are Hurting by Scot McKnight and Adrienne Gibson—This is another one I’m borrowing from my husband’s shelf at work. I’m eager to hear ’s take on this subject.

If you made it this far, congratulations! What did you read this month? Have you read any of the ones I’ve mentioned here? How many books about Ruby Ridge have you read?

As always, engaging with you in the comments or over email is one of my favorite parts about this Substack. I’d love to hear rom you!

I have more than 90 new subscribers since the end of last month, and many of you found me through my posts about books. I do post a monthly recap of what I read, but that’s its own post and will be coming Friday, May 1. “Dispatches from the Dopamine Den” is another post that I write monthly that serves as a curation of all the things I used to share on social media. (The title comes from the name of my favorite room in our house.) It includes life updates, interesting things I found online, what I’ve watched this month, and anything else I feel like sharing. If this isn’t of interest to you, maybe you’d enjoy checking out the 17 books I read last April.

While my work and aspects of my personal life require me to often be “extremely online,” there are so many days when I wish I could just throw the Internet in the trash. The rise of AI-generated videos and the way that many people seem to assume they are real makes me want to bang my head against a wall, and that’s without the constant influx of conflicting news reports on American politics and government. It’s easy to succumb to despair when it feels like the Internet is only offering up the very worst things.

But then, sometimes, the Internet brings something that you never would have seen without the Internet, and you are better for having seen it. This month, that was Ross Douthat’s interview with former Senator Ben Sasse, who is dying of cancer. He has already outlived the doctors’ predictions, but his time on earth is drawing short. There is no cure for what is killing him. And yet his interview with Douthat is one of the most encouraging interviews I’ve ever seen. If you want to ditch this post now and just go watch the interview, I won’t be offended.

If you want to read the transcript, it’s available here.

Life Updates

April was a jam-packed month as we approach the end of the school year. We had spring break, a trip for me and my husband, a birthday, a visit from my parents, Easter, and I started a new job. It has felt simultaneously like a very short month and a very long month.

Our spring break was relatively lowkey, and we did one of our favorite spring/fall activities (it’s way too hot in the summer). We traipsed around Oatland Island Wildlife Center for several hours. It’s essentially an outdoor trail with animal habitats at regular intervals. They have native birds, wolves, a fox, cougars, alligators, and more. It’s not nearly as exciting as a zoo but it’s all my little kids know and they love it. I was pleased my previously injured foot handled the 2+ miles of walking.

Easter came at the end of spring break, and it was a marathon. Christian and I attended the sunrise service, and then I ran home to shower and make myself presentable. I came back for music practice, and then we had church, so I was mostly at church from 7 am - 1 pm minus the 45 minutes I was at home showering. That afternoon we hosted some family and friends for a delicious meal. I was so happy my friend EJ got the picture above—our little kids are growing so fast.

The day after Easter, Christian and I embarked to Tennessee for a weeklong getaway sponsored by Teamness. Teamness is a ministry that provides free vacations to pastors and spouses. We applied back in the winter and got approved! We spent the week in a camper on the property of our host couple, Evan and Debbie. We slept, ate, watched TV, read, and did a bit of sightseeing. We got to know Evan and Debbie’s baby goats, and of course we stopped at Buc-ee’s on the way there and back.

I should also mention that the only way we were able to get away for those five days was to the gracious generosity of my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They lived around the corner from us and are always willing to help. We are so grateful for them.

My youngest had a big week after we got back when he got to go on a field trip to a local ranch that cares for injured and abandoned animals. He also had a PTO presentation at his school, in which he played an adorable elephant. Six really is one of the best ages.

We celebrated two birthdays last weekend—our daughter, Zoe, who turned nine a few days before that, and our second son, Cohen, who turns fifteen in a few days. Friday night, my daughter invited 7 friends to a sleepover at our church building. My friend Kim joined me as another supervising adult and mercifully, we all survived, although I’m not sure how much sleep any of the girls got.

On Saturday, my parents came into town and my husband’s family joined us as we celebrated with a delicious ice cream cake made by my mother-in-law. These are the final two kid birthdays this year, and we now have a 16 year old, 15 year old, 9 year old, and 6 year old. We are firmly in the middle years of parenting!

My parents live about 3 hours away and blessed us with their presence the last weekend of April. They jumped right into an insane weekend of kid and church activities and just came along for the ride.

I had two big things happen this month: a long overdue haircut and a new job (please enjoy the before and after). My new job is part-time, but it’s many more hours than I had previously been working, so it’s been an adjustment to our family routines. (It’s also cutting into my Substack time—annoying!!!).

From the Garden

This is a segment that I came up with this month only so I could share with you some of the beautiful things my husband is cultivating in our yard. Enjoy!

What I Watched

This month was a pretty good month for TV, although with everything going on, Christian and I didn’t watch nearly as much as we usually do. Most of what I watched was in the background on my own while I was doing other things.

🎥 Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich (Netflix)—After finishing this, I’ve had enough of anything adjacent to Jeffrey Epstein to last a lifetime. Of all the characters in the Epstein situation, I’ll be honest: Maxwell is the absolute creepiest.

📺The Wire—Seasons 1, 2, & 3 (HBO Max)—Christian and I decided to try to tackle all five seasons of this show and we’re about halfway through. One funny thing is that for the last 20 years, I thought this show was about a journalism newsroom (the wire, get it?). Turns out it’s about crime in Baltimore. Also, it’s hilarious to see the detectives and criminals getting cell phones and beginning to use dial-up Internet. It would feel like satire if it hadn’t actually been filmed in the early 2000s.

🎥 Paddington 2 (HBO Max)—I’ve still never seen the first Paddington movie, but I heard this was the best one. One night I got to pick what we watched as a family, and this was my choice. I loved Hugh Grant, who makes a great villain, and I loved the absurdity of Paddington’s prison experience. I also got teary at the ends. 5/5.

📺The Pitt—Season 2 (HBO Max)—We finished up the second season and loved it all. Sure, I could nitpick about some things here and there, but it truly is a remarkable show that portrays people working under incredible pressure and having to make really hard decisions. The Baby Jane Doe storyline was almost more than I could handle.

📺The Simpsons—Season 1 (Disney+)—Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to watch the Simpsons, and even when I was an adult, I thought it was dumb and wasn’t interested. My husband, however, grew up watching reruns and considers it one of his favorite shows. To appease him, I have started working through the first nine seasons. I’ll be honest—it’s funnier than I expected it to be.

📺Trust Me: The False Prophet (Netflix)—This was the most fascinating and compelling thing I watched this month. A woman and her husband move into the town were an FLDS prophet who is following in the steps of Warren Jeffs has formed his own mini cult of women and underage girls. She earns their trust and eventually becomes an FBI informant who helps bring the leader to justice. I flew through this because it was so intense.

ICYMI

Here are all the posts from this month in case you missed any of them!

📝 The Danger of Marriage

📝 15 Longish Nonfiction Books to Get Lost in but Still Finish (400-600 pages)

📝 15 Longish Fiction Books to Get Lost in But Still Finish (400-600 pages)

📝 The 5 Books I Bought at McKay’s Used Bookstore in Nashville (all for less than $17!)

📝 12 of my Most Read Fiction Writers

📝 3 Books that Took Me One Day Each to Read

📝 The 5 Fiction Books I’m Taking on My Trip Next Week (and What Made Me Pick Them)

From the Archives

This post will be entering the archives in May, so take a look at my opinion on legless reptiles while you have time.

In Closing

This month, I finished a cross-stitch piece that I had been working on for more than 3 years—over 26,000 individual stitches. It felt so good to finish it, and completing it reminded me that slow and steady progress can actually make something substantial over time. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet, but sometimes I just pull it out and look at it.

I hope the end of this month finds you well. As always, I remain so grateful for those of you who read my humble Substack offerings. I love being able to share the things I love with you.

Long-time readers will know of my deep love for nonfiction books. I truly could not say whether I prefer fiction or nonfiction—it just depends on my mood. Back in January I wrote a post called 25 Books Worth Reading that are 600 Pages or Longer, which turned out to be the most popular post I’ve ever published. It turned out lots of people love long books! That list contained both nonfiction and fiction, so a few weeks ago I made a list of 15 fiction books that were slightly shorter than those—all of them within 400-600 pages. And now, to complete the set, I’m sharing 15 fascinating nonfiction books between 400 and 600 pages long. We’ve got shipwrecks, wars, crime, and Star Wars—what more could you want?

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson

Erik Larson is one of my favorite nonfiction writers, but when this book came out, I wasn’t very excited. First of all, the Civil War is not one of my favorite time periods to read about. Also, it appeared as if the book only covered a few days of time, and I couldn’t imagine it would be all that interesting. Of course, I was wrong, because it’s Erik Larson, and it turned out to be a riveting story of how the war started. What was most interesting to me was that lack of communication was the reason behind most of what happened. If you’ve already read this one, my favorite Larson book is Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania.

Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown

This was one of the first books I ever read about Japanese internment during World War II. I realized after finishing it that most of what I had known about it prior to the book had come from the winners—in other words, I had only read about it from a strictly Allied point of view. Without all the facts, it seemed somewhat reasonable to me that the Americans were afraid of anyone of Japanese descent after Pearl Harbor. This book soundly crushed that perspective as it followed several different second-generation Japanese immigrants and their experience during World War II. This book is just one example of why I love reading—I learn new things and my thinking about various situations gets turned on its head.

The Complete Titanic Chronicles: A Night to Remember and The Night Lives On by Walter Lord

This is technically two books in one, so it’s a little bit cheating to include it, but you won’t want to stop after the first one, so plan to read them both. Who isn’t fascinated by the Titanic? The movie came out when I was in high school and I think the most famous shipwreck in history has a bit of a chokehold on millenials. This book was written not long after the shipwreck, so the book itself is a snapshot of history as well as a thorough description and analysis of the event.

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

When you hear the word caste, you might think of the social hierarchy in India, but the author of this book presents a compelling argument as to how a caste system also exists in the United States. This is a book that may cause you to reconsider your opinions and perspectives when it comes to race, poverty, and crime, so read at your own risk (but seriously, read it!).

And, of course, if you haven’t already read it, I can’t commend highly enough her other book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.

Rikers: An Oral History by Graham Rayman

Oral histories are nothing new, but being able to listen to them in audiobook format is. I grew to love oral histories through the books of Garrett M. Graff, and so this one caught my eye. This is a heartbreaking look at the criminal justice system. It also continually made me think of all the time Rikers is a setting on Law and Order: SVU, a show of which I watched the first 10-12 seasons (basically until Stabler left—not interested after that).

The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin

This was the first Jeffrey Toobin book I read, and I became a fan almost instantly. I’ve read three out of four of his most recent published books (his newest, The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy, is on my TBR). He wrote this book in 1996, not long after the trial, but it is a detailed account of the crime, the aftermath, and the trial. The miniseries The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is based on Toobin’s book and you probably won’t be surprised to learn I watched it almost immediately upon finishing the book.

Memoirs and biographies are often grouped into the same genre, but they aren’t exactly the same. What’s the difference? Well, a memoir is written by the person in question about a period of his or her life, usually with a good deal self-reflection. This period could be a large swath of the author’s life but is not their entire life—otherwise it would be an autobiography. A biography is not written by the book’s subject and covers most, if not all, of his or her life.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

I started going to counseling regularly when I was 29 years old, and it has been one of the primary reasons, secondary to the grace of God, that I have not gone absolutely insane. This book is a fascinating look behind the scenes at what it’s like to be a therapist.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

I don’t care much about shoes or sports or brands, but this book was still interesting to me. The creator of Nike writes about the first 18 years of the business, which he started in 1962 when he was 24 years old.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

I read this book as a young adult, but I recently gave it a re-read. It is a charming and hilarious yet serious account of a young and inexperienced veterinarian trying to gain his footing in the English countryside in the late 1930s. It’s purportedly about animals, but it’s really about people and their relationships.

George Lucas: A Life by Brian Jay Jones

Growing up, I lived a sheltered life when it came to media. I watched Disney movies and PBS in elementary school, with one exception—Star Wars. My dad was 15 when the first movie came out, and while he never had any sons to pass his love on to, he found a welcome receptacle in his oldest daughter. I think this book would be interesting even if you aren’t a Star Wars fan, because George Lucas did a lot of other stuff as well.1

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King

Mister Rogers’ neighborhood was a huge part of my childhood, as I think it was for many people in my age group. I loved reading about his life.

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland

My passion for Holocaust history led me to this book, which is a terrifying and sobering account of a Jewish man who actually managed to escape from Auschwitz. I had never even heard this story mentioned until I read this book, which was surprising given how many books I have read on the subject.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

I’m not going to say much about Keefe’s books because I’m planning to write more about him in my April reading recap, but he is an incredible writer and this book educated me on a period of time I knew nothing about.

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

If you’ve never read anything by Bryson, this is a great place to start. He weaves anecdotes and stories with scientific facts to produce an incredible look at the human body.

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore

This book made me really grateful that 1) my husband is not a monster and 2) I didn’t live in the 1860s. Did you know that husbands could still technically commit their wives to psychiatric hospitals until the 1980s? This book is a story about a woman who would not back done and who fought tenaciously for the right to be in control of her own life and body.

I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these, or if you have any long-ish nonfiction books you’d recommend to me!

More than 100 of you have subscribed in the last month, mostly by finding me through one of my long lists of books. I’m thrilled to have found like-minded reading friends, so going forward I want to periodically hear from you about what you’re reading!

There is a question that can be loaded if you don’t already know the person you’re talking to.

“Have you read anything good lately?”

I only ask this to friends who I know read, because I don’t ever want to shame anyone who isn’t a big reader. I personally love this question, even though I usually have to stare blankly ahead for a few minutes while I scan through recent books and pick out a good one. (If I’m really brain dead, I have to pull out my phone or journal and look at my reading tracker.)

My recent posts on 25 of my favorite long books and 13 of my favorite book series have brought in so many new readers, and I have especially loved reading through all the comments with recommendations. I already have posts in the works with all the recommendations from those two posts, but many of the comments on those posts were from people who didn’t end up subscribing and were just passing through.

I’ve been sharing what I’ve been reading for almost 18 months, but I’m interested in finding out what you, whether free or paid subscribers, are reading—and then sharing with you all the most mentioned titles, the ones that jumped out to me, the ones I’ve also read, and more.

And if you’re not reading anything—maybe the fruit of this list will help you find something good to read. (Some of you may not be readers, and that’s fine. This is a safe space.)

So leave me a comment; reply to this e-mail; text me; send out the Bat-signal and tell me:

What are you reading right now?

Welcome! I’ve got a few housekeeping notes before we get to today’s post.

First, over 100 of my subscribers are new to Chelsey Crouch Writes in the past month, and most of you found me because of my posts about books. I do write a lot about books, but every couple of weeks, depending on my whims, I write a more personal essay. This is one of those, and if it’s not up your alley, maybe you’d enjoy reading this post from the archives: Chelsey’s 2025 Nonfiction Summer Reading Guide.

Secondly, this is a post about marriage, and specifically about my marriage. Some people are actually in dangerous, harmful, and abusive marriages. If you are experiencing physical, emotional, financial, or spiritual abuse, please reach out for help to The National Domestic Violence Hotline.

I walked into my parents’ room and found my mom fiddling with something on her bedside table. She looked up at me, who at 23 did not often wander into her room. “What’s going on, sweetie?” That was all it took for me to start crying, which I hadn’t wanted to do, because I wasn’t even sure I should be telling my mom what I was about to tell her.

"There’s something wrong with Christian’s car,” I said. My mom looked at me compassionately, but she seemed confused.

“It’s already had some problems,” I continued, trying to say as little as possible but still ask the question that was burning inside me. “And he’s already spent a lot of money on it. And it seems to me that the car is just a waste of money, that he shouldn’t put any more money into it.”

“What does he think about it?” my mom asked.

“He just keeps saying we should trust the people at the car place!” I wailed. The snowball had begun to roll down the hill and was picking up speed. “And I think that is a dumb idea, that he’s being really stupid!”1

Here was the avalanche: “And I just keep thinking, Dad would never make a dumb decision like this.”

Once I got the words out, I felt some relief but also dread. I had already read several books on marriage, and I had gone to a study on a book called The Excellent Wife2 at our church, and I had just broken two of the cardinal rules of being a good wife as I understood them. One: Don’t complain to your parents about your husband. Two: Don’t compare your spouse to your parent of the same gender. I hoped that maybe, because we weren’t going to be married for a few more days, this wouldn’t count.

Because she is my mom, and because she is a good mom, she knew what I was asking. Am I about to marry a super dumb guy? Should I marry a super dumb guy? I felt shame that I had revealed to my mom how dumb my future husband was. He had moved states away to get to know them before he asked my dad if he could marry me, and now my parents knew the truth: Christian was stupid, and I was about to marry him.3

My mom scooted over to me on the bed and put her arm around me as I continued to cry.

“Sweetie,” she said. “Your dad made all kinds of dumb decisions when we first got married. You’ve only seen him make decisions when he’d learned things and had some life experience. You guys are young. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to learn from them.”

I wasn’t one of those girls who had doodled pictures of her wedding dress and planned out her wedding and chosen names for her future children. I’d never imagined having a husband. I wasn’t opposed to it, but it wasn’t the topic of my daydreams. When I met Christian, though, I knew very quickly that I wanted to always be with him. I could be my insecure, nerdy, weird self around him. And he didn’t just tolerate it; he liked it. We thought so many of the same things were funny. And yet we were also very different. He could talk to anyone, and I had yet to meet a person who didn’t like him. I wasn’t good at being surface-level friends or being friendly, but as I spent time with Christian, he helped me be more comfortable around other people, and I I started to feel like I could be myself.

I was thrilled at the thought of being married to him, because it meant we would live in the same place, and we’d go to sleep at night in the same place, and we’d wake up in the same place, and we’d both be working at our jobs during the day, but in the evenings and on the weekends we’d get to be together the whole time.

In those days before our wedding, though, as I realized that I was going to be inextricably joined to someone who sometimes might make dumb decisions, I felt anxiety creeping in. It wasn’t a question of whether I wanted to marry him — that was not up for debate. It was more a fear of how I would handle the fact that I was going to be in a relationship that by its very nature required a loss of control, a death to self, a forced relinquishing of the right to assert what I thought was the best thing to do. He could make dumb decisions about his car on his own time, but once we were married, that was going to be hard for me to stomach. It would be our car, our money, our life.

The selves we were when we got married were, by all quantifiable accounts, pretty great. We were both firstborns, both ambitious, both recent college graduates, both well-read and hard-working.4 I had received so much money from college scholarships that I got paid to go to college, and I had squirreled away most of the money. When we got married, we put a huge chunk of that money toward Christian’s student loan debt.5 We were able to pay off the remainder of the debt right before our first child was born, which was nine months after we got married.6 We didn’t have a lot of money, but we were doing pretty well for what we had to work with.

It was these early years of penny-pinching, learning how to be a mom when I knew no other moms my age, and supporting a husband who was working and going to graduate school at the same time that turned me into an adult really quickly. It was a fast-track to a level of maturity most people in their mid-20s did not have.

Parenting and childcare was almost entirely on me due to the demands of Christian’s combined work and school schedule. I managed the budget and our finances (because I wanted to and was good at it). I did most of the household tasks, though if Christian was home and available he always pitched in. He just wasn’t home very often. This is not me complaining about those years, although they were difficult and I have repressed most of my memories of having two children 15 months apart within two years of marriage, but rather it is me realizing now that what those years required of me also began to nurture a belief that was already latent within me, one that had first been planted in high school:

I am responsible for keeping myself safe.7

In high school, keeping myself safe looked like getting all the best grades and scoring a 1580 on the SAT and getting a full ride (plus some) to college. I had taken care of myself—I wasn’t reliant on my parents to pay for college or even to give me spending money. I had done the work, and I had done it well, and everything was fine.

This is why Christian’s decision about the car right before our wedding sent me to find my mom. He was not doing something that would keep us safe. In my mind, he was being foolish with money, and everyone knew that money was the primary way to ensure safety. If you had enough money, you could pretty much make sure everything would be OK.

Once we got married, instead of seeing Christian as my partner in making good decisions for us, I continued to act on the belief that I was the person best equipped to make decisions to keep us safe. But the push and pull of being in a position where I had to depend on Christian, but I didn’t really think he would be able to keep me safe, but I also had these kids who depended on both of us, led to great anxiety.

Over the past decade, Christian and I have done pre-marital counseling with many engaged couples. One of the sessions is always focused on what the Bible says about marriage. This inevitably leads to a discussion about Ephesians 5 and the dreaded word—submission.

What I think gets missed in the ever-going argument about submission in a Christian marriage is the fact that you only have to submit if you have something that you could exert over the other person. We don’t use the word submit when talking about an employer and employee. For example, His boss asked him to complete a project, so he submitted to his boss and did it. Of course he did it; that’s literally his job—to do what his boss tells him to do. But in our marriage, when Christian asks me to do something, or when he thinks that his idea about how to do something is better than mine, I have the choice to submit or not because there is another option for what I could do.8 I could tell him, “No, I don’t want to do that.” I can tell him, “Your idea is super dumb. We should do it my way.” I do have the ability to put myself in a position of power and authority over Christian—in the words I say, in my body language, in my actions—but submission looks like choosing not to do those things out of love.

I believe at least one reason the Lord says that wives need to submit to their husbands is because it is our natural tendency to think that we know best, that our way is the right way, that we need to control everything. And in the same vein, he tells husbands to love their wives not because that’s the only thing husbands are supposed to do, but because the natural bent of a husband is to treat his wife in an unloving way.9 It doesn’t actually remove any power from me by telling me to submit, and it doesn’t imply that I am inferior to him10. What it does is challenge me to put myself in a position where I’m not relying on myself, which is something I have thought would be enough to keep me safe for my entire life.

That is the danger of marriage, then—that you make yourself vulnerable by becoming dependent on another person and by promising to love the other person in such a way that you have to lay down your preferences and desires in sometimes painful ways.

Christian and I came into marriage with the agreement that divorce was never going to be on the table. The only way our marriage would end would be if one us were to die. Even though most traditional weddings, Christian or not, include the vows that talk about staying together “as long as we both shall live,” functionally, most marriages do not operate with a death commitment, because it is as scary as it sounds. We are both on the Titanic, and the iceberg is coming sooner or later, and there are no lifeboats. We’re both going down with the ship.11

So since we’re both here, we now have the choice to keep operating as though we have control over our lives and don’t really need to depend on anyone else. Or we can, with great relief, begin to see and accept that our safety and well-being is not dependent on ourselves or our spouses. As Dallas Willard says, because of what Jesus has done, “this world is a perfectly safe place to be.”

Getting married felt dangerous, but as it turned out, the only real danger is that I’d start to look less like my anxious, self-absorbed self and more like Jesus. And that turns out to be a really good thing.

April 18, 2026, was our 17th wedding anniversary.

Being married to Christian is the best thing that ever could have happened to me.

Last week, my husband and I went on a getaway to Tennessee for the week. We stayed west of the city on a beautiful, rural property, but one day we ventured into Nashville. First, we went to a small museum where we got to look at a bunch of expensive guitars (I know nothing about them, but apparently it was an impressive display). Then, we went to a place that was as exciting to me as the guitar museum was to him—the largest used bookstore I have ever been to.

McKay’s is a used bookstore with several locations in Tennessee and North Carolina, but the Nashville location is their largest. They sell other forms of media like video games, DVDs, records, various cultural artifacts, and CDs, but mostly they sell books. The best part about it was that everything was so well organized. The books were more or less in alphabetical order by topic. I wasn’t necessarily looking for anything in particular, but it still provided a sense of calm to see that someone had put the time into organizing the books.

In addition to the five books I ended up buying, I also found 3 Minecraft books for my youngest son—one was a Where’s Waldo type book and the other two were paperbacks of different Minecraft builds people have done. He is reading now, but he loves looking at pictures of Minecraft creations. Those three books together cost me 80 cents total—one was 50 cents, one was 25 cents, and one was 5 cents. I don’t know if that was a typo, but that’s what it cost at checkout!

My total was $17.61, and while I didn’t note the prices of each book, if you subtract the 80 cents on the Minecraft books and some tax, the net cost of these five was less than $17—only a little over $3 per book. The five books I found ranged from fiction to nonfiction to spiritual; Russian literature to meditations on Scripture to parenting. This actually makes perfect sense if you have followed along with my reading for the past year and a half because this is a microcosm of my larger reading preferences. That is, I read just about everything (with middling apologies to the genres of romance, romantasy, most fantasy, and SPACE).

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

I honestly have no idea what this book is about, but I keep hearing “everyone should read Evelyn Waugh” and I am very easily influenced by other readers. I’m not sure this book is much of a page-turner, which is why I’m glad to own it in a print version. When I’m ready to start it, I can read it at my own pace.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

Anna Karenina was the first audiobook I listened to as I returned to reading 10 years ago. I love Russian literature. I actually studied Russian language and literature in college and was planning to spend a year studying in Moscow, but then I met my now-husband and decided I didn’t want to be that far away from him. I believe that I watched the film version of this book as a child, because I have a mental picture of what Doctor Zhivago looks like, and I don’t know where else I would have gotten that.

When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays by Marilynne Robinson

I read Gilead for the first time years ago and have been wanting to re-enter the world of Robinson’s characters. This is not a book set in that universe, but rather a book of essays she’s written about myriad things. Her writing is beautiful, and I’m hoping to take this to the beach with me this summer for some quiet reading.

Are My Kids on Track?: The 12 Emotional, Social, and Spiritual Milestones Your Child Needs to Reach by Sissy Goff, Melissa Trevathan, and David Thomas

While I haven’t listened to it in several years, there was a season when I regularly listened to episodes of the Raising Boys and Girls podcast with two of the authors of this book. I was aware of this book back then, but I never got around to reading it. When I saw it on the shelf for a few bucks I snatched it up. With our kids currently 16, 14, 8, and 6, I’m curious to see what ages this book addresses and if there is anything in this book that I haven’t seen in any of other dozens of parenting books I have read. Even if it’s not particularly relevant to me, I try to read books like this because 1) I always find them interesting and 2) I love having book recommendations in my back pocket for other people.

Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23 by Dallas Willard

Dallas Willard is one of those guys who gets quoted all the time. I could probably pick three of his most famous quotes off the top of my head. But I’ve never read anything long form by him, so this book jumped out at me from the shelf. Regardless of whether or not the book is good, I will be glad to be able to say I’ve read a Willard book.

How would you rate the five books I chose? Are there any you would have left on the shelf. Have you read any of them already? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

One of the great things about keeping track of all the books I’ve read is that I can search and analyze all kinds of data. A lot of it is only interesting to me, but sometimes when I’m scrolling through looking for something, I’ll see something I think other people might find interesting. I began wondering which writers I’ve read the most—of course, some of those writers have written series (many mentioned in my post 13 of the Best Book Series Ever), but I wanted to find authors where I had read at least 3 books by them that weren’t part of the same series (so if one book was part of a series, that counted, but then there needed to be two other books that weren’t part of that series or that weren’t both in the same series). Using this criteria, I found more than a dozen authors who fell into this category, and I picked 12 out of that group to share with you.

Of the 12 fiction writers, I read 3 or 4 books each by 7 of them. The remaining 5 authors show a slow and then swift uptick in books read by each of them. If you want to see how well you know my reading preferences, see if you can guess which author’s works I’ve read the most before you get to the end!

Note that these aren’t necessarily my 12 favorite fiction writers, because I haven’t always loved everything each of these authors has written. And some of my favorite fiction authors have only written books in one series, so they didn’t qualify for this list.

Books by Peter Heller

• Average page length: ~275 pages

• Genre: literary fiction with a focus on adventure / environmental concerns

• My favorite: The River

• Honorable mention: The Last Ranger

• On my TBR: Burn, The Orchard

Years ago, a reading friend recommended I read The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. At the time, it wasn’t available at my library, so I read The River instead. I loved it, and subsequently read two other Heller novels. His books are all set primarily in the outdoors and the ones I read all involved survival scenarios to some extent. I am not myself much of an outdoors-person, and yet I have found myself captivated by his writing. While writing this post I discovered he has written two more books since the most recent one I read, so I am eager to get to those soon, as well as some of the books on his backlist.

Books by Andy Weir

• Average page length: ~450 pages

• Genre: science fiction

• My favorite: Project Hail Mary

• Honorable mention: The Martian

In the case of this author, he has only written 3 books, and I’ve read all of them. There aren’t two many authors about which that is true for me. I am a huge Star Wars fan, and I loved the TV show Firefly, but other than those things, space isn’t a topic I enjoy watching or reading about. Andy Weir is the exception. There have also been two movies made based off his books—the recent Project Hail Mary and before that, The Martian, which I haven’t seen yet.

Books by Colson Whitehead

• Average page length: ~275 pages

• Genre: historical / alt-historical fiction

• My favorite: The Nickel Boys

• Honorable mention: The Underground Railroad

• On my TBR: The Harlem Trilogy

If I had to pick 10 fiction books that impacted me the most over the course of my life, I’d have to include The Nickel Boys, which is about two young men who become incarcerated at a fictional boys’ school in Florida (but that was based on the now infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys). A few years ago I had the honor of getting to see a screening of the film Nickel Boys, based on the book, at a theater in Savannah. It was no less gripping on the screen than on the page. I haven’t started his trilogy that takes place in Harlem, but the final book is coming out this year, so I think it’s time to dive in!

Books by Octavia Butler

• Average page length: ~350 pages

• Genre: science fiction blended with speculative/dystopian fiction

• My favorite: Parable of the Sower

• Honorable mention: Kindred

Dystopian fiction is one of my top genres, and all of the books by this author fall at least somewhat into this category. I actually struggled to decide if Parable of the Sower or Kindred was my favorite. Both are very dark and intense; Parable takes place in a future marked by anarchy and economic and environmental unrest, while Kindred involves a Black woman from 1976 unexpectedly traveling back in time to the antebellum South.

Books by Kristin Hannah

• Average page length: ~500 pages

• Genre: historical fiction

• My favorite: The Great Alone

• Honorable mention: The Four Winds

All of the works I’ve read by Hannah are historical fiction, but she has also written many works of more contemporary fiction. I enjoyed the first three books of hers that I read, but then I read The Women last summer, and I hated it. The parts that detailed aspects of the Vietnam War were fascinating and seemed to have been meticulously researched, but I found the main character intolerable. This made me sad because I’d consider The Great Alone one of my favorite long books, but after that last one, I honestly think I might be breaking up with Kristin Hannah as an author. I wish her all the best.

Books by Liane Moriarty

• Average page length: ~500 pages

• Genre: mystery/suspense in the context of contemporary fiction

• My favorite: Big Little Lies

• Honorable mention: What Alice Forgot

• On my TBR: Nine Perfect Strangers, Big Little Truths (releasing in August 2026)

I avoided Moriarty’s books for years because I thought they were so mainstream that I wouldn’t possibly like them (I know—I can be a book snob. I apologize.). During the pandemic when I was reading multiple books a week, I decided to binge read Big Little Lies and found myself completely entranced. I went on to read several more of her books. Her books usually center on family and marriage drama, but all of the ones I’ve read also contain plot twists that you don’t see coming.

In the process of making this post I discovered she has a sequel to BLL coming out in August, which I’m looking forward to!

Books by Ann Patchett

• Average page length: ~300 pages

• Genre: contemporary fiction

• My favorite: The Dutch House

• Honorable mention: Tom Lake

• On my TBR: Bel Canto

My first novel by Patchett was The Dutch House, and what a way to start. If you haven’t read it yet, I must recommend you listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by Tom Hanks. I realized while listening that I’d be content listening to Tom Hanks read a dishwasher instruction manual. Her books often feature complicated family dynamics that are extremely grounded in reality. I have enjoyed all the books by her that I’ve read, but still have many more to read!

Books by Blake Crouch

• Average page length: ~300 pages

• Genre: science fiction

• My favorite: The Wayward Pines Trilogy

• Honorable mention: Upgrade

• On my TBR: Dark Matter

The Wayward Pines Trilogy is one of my favorite book series, but Blake Crouch (no relation, sadly) has also written several other standalone novels as well as a series I haven’t read yet. His books are mostly science fiction, and some of them are very technical, so if you like “smart” books, you’ll love his books.21

(I actually think I have read Dark Matter, but my book spreadsheet does not list it, so I think maybe there is an error. If I did read it, though, I remember very little, so I plan to read it again.)

Books by Josh Malerman

• Average page length: ~275 pages

• Genre: literary fiction with a focus on adventure / environmental concerns

• My favorite: Bird Box

• Honorable mentions: Goblin, Inspection

Other than the last author on this list (who you might have already guessed), Josh Malerman is my favorite horror writer. His books are thick with plot and less focused on character development, but they are the perfect read for what I call “fall spooky season.” They are very much horror books, and while I can’t handle horror movies, my tolerance for horror books is pretty high. That’s not true for everyone, so proceed at your own risk. If you want to start with my favorite, consider listening to Bird Box as an audiobook. The premise of the book is that the monsters only act when you see them, so everyone wears blindfolds and has to move around only by hearing. Listening to it on audiobook makes the book even more terrifying.

Books by Fredrik Backman

• Average page length: ~400 pages

• Genre: contemporary fiction

• My favorite: A Man Called Ove

• Honorable mention: The Beartown series

I first read A Man Called Ove almost 10 years ago, and I was enamored. It wasn’t just the way the story wound around an old man and the family next door; it was the unique writing style and the way Backman told the story. All of his books that I’ve read are written in the same style, and if you love it, you love it. If you don’t like it, then you probably won’t like any of his books. I also love the Beartown series, which is about a sexual assault in a small town that is obsessed with hockey.

Books by John Grisham

• Average page length: ~450 pages

• Genre: legal thrillers with an occasional dose of historical fiction

• My favorite: Sooley

• Honorable mentions: A Time to Kill, The Boys from Biloxi, Framed (nonfiction), The Guardians

• On my TBR: The Innocent Man, A Painted House

John Grisham mainly writes about two things: legal matters and sports. Most of his books are about the former, but my favorite of his, Sooley, is about a teenage basketball player from South Sudan who comes to America. He co-wrote a nonfiction book called Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions that was one of my top nonfiction reads of 2024. His book The Guardians is a fiction book that involves a man who investigates wrongful convictions. While he is considered a mainstream (read: not that great) writer by many, I think his books are solid and I also respect him greatly for the work he’s done with organizations that seek justice for innocent men and women who have been incarcerated.

Books by Stephen King

• Average page length: varies widely!

• Genre: horror, mystery, post-apocalyptic fiction

• My favorite: The Stand

• Honorable mentions: The Dark Tower series, The Eyes of the Dragon, The Bill Hodges Trilogy

• On my TBR: the rest of his collection—a lifetime goal!

Did you guess correctly? I quizzed my husband as I was writing this, and he knew that Stephen King would be at the top, but he guessed that I had read about 30 of his books. I was surprised myself to see that I had read 45 of his books—and some of them, like The Dark Tower series, I’ve read more than once. I hadn’t read a single Stephen King book until I got married 17 years ago, and he has become one of my favorite authors. I first read The Stand, which is one of his longest books, and it checked every single box for me—a large cast of characters, a plague that decimates the population, a group of unlikely friends fighting for survival, and a spooky cult leader who is trying to take over the world. He’s not for everyone, but I’d say at least 10 of his books would make it into a list of my top 100 books of all time, were I to make such a list (*files it away for a future post*).

As I said above, my goal is to one day read all of his books, but in the meantime, I’m also hoping to write a post for those who want to dip their toes into the waters of Stephen King and aren’t sure where to start.

Not everyone keeps track of all the books they’ve read like I do, but even if your records are looser than mine, you might have an idea of the authors you’ve read the most. I’d love to know if we have any overlap; or, if not, who would make your list!

When people find out how much I read, the first question is usually, How do you find the time to read so much? The primary answer is that I listen to a lot of audiobooks, because the pace of my life does not allow for long periods of the extended reading of print books. But sometimes I find myself in a position to sit and read a book from cover to cover over the course of a day. This almost always happens while traveling or while on vacation—our kids are old enough now that I can usually read while supervising them doing their own thing.

As summer approaches and you might find yourself traveling, here are three books that were not only so gripping that I didn’t want to put them down, but that are also relatively short (300 pages or less). Even if you can’t finish them in one day, they will still be quick reads!

The Boys by Katie Hafner

As I did in preparation for the trip I’ve been on this week, before a vacation a few years ago I walked through the library shelves and grabbed several books that jumped out to me, knowing nothing about them. I read this book in 2023, and it was one of the first novels I read that incorporated Covid and the ensuing lockdowns as a plot point in the story. It is about a struggling couple, a trip to Italy, and a surprising bike ride.

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

This was a pre-vacation library pick from a different vacation. I picked this one up before a summer beach trip with my mom in 2024. It was the first extended time I was going to be away from my family since our youngest was born in 2020, and I couldn’t wait to sit on the beach and read an entire book in one sitting. This was the first one I read that week, and it was the definition of a page-turner. I don’t usually tend toward the more popular psychological thrillers, because I have often found them disappointing, but I was pleasantly (disturbingly) surprised with this one.

The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy by Tia Levings

Unlike the other two, I did actually listen to this one on audiobook, but it was still all in one day! I listened to this one last summer on one of the first days all my kids were back at school. I was trying to create a sense of order in our home after a busy summer, so I stuck my eardbuds in and turned this on. I listened all day as I caught up on laundry, decluttered my kids’ rooms, and cleaned the bathrooms. This is a nonfiction memoir about a woman who grew up in fundamentalist churches and ended up in an abusive marriage. Her perspective on her story was fascinating, and the story of how she escaped her marriage was harrowing.

This week on my trip, I’ve been able to start and finish two books over the course of three days. It wasn’t quite one day each, but the feeling of a good binge read is a special kind of dopamine boost. There’s no prize in finishing a book quickly, and sometimes books deserve to be read slowly and thoughtfully. But some books are begging to be consumed whole! I’d love to know…

• if you’ve ever finished a book in one day or one sitting;

• or if the idea of trying to do so is anathema to you;

• a short book you’d recommend for my next binge read

Happy reading!

I love big books and I cannot lie. There is nothing like diving into a sweeping family saga or an epic world-building novel and getting lost in it. But not everyone has the time or wants to commit to a really long books like the ones I mentioned in my post 25 Books Worth Reading that are 600 Pages or Longer. The good news is that there are many other great books that are long-ish, but not quite that long.

Here are 15 fiction books that are between 400 and 600 pages long. I’ve divided them into five loose categories: horror, page-turners, character-driven, plot-driven, and science fiction. I think there’s something here for everyone.

Pet Sematary by Stephen King

I’m starting off with a bang by mentioning a book that is most certainly not for everyone, but that I loved and was one of my first Stephen King books. Trigger warnings abound (child death, supernatural stuff, violence), but if you’re a horror fan, this is a great option. Additionally, the audiobook is narrated by Michael Hall of Dexter fame, so if you want double the horror, choose the audio version.

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

This was my first Grady Hendrix book and it is absurd, bizarre, weird, and kind of violent. It’s about a group of women in Charleston, South Carolina, who meet a vampire and then have to figure out what to do about him (the title gives you a guess as to what they determine). It’s set in the real world and yet also transcends reality in a way that I found really entertaining. Having lived in South Carolina for more than two decades, I loved recognizing the places mentioned in the book.

Hendrix has written many other books, including The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House, and Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, all of which 'I’ve read, but this is the only one that got five stars.

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

I haven’t found many American writers who can compete with Scandinavian/Nordic writers when it comes to murder thrillers. (I’m looking at you, Stieg Larsson). This book is about a serial killer who leaves small dolls made out of chestnuts (which apparently abound in Denmark) at the scenes of the crimes. Two detectives are racing against the clock to try to find the killer before more children disappear.

These three books are all about as propulsive as the previous three, but they aren’t quite as intense or violent.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

I had long felt Moriarty’s books were so popular that they couldn’t possibly be that good (behold my book snobbery). I repented of my opinion once I read this book. Every plot twist was a complete surprise; the dialogue was punchy and smart; I had no idea what was going to happen next. I loved it. Most of Moriarty’s books fall in the 400-600 page range. Other ones I’ve enjoyed are What Alice Forgot and Apples Never Fall.

State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

Yes, this book was written by a former First Lady and the author of the Inspector Gamache series (which I mentioned in my post on 13 of the best book series ever). I don’t know how these two got connected, but together I think they wrote a pretty good book. This is a political thriller that spans the globe and felt a little too familiar.

Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka

I first saw the movie Bullet Train before I realized it was a book. Whenever that happens, if I enjoy the movie, I usually try the book, because committed readers know the book is almost always better. This was a high bar for the book to meet, because I loved the movie, but the book delivered. It’s basically a Japanese iteration of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express—people on a train start dying, and you get to watch how the other people on the train try to figure out what’s going on.

I struggled a bit with categorizing the 15 books into subjective categories, but I think this one holds. All three of these books are not necessarily page-turners, but you get immersed in the lives of one or two people, and before long you’ll be happy to live there with them.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

I don’t know why it took me so long to read this book. I have always loved Russian history, and yet I put this book off for years. It begins in the early 20th century with a man who has been confined to live in a hotel in Moscow essentially under house arrest by the Bolsheviks. The book spans decades and it sucked me in like I could not believe. The relationships between the hotel patrons, the descriptions of the food, the shenanigans the characters get up to… It is rare that a book makes me cry, but this was one of them. (I also liked Towles’ Rules of Civility.)

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This book covers the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s, a historical context with which I was largely unfamiliar. This was a painful and uncomfortable read, but one that I was glad that I read at the same time. The characters are real and their relationships struck me as realistic. I haven’t read her most recent book, I Have Some Questions for You, but it’s on my TBR.

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

This book is about an immigrant couple who move to New York from Africa in the 2000s. The husband gets a job driving for an executive at Lehman Brothers, right before the 2008 crash. They are faced with the reality (or not) of the American dream. It’s an honest look at marriage, culture, and disillusionment. I also enjoyed her more recent book, How Beautiful We Were.

These are three immersive books that do have good character development but that are more plot-driven than the previous three. They also exist in unique historical moments and movements, all of which I found added so much to each novel.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

I hadn’t read a book by Kingsolver since I read The Poisonwood Bible in high school. When I learned this book took place in Appalachia, which is where my husband grew up, I knew I had to read it. This is a difficult read full of trigger warnings, and a friend recently said he didn’t enjoy it. I can’t say I enjoyed it, because it was very dark, but from what my husband has shared about where he grew up, I think it was an accurate portrayal of what many people have experienced.

The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham

I think I began reading books by John Grisham in middle school (my parents did not screen the books I read), and I’ve been a fan ever since, even if they’re somewhat mainstream. No, they’re not Pulitzer-Prize winning novels, but they are interesting and fun to read. This is a newer one that spans decades from World War II to the present day. It includes harrowing descriptions of the Bataan Death March and also involves the law as a profession, organized crime, and insurance injustices. What more could you want?

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

I have read most of Kristin Hannah’s recent books, including The Nightingale, The Four Winds, and The Women, all of which are between 400 and 600 pages. This is by far my favorite and the one I’d start with if you’ve never read anything by her. It takes place in Alaska, and I never thought I’d want to go to Alaska until I read this book. You get to know a family that has just moved there and is trying to get settled. As time goes on, cracks in the family are revealed and the daughter in particular has to figure out how to make a life in an unforgiving place.

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

I first saw the movie by the same name before I realized it was a book. I am a big fan of post-apocalyptic environmental / disease disaster scenarios and this is a very unique one. There is also a sequel called The Boy on the Bridge.

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

The movie is as classic, but the book is the real page-turner. Much like the movies, the second one is fine but nowhere near as good as the first.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I actually had this book on this list long before the movie came out, but the recent movie should only provide more encouragement to read it. I loved the book and loved the movie, even though there are differences. I think this is the best of Weir’s three books, although I also loved The Martian. Artemis is fine. (Both of these are a lot shorter than PHM).

I’d love to know your favorite long-ish books — and if you’ve read any of these! I’m hard at work coming up with another list of my favorite nonfiction books in this category, so if you’re not already subscribed, go ahead and do so!

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Of course, I have virtually unlimited access to audiobooks through the library, so I could always just check another one out. But I particularly love reading print books on vacation because it’s something I find difficult to do in my normal life at home. And thus every out-of-town trip becomes a challenge as I try to fit as many books as I possibly can into my bag (made easier on a car trip than a plane trip).

This trip consists of a 7+ hour car ride each way, plus three full days and four nights with no plans. I used this information to calculate how many books I should bring, using Official Book Math. I determined I needed at least five books.

Over the past few weeks, whenever I go to the library, I have checked out a few books that looked interesting and made a pile. This morning I went through the pile and chose four library books plus the book I bought this past week at a local bookstore. I will almost certainly not read all of these, but look at all the options I have!

How do I choose books to read right off the shelf without any background research? This is part of the fun for me. That said, I was familiar with three out of the four authors of the library books I chose, so it didn’t feel like I was going in blind.

Escape!: A Novel by Stephen Fishbach

This one caught my eye when I was browsing the new releases shelf at the library. A former reality show winner is looking to revitalize his life and so ends up on another reality show. This new show, though, is more than just contestants competing against each other—even the show’s producer has her own stake in how she wants the show to turn out. This felt like it would be a fun vacation read, and it was endorsed on the back by the author of Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV, which I read last year and really enjoyed.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

I have read one other book by McBride, Deacon King Kong, and enjoyed it, so this one has been on my mental TBR for a long time. I remember trying the audiobook a few years ago and not being able to get into it. I am guessing it was just my mood at the time and I think having the print book in front of me will help me to focus better.

This is Happiness by Niall Williams

The first person I saw recommend this book was , and while I don’t know how much our reading tastes overlap, her description of how the book affected her made me file the title away in my mind. Then, last week, while browsing a local bookstore and trying to find one book to purchase for myself as a birthday present, I saw this book. I had a few other books in hand to decide between but ended up on choosing this one. I expect it to be a slow burn of a read, perfect for lazy reading on vacation. I also expect I may want to do some highlighting.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

My goal is to one day say I’ve read all of Stephen King’s books, so every time I go to the library I see if they have any on the shelf that I haven’t read yet. I can always put some on hold through the interlibrary loan system, but my goal is more casual for now, so I have been letting myself be at the mercy of our small library’s selection. I don’t enjoy sports and don’t care about baseball, but this book was only 132 pages long, so I grabbed it and definitely think I can finish it on the trip. Knowing how King writes, my guess is that it’s not just about baseball.

Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones

I have been wanting to read a book by Toni Morrison, so I ventured down the aisle of African-American fiction at our library (which, to my shame, I did not know existed until this week). They didn’t have any books by Morrison, but they did have several by Tayari Jones. She just came out with a new book called Kin that I’ve been interested to read, but, alas, they only had her backlist books on the shelf. I chose this one that takes place during the Atlanta child murders in the 1970s. (I have already read her book An American Marriage.)

In addition to these five books, I also already have a fiction book on my Kindle that I’ve started as well as an audiobook and a book on spiritual authority that I’ve been reading in the mornings while I drink coffee. All of these will also be traveling with me next week, so stay tuned to the end of the month to see if I actually managed to finish all eight of them!

If you were going on a five day trip that included 15 hours in the car, how many books would YOU pack? Tell me I’m not alone!

We’re a quarter of the way through the year, and while I read fewer books this month than I did in January and February, I hit my 50th book on March 31st, which means I’m on track to read 200 books by the end of the year.

Who is forcing you to read that many books, Chelsey? The answer is—no one! I love to read and it’s really fun for me to have a big goal. Last year, my goal was 200 and I read almost 180. It didn’t bother me that I didn’t hit 200. I still read dozens of incredible books and was exposed to so many stories and ideas and so much knowledge. Trying to read that many books is what helps me come up with carefully curated lists on a wide variety of topics. It brings me great joy.

This month I read a mixture of fiction (4 books), nonfiction (6 books), and spiritual (5 books). About half were print (7 books) and half were audiobooks (8 books). No Kindle books this month!

📗 FICTION | The Names by Florence Knapp

I flew through this book. That narration was wonderful, the basis of the book was unique, and the depiction of domestic abuse was heartwrenching. The premise of the book is that a mother goes to register her baby’s name, but the book looks at three different names she might give her baby and the consequences of choosing each name. There is a chapter for each name every seven years, rotating between the three of them. This is a heavy book and might be too much for some people, but it will probably end up being one of my favorite books of the year.

📗 NONFICTION | Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

I bought a print copy of this book because I’d heard such great things about it and figured I’d do a lot of highlighting. This was by far the funniest book I’ve read in a long time, which I did not expect from a book on writing. While I haven’t really ventured into trying to write fiction, which is what she mostly talks about, the principles in this book were still relevant. I know this is a book I’ll be revisiting in the future.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Faithful God: The Wisdom of God’s Sovereignty in the Book of Ruth by Sinclair Ferguson

I’m slowly working my way through every book Dr. Sinclair Ferguson has ever read. If you are a Christian who wants to grow in your knowledge of Scripture and how to apply it to your life, I cannot commend his books enough. This is a chapter by chapter study on the book of Ruth, and I found it hugely encouraging.

📗 NONFICTION | Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer

This book covers a culture of serial rape at a college in Montana. The background of this book is horrific and the failures of the justice system are horrific. The fact that the female defense lawyer who helped multiple guilty male college students avoid punishment served as the county attorney for more than a decade after these trials is beyond me.

📗 NONFICTION | One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

This book might be controversial to some, but it was one I kept seeing referenced and the audiobook was only 5 hours long. It is basically an extended essay on the aftermath of the Palestinian attack on Israel several years ago. Regardless of your politics and your opinion on the Palestine/Israel situation, the author has some really compelling things to say about the humanitarian crisis in Palestine. I always find it good for me to read books by people who are very different from me and with whom I may end up disagreeing. It has only helped me be able to put myself in someone else’s shoes.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Deserted by God: Understanding the Ways of God Through the Experiences of the Psalmists by Sinclair Ferguson

I’ve read this book before, but it remains one of my top recommendations for any Christian who is struggling with any kind of suffering.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Is It Abuse?: A Biblical Guide to Identifying Domestic Abuse and Helping Victims by Darby Strickland

This was my final read of the month. I finished it up on March 31st. I have been privileged to be a helper to more than one woman who was experiencing domestic abuse, and because of its prevalence, I anticipate I will experience that more in the future. This book is a compassionate, thorough, and informative guide to any Christian who truly wants to help suffering women and children. It is also an excellent resource for a church that wants to grow in how to help victims.

📗 FICTION | Heart the Lover by Lily King

This book has been all over Substack, and I’d never read anything by the author, so decided to give her most recent book a try. I enjoyed this book. It did not blow my mind.

📗 FICTION | The Long Walk by Stephen King

No relation to Lily King, Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. I think I might have read this book a decade ago but did not remember how it ended, so I decided to read it again in case we decided to watch the new movie. This might be one of the most gratuitously violent of King’s books, and I have read many of them. While the concept is interesting, it would be tough for me to recommend it.

📗 NONFICTION | Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

I mentioned in my March Dispatches from the Dopamine Den that I watched the Jeffrey Epstein documentary after reading this book. I went into this book not knowing who Virginia was or that she was connected at all to Epstein. The story of her childhood and her experiences with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell are truly some of the most disturbing things I’ve ever heard. One of my close friends also read it and we agreed we were glad we read it, although there were parts of the story related to her marriage that we had questions about.

📗 SPIRITUAL | Created to Care: God’s Truth for Anxious Moms by Sara Wallace

This book would be perfect for any Christian mom of young kids. I wish it had been around when my kids were younger. When I was finished, I passed it on to another mom at church!

📗 SPIRITUAL | Consider Your Counsel: Addressing Ten Mistakes in Our Biblical Counseling by Bob Kellemen

I’m always looking for ways to improve how I can encourage and counsel the women in my life, and this was a short book with a lot of great tips.

📗 FICTION | Audition by Katie Kitamura

This book falls into the genre of experimental fiction, and I think I am learning that I don’t enjoy experimental fiction. I still don’t really know what this book was about.

📗 NONFICTION | That’s a Great Question, I’d Love to Tell You: A Funny, Awkward, and Deeply Human Collection of Stories About Love, Anxiety, and Self-Acceptance by Elyse Myers

I really wanted to like this one. I have been aware of Elyse Myers for years, and I often find her takes on things to be really funny. However, a whole book of Elyse Myers was too much for me. Her absurd sense of humor started to grate on me, and her usually endearing self-deprecation started to feel self-serving.

📗 NONFICTION | Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America by Bridget Read

This could have been a 4-star read, as it was fascinating to hear about the history of multi-level marketing. For example, I had no idea that the father of former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was the co-founder of Amway. The reason it got knocked a star is because there were several times when I felt the author misrepresented certain ideas.

Books Abandoned

This was a risky month for audiobooks. I abandoned seven. I haven’t been keeping track of this for long, but it felt like much more than usual.

📙 Exiles by Mason Coile | This book was about space. I need to remember that I don’t usually like books set in space.

📙 Orbital by Samantha Harvey | Space again.

📙 Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor | I restarted this audiobook three times before I gave up. It is a story about an author, and a book she is writing is part of the book (very meta), and the going back and forth between the two stories was just too much on audio.

📙 You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate | A bunch of people were talking about this, and I love memoirs, but I got turned off pretty quickly with the amount of expletives and obscene language. Growing up, we weren’t even allowed to use the word fart, so when I am continually hearing the actual F-word being used repeatedly, it gives me continuous nervous twitches.

📙 Razorblade Tears by S.A. Crosby | I didn’t know what this was about until after I started it. As I have said before, while I do read vary widely, I don’t usually stick with books where LGBTQ+ issues are the main plot point.

📙 Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser | In an alternate timeline I think I’d have enjoyed this.

📙 A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir by Colin Jost | Once again, I usually love memoirs. Someone told me this book was hilarious. It was funny, but not as funny as I had hoped, and since I’m not a huge SNL fan, it didn’t feel worth it.

Books Purchased

I have tried to set a moratorium on buying books, even great Kindle deals, because I already have so many books I want to read. Alas, I did still purchase two Kindle books. But next month I definitely WON’T.

📘 Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll | My husband grew up in Appalachia, so I gravitate toward books that can help me understand Appalachian culture better.

📘 The Creaking on the Stairs: Finding Faith in God Through Childhood Abuse by Mez McConnell | My husband greatly respects McConnell and his ministry, so I’m eager to read this memoir.

Books Continuing

This is the third month many of these books have been on this list. I’ll say it again this month: I want to finish The Wingfeather Saga book in April!

📖 52 Weeks in the Word: A Companion for Reading Through the Bible in a Year by Trillia Newbell (using to stay accountable to Scripture reading)

📖 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (long-term classic)

📖 How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (personal development)

📖 On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga #1) by Andrew Peterson (reading out loud to my kids)—We will finish this in April if it’s the last thing we do!

2026 Reading Goals Check-In

This year, I set a list of goals I wanted to try to meet each month. So far I’m hitting about 50-60%. I’m not sure having these goals is actually motivating me to try to meet them. The ones I am meeting, I’m not doing because they’re my goals. I may ditch this for the rest of the year.

• 🎯 3 spiritual books (I read 5!)

• ❌ a classic

• 🎯 a book published before 1986 (The Long Walk)

• 🎯 a physical TBR book (Is It Abuse?, Bird by Bird, and Consider Your Counsel)

• ❌ a Kindle TBR book

• 🎯 book by a BIPOC author (Audition)

• ❌ 17 books total

That’s it for March. I’m just starting two books and I have four books checked out from the library, as well as at least three audiobooks on deck on Libby. Not to mention the stack next to my reading chair and the 20+ books I have on my Kindle. I heard that there were more than 4 million books published in 2025. We’re never going to catch up. We just have to keep reading what we can. Happy reading, friends!

In general, I do mostly write about books, with some personal essays scattered throughout. If you’re not interested in reading this post, that’s totally fine. May I suggest one of my previous posts about books to read while you wait for the next one?

• 25 Books Worth Reading that are 600 Pages or Longer

• 18 Incredible Nonfiction Books about Catastrophic Historical Events

• My Top 15 New-to-Me Fiction Reads of 2025

On April 1st, you’ll get a round-up of all the books I read in March, so you can look forward to that. In the meantime, please leave a comment and introduce yourself or reply to this email!

The shelves in the Dopamine Den got a spring refresh this month when I pulled out some of my favorite little bird figurines.

Life Updates

Newer readers may not know that my husband is a master at gardening.1 Throughout the year, he tends our front and back yards in such a way that there is always something interesting to look at. Our redbud tree was the first big pop of color after a gray winter, and it brought me joy every time I stepped out the front door.

The month started out with our second annual church women’s retreat. We rented a large house on the coast, about an hour away, and 16 ladies gathered together to sing, pray, play games, eat, and learn what the Bible says about prayer. It was a joy to organize this and I was also very glad when it was over, because it consumed my life for the weeks leading up to it.

Part of the reason why it consumed so much time was that I decided I needed to design print materials for the retreat, which no one asked for or expected. I really enjoyed this, though, and now that I’ve done them once, maybe it won’t take me as long next year. Pictured above is the folder that everyone got in their “swag bags,” which also included a Psalms journal and treats.

A mere two days after the retreat, we had to say goodbye to our dog, Neyland. I wrote about him last week. It was very sudden and hit me much harder than I expected it to. I’m still not used to him not being in our home.

It was a real rollercoaster of a month, though, because our youngest son turned 6! He was only ten days old when we moved to Georgia, so every year his birthday also commemorates another year in this place we have come to call home. We had a family birthday dinner at home with an ice cream cake made by my amazing mother-in-law, and we also celebrated at the park with his friends. The park party also included a visit by a snake named Clarice who belongs to a friend from church, because the ONE THING Noah wanted at his party was for there to be a reptile. I have no pictures of this for obvious reasons.

Christian and I went to our first wedding in a long time, and the first one he hasn’t officiated in an even longer time. It was a free date night in downtown Savannah at a beautiful venue.

Another big moment this month was a hike I went on with the kids at a state park. We had to drop our second son off for a Scouts campout, and so I decided the little kids and I would explore. We ended up walking a mile out and a mile back, which may not sound like much, but it was the farthest I have walked without pain in more than 18 months. The Lord has been so kind to give me a wonderful doctor who didn’t stop trying to figure out how to get me to a place of being pain-free. He’s also been kind not to let me fall into a pit of despair at not being able to exercise by walking or running.

We celebrated my 40th birthday 10 days late with an excursion fitting for people our age: we walked around Costco, walked around a bookstore, ate at a restaurant, got ice cream at Culver’s, went to the movies, and then came home and went to bed. I’ll share more about the movie in a minute!

Our month had a delightful ending with a visit from some friends we have known for more than a decade. Christian and Steve went to seminary together in the early 2010s, and they have stayed in touch ever since. Christian and Steve have hung out over Zoom for years as part of a study group, but they hadn’t seen each other in person since 2014. They planned an anniversary trip to Savannah so they could come to our church and take us to lunch. What a gift.

Watched

When I looked at the list I was keeping of everything our family had watched this month, it made me feel like we watch way too much television. You are free to think this as well, but in our defense, watching shows is how Christian and I enjoy spending our infrequent quiet nights during the week as well as our weekly date night.

What We Saw at the Theater

Going to the movies for my birthday was a very special treat, on account of the fact that it costs approximately $857 to go to the movies now and we also have to feed six people three meals a day, including two man-children. We usually go to the movies once, as a family, on Thanksgiving Day. (This last year was rare in that I saw all three Lord of the Rings with our oldest son at the theater.) When I realized Project Hail Mary would be out in time for us to go as part of our date, I was thrilled. I loved the book but was worried the movie won’t live up to how much I loved the book. I’m so glad to say that the movie was fantastic. I was spellbound; Ryan Gosling was amazing; seeing it on the big screen was immersive.

What I Watched By Myself

I don’t watch a ton of things by myself, but when I do, it’s usually in the background when I’m working on a mindless task.

🎥 Eddington (HBO Max)—Last year on my birthday I began a tradition of watching a movie by myself while the kids were at school. I watched The Unbreakable Weight of Massive Talent at the recommendation of a friend. This friend was trying to convince me that Nicolas Cage is a good actor. I just watched the movie for Pedro, and when I saw he was in a new movie about a small town during the pandemic, I was all in. This movie starts out relatively tame and then in the last third comes completely unhinged. I enjoyed it, but it is not for everyone.

🎥 The Alabama Solution (HBO Max)—This popped up as something “I might like,” and because it had been nominated for an Oscar, it seemed worth watching. It is a documentary about incarcerated men in prisons in Alabama. You will not come out of watching this with a high opinion of Alabama lawmakers (for example, in a hearing, one of them says that it would be better if anyone who commits a crime was executed immediately.). This is a sad documentary, but if you’ve read The New Jim Crow it will have some similar themes and I think it’s an important thing to be aware of.

📺 Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (Netflix)—You’ll see in my March reads (coming out Wednesday) that I read a book written by a victim of Jeffrey Epstein this month. I honestly haven’t paid all that much attention to the Epstein situation other than to be concerned at the number of high profile people who were apparently named in the files. This documentary has four episodes and tells the whole sordid story of just some of the horrific things Epstein did as well as the people who were complicit in him continuing to cause harm. It is dark. I found it filled in some pieces that were missing from the book I read.

What I Watched with Christian

As I said above, watching stuff together is one of our preferred activities. We do have conversations and connect in other ways throughout the week, but this is our favorite way to relax on the occasional nights we’re both home for more than one hour before I crash at 10 p.m.

📺 Mob War: Philadelphia vs. the Mafia (Netflix)—Who doesn’t love a good documentary about the mob? This was fine, something entertaining, but not one of the most interesting ones we’ve watched.

📺 Sean Combs: The Reckoning (Netflix)—Neither Christian nor I knew much about Combs and his recent legal issues, so we are currently watching through this together. So far I’m not finding Puff Daddy to be an upstanding dude.

📺 The Pitt—Season 2 (HBO Max)—All the episodes aren’t out yet but we are now caught up to the most recent episode. I love this show!

📺 Neighbors (HBO Max)—I was surprised Christian wanted to watch this, as it borders on reality television, which he hates. Each episode highlights two arguments between neighbors about mostly insane things. There was only one episode where we felt any sympathy toward even one of the litigants. Most of the stories take place in Florida and Texas—enough said.

📺 A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO Max)—We binged the first season of this over the course of a few nights and loved it. It almost (almost) made us want to go back and watch Game of Thrones. For an HBO show, it is relatively tame (though there are a few incidents of male frontal nudity—literally no one wants to see that). The child actor in the show is wonderful.

What We Watched as a Family

We try to have a family movie night every week, but it doesn’t always happen. Recently we have been watching through all the movies in the Jurassic Park franchise. We had already watched Jurassic World and Jurassic Park coming into this month. Only two more movies left to go!

🎥 The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Netflix)—This movie was fine. Jeff Goldblum’s character is great.

🎥 Jurassic Park III (rented on YouTube)—We watched this a couple weeks ago and I can’t even remember what happened.

🎥 Jurassic World Dominion (Netflix)—Christian misheard me and pulled this one up on Netflix instead of the next one in the series (Fallen Kingdom) but I didn’t notice at first because I did not enjoy this movie at all. Now we have to go back and watch Fallen Kingdom and then watch the most recent release, Jurassic World Rebirth.

📺 Bluey—assorted episodes (Disney+)—On my birthday, Christian picked up pizza and the kids asked if we could watch a show. It was my choice, so I chose random episodes of Bluey. Our big boys may pretend like they don’t still like it, but they do.

What the Kids Watched

The two younger kids (ages 6 and 8) usually watch something while eating breakfast on school mornings. This is a habit that I have allowed because my brain is dead at that time of day (6:45-7:15 a.m.). They went through a long period of re-watching Gravity Falls and Big City Greens episodes that they’d already seen multiple times, and then they began to argue about which episode to watch. One morning, though, they decided on their own to start a movie and watch 20 minutes of it. This has eliminated arguments and I’ve actually enjoyed rewatching some of these in the background while I’m packing lunches and making breakfast.

🎥 Wreck-It Ralph (Disney+)—If someone pressed me to name my favorite animated movie, it might be this one. Our boys went through a long Ralph obsession when they were younger and now our younger two have also watched it multiple times. I’ve probably seen it 20 times, and I still love it.

🎥 Ralph Breaks the Internet (Disney+)—The second movie is not nearly as good as the first one, but it does have a lot of fun Easter eggs and nods to the Internet and Disney as a brand.

🎥 Coraline (The Roku Channel)—This is a very creepy movie, but my kids have me as a mom, and they both love Halloween, so this movie does not weird them out. I think it would have weirded out our older boys at this age, but they hadn’t been exposed to as much weird stuff.

🎥 Zootopia 2 (Disney+)—Zoe was thrilled when they finally put this on Disney+ because I had refused to purchase it for $29.99 on Amazon Prime. We saw this as a family at Thanksgiving, and even though one of the main characters is a snake, it did not bother me (animated snakes are less triggering).

🎥 Inside Out 2 (Disney+)—I still think the first movie is better, but as sequels go, this is a solid addition to the Disney collection.

🎥 Up (Disney+)—I had forgotten how wonderful this movie is. No notes.

📺 Dug Days (Disney+)—These are a series of short episodes based on the dog from Up. I laughed out loud. It also almost made me cry as it made me think about our dog and consider if these were the same kinds of thoughts going through his head.

ICYMI

Here are all the posts from this month in case you missed any of them!

📝 Chelsey’s February 2026 Reads | 18 Books

📝 Chelsey Recommends | Anxiety and Depression Resources

📝 40 Years of Frowning Providences and Clouds of Mercy

📝 Neyland Hank Crouch, 2014(?)-2026 | In Memoriam

📝 13 of the Best Book Series Ever (Some You’ve Heard of; Some You Haven’t)

From the Archives

This post of some of my favorite nonfiction books remains one of the most visited posts on my Substack. If you missed it, check it out before it goes behind the paywall at the end of April!

In Closing

The post I published on my birthday was my 100th post on my Substack. I didn’t realize that until I published my 101st post, but I still want to commemorate it. I really didn’t think I’d stick with this for more than a year, and yet I can’t quantify how much joy it has brought me to engage with my subscribers and others who stumble across my writing. I hope to keep talking about books and other assorted things for a long time to come.

As we move into April, I’ve got a long list in my notebook of post ideas: best memoirs, books about cults, clean books about relationship dynamics, the next post in the story of how Christian and I met… I hope you’ll stick around.

I think some of the first books I ever read as a child were part of a series, and there really is nothing more exciting than finishing a good book and knowing there is another book to follow in the series. Writers who can create a world full of characters that we want to spend additional books with are unique, and some of my favorite books of all time exist within the context of larger book series.

I looked back through all the books I’ve ever read and chose 13 of the best book series ever, in my opinion. Even as I worked on this list, I realized there were so many others I could have added to this list: Game of Thrones, How to Train Your Dragon, Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and more. Maybe one day I’ll do a part two, but for now, here are 13 series I’ve loved. I’m including links to the first book, details about the series, my favorite books in many of the series, and other related books or series if you’ve already read some of these. For some of the series, I’ll also include relevant trigger warnings.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

• Books in series: 3

• Still publishing: NO

• First book in the series: The Fellowship of the Ring

• Other related books or series: The Hobbit, The Silmarillion

• Chelsey’s favorite: The Return of the King

This is my favorite book series of all time, and if you have never read these three books, I suggest you skip the rest of this post and go ahead and get started. I reread The Lord of the Rings last year and was reminded afresh of how much I love these books, these characters, this world. Good and evil are at odds, and evil sometimes seems to prevail, but in the end, all things are made right. Even if you’re not someone who generally enjoys the fantasy genre (which includes me), you should read these books.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

• Books in series: 7

• First book in the series: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe1

• Still publishing: NO

• Chelsey’s favorite: The Silver Chair

If hobbits and orcs are not your thing, here is a slightly less intense fantasy series. I also reread this series last year, and I appreciated them more as an adult than I did as a child. Lewis has a way of saying true and important things without hitting you over the head with them, and like Tolkien, he weaves an epic battle of good and evil throughout the books.

The Dark Tower by Stephen King

• Books in series: 7

• First book in the series: The Gunslinger

• Still publishing: NO

• Other related books or series: The Wind Through the Keyhole, The Eyes of the Dragon2

• Chelsey’s favorite: Wizard and Glass

• Trigger warnings: some sexual content, a lot of death, supernatural elements

I have read this series at least three times. The first book is the worst of all of them, and I think a lot of people get stuck there and give up. Keep going. Once the Gunslinger meets Eddie and Susannah and the trio (ka-tet) begin their adventure to save the entire world from the Crimson King, you will want to go with them. A few years ago Christian and I were working through a book of questions and one was, if you could meet any book character in real life, who would it be? I chose Roland Deschain, the tragic hero of these books.

The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan

• Books in series: 12

• First book in the series: The Ruins of Gorlan

• Still publishing: NO3

• Other related books or series: The Royal Ranger series, The Brotherband Chronicles series, The Early Years series

My older boys actually read this series first, during the beginning of the pandemic when we first moved to Georgia. They then proceeded to read and re-read it again and again. Finally I decided I should see what all the fuss was about. I was delighted to find that this was a family-friendly, exhilarating series of books that I found just as exciting as my boys did. Best of all, the characters are continuing to go on adventures! The original series is complete, but the author has gone on to write several spin-off series (that I have not read, but my boys have enjoyed). The main character, Will, is the kind of teenage boy I think most moms would love for their sons to emulate.

Red Rising Saga by Pierce Brown

• Books in series: 6

• First book in the series: Red Rising

• Still publishing: YES (the 7th and final book, Red God, is expected to release later this year)

• Triggering warnings: In addition to lots of people getting killed, the books get more intense and “adult” as they go on. I’d let my teenagers read the first three but would probably stop them there.

Whenever I hear that a guy is wanting to get into reading or back into reading, this is my first recommendation. I also very much enjoyed it as a girl, but the propulsive yet intricate plot and extensive world-building make it a great way to dive into fiction. On a surface level this series is similar to Hunger Games: people are divided into class-based factions, and the higher factions abuse and enslave the lower factions. One young man ascends the class system and becomes a competitor in an event where teenagers from different planets compete against each other.

Wayward Pines by Blake Crouch

• Books in series: 3

• First book in the series: Pines

• Still publishing: NO

• Trigger warnings: death

I ran across this series accidentally during the early days of the pandemic when I had a newborn and the library was closed. I was able to get these on my Kindle and read through all three over just a few days. It’s a series that starts with a group of people who seem like they live in a pretty ordinary place where strange things sometimes happen. Before the first book ends, the veil has been lifted and you realize what’s actually going on.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

• Books in series: 3

• First book in the series: The Passage

• Still publishing: NO

• Trigger warnings: death, supernatural elements

This might be my favorite contemporary series of all time. I mentioned The Passage in my post about 25 very long books and that’s because this is such an interesting post apocalyptic premise. Justin Cronin’s writing has a lot of similarities with Stephen King and the expansive world he builds in this series continues to surprise you as you read. I have a particular love of zombie books and the premise of a group of people holing up and defending themselves against a massive horde of human-consuming monsters, and this series delivers on that.

The First Formic War by Orson Scott Card

• Books in series: 3

• First book in the series: Earth Unaware

• Still publishing: NO

• Other related books or series: The Ender Quintet series4, The Shadow Saga series, The Second Formic War series

• Trigger warnings: death

I read Ender’s Game and the two books following it first, and then I found out the author had written other series set in the same world. The First Formic War explains how the “aliens” from Ender’s Game end up as enemies of the human race. You don’t have to have read Ender’s Game to enjoy this series; it stands alone just fine. If you like smart science fiction, try this series.

The Bill Hodges Trilogy by Stephen King

• Books in series: 3

• First book in the series: Mr. Mercedes

• Still publishing: NO

• Other related books or series: The Outsider, If It Bleeds (novella), Holly, Never Flinch5

• Trigger warnings: mass casualty event, murder, death, supernatural elements, gun violence

This series is what I consider a gateway drug into Stephen King. I know many people think of The Shining and think all of his books are spooky and supernatural. I recommend this series to King n00bs because it is mostly a straightforward detective series. Things eventually do get a little spooky, but it’s mostly just ordinary good guys against a very extraordinary bad guy. Fun fact: King never intended Holly, who ends up working with Bill Hodges in the first book, to become a main character. But her character development in this series led him to continue writing books about her.

Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelita by Tony Hillerman and Anne Hillerman

• Books in series: 28

• First book in the series: The Blessing Way

• Still publishing: YES (Anne Hillerman’s 11th book, Bloodline, is set to release in April 2027)

Full disclosure: I have only read 3 of the 28 books in this series, but everything I’ve seen says that the series only continues to get better. I plan to eventually work my way through all of them. The setting of these is in the western United States on a Navajo reservation. The books are full of information about Navajo culture without appropriating it, and at their heart they are smart whodunnit books with a captivating main character, Joe Leaphorn (in later books, other detectives show up).

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache by Louise Penny

• Books in series: 20

• First book in the series: Still Life

• Still publishing: YES (book #21, Miss Wolcott’s Ghost, comes out in October 2026)

• Chelsey’s favorites: The Brutal Telling and How the Light Gets In

• Trigger warnings: death/murder, many other crimes

I discovered this series in 2019 and within a year had read the first 15 books. At book 16, I was reading the books as she released them, and she usually releases a new one each year. Lesser writers would likely produce subpar work if they had to publish a novel each year, but Ms. Penny continues to write deeply compassionate and intense books about one of my favorite book characters, Chief Inspector Gamache. These are not thrillers and they are not cozy mysteries, but something in between. People die and there are very intense scenes, but there is nothing sexual or graphically violent. What I love most about this series is how much you come to know and love the central characters, many of whom live in the little Canadian town of Three Pines. As the series progresses, the story moves outside of Three Pines (only so many people can get murdered in a small town) and onto national and global stages.

The first book is nothing to write home about, but you have to start somewhere. I think things really start picking up around book 5, The Brutal Telling.

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

• Books in series: 5

• First book in the series: The Penderwicks

• Still publishing: NO

The discovery of this series was one of the most delightful seasons of my reading life. I wish these had been around when I was younger, but the first book was published in 2005, during a time when I wasn’t really reading for pleasure. Although they are written more for the middle-grade fiction crowd, I enjoyed them just fine as an adult. The relationships between the sisters and their single father and the other characters who come up throughout the series are some of the most realistic and beautiful relationship dynamics I’ve ever seen presented in fiction. I’m hoping to read these with my daughter soon.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

• Books in series: 3

• First book in the series: Beartown

• Still publishing: NO

• Trigger warnings: death, sexual assault, bullying

I’ve come to realize that this series is extremely polarizing. Some people hate it. I think the issue is probably more Backman’s writing style and less the content of the books. That said, it is an intense series: It opens with a teenage girl being sexually assaulted and the rest of the series is basically the fallout of that in the midst of a small town that is obsessed with hockey. An important thing to say is that you don’t have to know anything about hockey or want to know anything about hockey to enjoy this series.

There you have it: 13 of my favorite book series. I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these; if any of these look worth reading to you; if you are offended that I left your favorite series off my list.

Our boys wanted a puppy, though, and we spent time with one in a little room with benches off to the side of the kennels, but other people had already met the puppy and were deciding if they were going to adopt it. When we were told the puppy was spoken for, we said we would take the hound, who the employee said was probably two or three years old.

As they processed the paperwork, I held our four-month-old daughter and looked over the adoption papers and noticed that this dog had already been adopted before, but he had been returned for “behavior issues.” Perhaps this should have been a red flag, but this made my husband want the dog even more, because he felt so bad that the dog had almost had a home and then had been brought back. We would not bring this dog back.

We did though, almost, several years later, but we’re not there yet.

When we arrived home we found that there were pros and cons to having adopted a dog, not a puppy. For example, he was house trained. He only had a few accidents in those first few weeks. He was also crate trained, on account of the fact that he had been a hunting dog before he was abandoned and had spent most of his life in an outdoor kennel. The fact that he had only ever lived outside also turned out to be a downside in that he did not initially understand the concept of furniture. The table was not a structure at which humans sat, but rather a small obstacle he could explore. One day I came home and found all 80 pounds of him standing on the dining room table, sniffing flowers in a vase.

His very favorite place to be was on a couch, and it was even better if someone else was also on the couch.

Our daughter was four months old when we brought him home, so from the very beginning, I spent my days tending to one or the other or both. Going for a walk was a relief, because both of them were occupied—her in the stroller and him on the leash.

It was quickly obvious that he had not been able to count on frequent meals. We had to get him a special food bowl that forced him to slow down his pace of eating so that he wouldn’t make himself sick.

He was also an opportunist when it came to human food. Nothing was safe. While it might seem like this could be managed easily, as a mom to three kids, I was constantly distracted, and so I was forever leaving food somewhere for just a minute and forgetting the dog could snag it. I sometimes thought he was watching me through the walls, just waiting for the chance to pull the bowl of popcorn off the counter.

After a few months of this I was at my wit’s end. This dog needed to be trained, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that. At the advice of a person who I now realize was a dog person, we hired a positive behavior dog trainer, which is basically gentle parenting for dogs. Gentle parenting works for some children, like the ones who were already born compliant in the first place. Gentle dog training did not work for our dog, at least not in a way that kept him from stealing food. He was smart as a whip and quickly caught on to the fact that if he did as commanded, he would get a treat. However, this could do nothing to stop him from getting food off the counter. I wasn’t going to reward him for not stealing food, although to him this probably would have been the ideal outcome.

We eventually did what is I guess the opposite of gentle parenting and became authoritative dog parents, which is to say we bought an electronic collar. I will not debate whether these are appropriate for dogs because in our experience, it was the only reason we were able to keep our dog. I watched dozens of videos on how to use it and we were eventually able to make him associate the shock of the collar with his proximity to the counters in the kitchen. We also put up baby gates around the kitchen entrances, which took some experimentation, because if we put the gates flush with the floor, he could jump over. But if we put them up too high, he would squeeze himself under.

Here is a list of some of the things he ate without permission: a pound of butter (packaging and all); a pan of brownies; a package of tortillas; a chocolate cake layer cooling on the counter for our son’s eighth birthday; the edible contents of the indoor trash can; the edible contents of the outdoor trash can; freshly fried catfish; innumerable cheesesticks out of the hands of our children; half of a pizza.

He could walk for miles. I would get up early and walk three miles with him before anyone else got up, and he would seem willing to keep going. I would walk him again later in the day with the kids. Eventually we fenced in the backyard and that gave him more space to run around, except for the times when he managed to jump the four-foot fence and escape into the neighborhood.

This only happened when my husband was out of town. I’d let the dog out, go about my evening activities, and then when I would go to call the dog in, there would be silence. At that point I would make sure the kids were safely tucked into bed and call my neighbor, who loved our dog as much as we did, and we would scour the neighborhood looking for him.

He was easy to find if he was in the process of hunting a critter. His bay was so loud as to hurt your ears, and we would follow the sounds of his baying to his location, at which point we would have to try to shake him out of his blind rage at whatever rodent had attracted his nose. One time he managed to get into the fenced backyard of an abandoned home. I climbed over the fence, got him away from a tree, picked him up and lifted him to my neighbor over the fence, and then climbed on a trash can to get back over. I’m still surprised we didn’t get shot. (These situations only happened at night.)

He was a friendly dog, but his unknown prior trauma showed itself unexpectedly. One time our friend’s son put on a camouflage jacket as they prepared to leave, and the dog began to whimper and whine and back away from the child. He mostly hated men. This gave us some hints as to what he had experienced before he came to us.

When we began to plan our move from South Carolina to Georgia and made an offer on a house, the fact that the yard was not fenced in began to cause me great anxiety. I was pregnant and we would be moving with a newborn baby and three other kids. I didn’t know how I would manage a high-energy dog along with all that. Without telling my husband, I e-mailed the shelter and explained our situation and asked what the process would be to return him to the shelter. They were very understanding and we set up a timeline, but when I talked to my husband about it, I knew we would never be able to go through with it. “I’ve already lost my job and our home here,” he said. “I can’t lose my dog, too.”

Neyland was his dog, as he had been from the beginning when we first laid eyes on him. But I was Neyland’s person. This made sense, because I was the one who had spent hours training him, walking him, living with him, including him in every activity I did with our daughter because he couldn’t be trusted to be left alone. But after our fourth child was born and we moved and there was a pandemic and I felt like I was losing my mind, I did a reverse Grinch: my heart shrunk. All the love for my children was still there, but there was no room left to love the dog.

I say this to my shame. We had had the dog for three years by then, and he had established himself as a member of the family. But when I looked at him, all I saw was work. He was one more thing I had to manage, and four kids felt like more than enough. As he got older, he became less energetic, which was a relief, but his nose for left-out food never left him, up until his final days.

One of the things that kept him in my good graces was the fact that he was never aggressive toward our kids. As far as we knew, he had never been around children. I was a little nervous bringing him into a home with a four-month-old. As she became more mobile, I watched him like a hawk, but he was only ever gentle. We have a video of her pulling up by holding onto his back and then launching herself over him in an attempt to ride on him. He just sat there, a little nervous, but he seemed to know that she was part of his family and he needed to be gentle.

It was the same when our fourth child was a toddler. He loved Neyland and was forever crawling into the crate with him, touching his ears, touching his tail, following him around the backyard. Neyland would sometimes try to escape, but he never turned any aggression toward Noah.

He was a beautiful dog. When I walked him in the middle of the day, I always got compliments, even as people kept their distance. He was big and he was black and as I have already said, his bark was loud. I don’t know what he would have done if he ever felt like I was threatened, but I was never afraid to walk with him after dark. He was the best bodyguard.

When Christian was out of town, I would let Neyland sleep out of his crate. I considered him a built-in burglar deterrent. Someone might make it into the house, but I was pretty sure they’d attempt to leave quickly once they made eye contact with him.

Neyland loved to lay in the sun. He had a few favorite spots in the backyard, and those were the first places I looked when he wouldn’t come inside when I called. Because he was frequently finding a way out of the backyard, I would get nervous that he’d escaped, but then I’d go check one of his preferred spots by the compost pile and there he would be, his eyes blinking sleepily as I explained he needed to come when I called. I usually had to pull his collar to get him to come back inside.

When we first moved to Georgia, one of our first home improvement choices was to have a fence put in. I remember the relief I felt the first time I let him out and didn’t have to keep him on the leash. I could let him out and leave him there and do something else.

The relief was only temporary, which I should have expected, given his previous successful escapes at our old house. Perhaps I thought the fact that our six-foot fence would be more of a deterrent than our previous four-foot fence. He was, indeed, unable to jump over the new fence.

But our yard backed up to a huge undeveloped piece of land, a land I imagine was teeming with all the best critters and rodents. Neyland could smell them, and he needed to catch them. He very quickly figured out how to dig under the fence. First we tried pouring in concrete under the fence. He dug out the concrete. We tried burying chicken wire, and he cut himself while also managing to dig around it. Finally we bought several dozen tomato stakes and hammered them into the ground every 6 inches, almost like a miniature underground fence.

He still got out, though, because sometimes our kids or neighbor kids wouldn’t close the gate on the fence all the way, and he must have checked the gate every time we left him out. When he did get out, he was not a runner but more of a roamer. After my mother-in-law moved into our neighborhood, we would frequently find him in her unfenced backyard. She’d call us and let us know her “grand-dog” had come for a visit. One time he had been in the backyard and we were watching a movie one evening and lost track of time. Suddenly, we heard a bark at the door. But not the back door. He was barking at the front door. Apparently he had escaped the yard, gone on a long roam through the neighborhood, and then returned home when he was finished. He trotted inside as if this was part of his nightly routine.

Having people over was always complicated. I’d make sure that he was in the crate before they arrived, but that did nothing to stop the barking that would commence when our guests knocked or came into view. This barking would continue for several minutes. Usually, he’d accept the presence of our guests. But for people he took an especial dislike to, he’d bark any time that person walked anywhere in the house. Because he was often unpredictable with visitors, we didn’t like to let him out of the crate while people were there. But he did not like being in the crate with people there, so he would whine and grumble and occasionally bark until we took him to the backyard. Then he would bark to come inside, and we would return him to the crate, and the cycle would continue.

Unlike many dogs, he was not afraid of fireworks or thunderstorms. He was afraid of our robot vacuum and the donkey who lived down the road.

On an ordinary Tuesday afternoon at the beginning of March, I went to let him out and something seemed off. He was walking unevenly; his stomach looked distended or bloated; he seemed to be breathing harder than normal. When he came back in, he struggled to lay on his bed in the living room.

I called the vet and we made an urgent care appointment for a few hours later. My brain began spinning. We told all four kids that we were going to take Neyland to the vet, and we weren’t sure what would happen, but he was an old dog, and it was possible we would need to say goodbye. This felt overly dramatic at the time. I hoped I hadn’t gotten any of them—Zoe in particular—upset over nothing. When I told her, she burst into tears. Without thinking, I asked if she wanted to go with me when I took him to the vet, and she said yes. I didn’t know if she should go, but now I’d offered. I felt guilty but then I also felt a sense of relief that I wouldn’t be going alone.

As it turned out, Christian went as well, because I realized that if he was struggling to walk, there was no way the dog would be able to get into the back of the van. Christian could help me get him in, but I wouldn’t be able to get our 90-pound dog out of the van alone. Christian, Zoe, and I would all go, and as soon as Stephen was done with his driving lesson, I’d go pick him up and take him back to the vet. Cohen and Noah didn’t want to be there.

I felt like I was in limbo for those two hours while we waited to go to the vet. I had been working, but now instead of working I was typing the dog’s symptoms into ChatGPT. It did not seem like this day was going to end well. Then I had to make dinner, and Zoe and I scarfed down some food and made a plate so Christian could eat in the car. Noah went to play with the son of a neighbor, who graciously offered to keep him until we got home. Cohen was at an after-school band practice; my mother-in-law would pick him up.

When it came time to go, Christian tried to get Neyland to stand up. He wouldn’t. It took me, Christian, and my mother-in-law to carry the edges of his dog bed, with the dog on it, out to the car.

The only place we ever took him in the car was the vet, with a few rare exceptions, and this was not something he enjoyed. Our yearly rides consisted of him barking and howling for the entire 10 minutes of driving. On that day, though, he didn’t make a sound.

As soon as the medical assistant came out to the van to see the dog while we waited for help to get him inside that it truly began to hit me that we were going to have to say goodbye. She noted that his gums were white—they were supposed to be pink. I had already noticed that his paws were cold, and that the whites of his eyes were whiter than usual.

The time we spent at the vet, waiting for the vet, waiting for the assistant, and then me driving to get Stephen to come back, and more waiting, feel like a strange dream. The vet diagnosed him with a ruptured spleen, a common ailment in older dogs, but one that can only be fixed with surgery. This surgery may or may not help him return to normal. Through tears we said that we did not want to do surgery. They were compassionate, saying that they could wait while I went to get our oldest son from driving lessons. When we got back, we found they had a special room for people in our situation, with a comfortable bed for the dog. We took turns sitting with him.

While I had been gone, Christian explained cremation to Zoe. When I got back and the medical assistant came in to give the dog the first injection, which would keep him from feeling any pain, she explained what she was doing and she asked if we had any questions. Zoe immediately said, “Yes—I have a question. What will you do with his body after this?”

The woman’s eye caught mine and I nodded, telling her that we had already talked about cremation, but I thought that Zoe was asking about where the dog would be until it was time for that.

“Well,” she said measuredly, “We will keep his body in a very cool place, and we will keep an eye on him.” Zoe seemed satisfied with this.

We all stayed until almost the very end, but before the final injection, I looked at Zoe and asked if she wanted to stay for that part. She thought for a second, and then she seemed to fully grasp what was about to happen, and she said she didn’t want to be there. I left Christian and Stephen with Neyland, and Zoe and I went out to the waiting room. I was torn over wanting to be there, to support Christian, to stay with the dog until the end. And yet I felt Zoe had experienced enough for one day, and if she didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want her to have to be.

This ended up being a gift, because my last memory of Neyland was with his head in my lap as he dozed off from the pain relief injection. He was alive and with his favorite people, and he was not in pain.

It wasn’t until I started looking back at pictures that I realized why Zoe’s grief had been the loudest. Her entire life was lived in proximity to Neyland. When she was a toddler, the three of us spent our days together. Even as she got older and other things pulled her away, she was always gentle with him, always willing to give him food or water if someone else forgot, always happy to let him in or out. In those old pictures I see snapshots of her love for him.

It has only been a few weeks, and the kids are already asking when we will get another pet. We are putting them off in an honest way, telling them that we are open to another pet—a dog or even a cat—but that it feels too soon right now. “Over spring break?” Noah asks. “Not quite that soon,” I say.

I think I would have always said I was a dog person, but I balked at the idea of being a “dog mom.” Neyland was not a person. He was a dog. And even at the very end, I chose to be with my human child in her grief than to stay with the dog.

But I did love him. It’s hard not to love someone who loves you so much, even if my love for him got crowded out by the myriad other things that call to me every day. When I come down the stairs and into the living room, I always look to the spot where his crate used to be. I have to keep reminding myself it’s OK to leave a loaf of bread on the counter and that we don’t immediately have to take out the trash bag with chicken bones in it. We can grill without worrying about him leaking the grease trap. There is no more barking when someone knocks on the door. The Amazon delivery driver has been relieved of his (unbeknownst to him) arch-enemy. The house feels slightly less empty.

Another dog or cat may enter our home, but there will never be another Neyland. He was our family’s first dog, and he will live on in the retellings of his many antics.

It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized, in my own way, that I had incorporated him into my daily life without thinking about it. I am notorious for forgetting passwords. I am forever having to reset them. At the beginning of the year, I decided to pick a new password that I could use anytime I needed to reset a password, in hopes that eventually all my passwords would be the same. I used “Neyland” as part of my new password, not really putting much thought into it, because Neyland was just as much a part of my life as my high school mascot or my husband’s favorite sports team or the make of my first car (all of which I have used in passwords in the past).1

He loved bread, popsicles, fuzzy blankets, sunlight, long walks, anyone’s leftovers, but, most of all, he loved us.

I immediately felt anxious, because I like to be the most compliant patient in any healthcare scenario, and I was worried that maybe I had failed to meet her expectations in some way.

“No,” I said nervously. “Was I supposed to?”

“Oh, not necessarily,” she said. “We just like to know if you had one for some reason.”

Breathing a sigh of relief that I had not failed a test that no one was actually giving, I asked at what age she recommended getting regular mammograms.

“Oh, not until 40!” she replied cheerily.

If she had had a chance to do some quick math based on my birthday (March 18, 1986) and the current date (March 11, 2026), she might not have replied so flippantly, as if I had all the time in the world before I had to schedule a mammogram, when in fact the guillotine of mammography would be coming down in only one week.

For most of my married life, I have felt too young. We were married at 23 and I had my first baby before I turned 24, when very few people our age were having kids. By the time most of my close friends were having their first child, we were on baby #3 and had two kids in elementary school. It’s only gotten worse as our older boys have grown. The first time I went to a middle school open house, I looked around me and realized that most of the people around me were 5-10 years older than I was. In a lot of ways, it doesn’t matter, but it has still contributed to a kind of imposter syndrome where I feel insecure when I have to interact with people who are in the same role or position or situation because they are older and so I think they are wiser or more mature or more experienced.

When Christian and I were first married and I was pregnant with Stephen, we were part of a church that encouraged having children and where older women speaking into the lives of younger women was highly valued. I sought out the mentorship of a mom who at the time seemed very old to me, although she was only in her mid-30s. I went to her house and helped with household tasks and watched her homeschool her kids and tried to imbibe as much wisdom as I could. This was the kind of woman I knew I was supposed to be. It was the kind of woman I wanted to be.

Soon before our first child was born, I was sitting in Sunday School next to Christian. The class was studying the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Each class covered one question and we analyzed the question and the supporting Scripture. At the time, Christian was in seminary, and he launched into a monologue about some aspect of the discussion. He was talking for a long time. I felt he had been talking for long enough. I didn’t say anything, but apparently I had some kind of look on my face. I know this because after class, before the worship service started, this female mentor approached me in the main lobby area and said she wanted to talk to me about something.

I remember I was wearing gray and black maternity dress pants and a magenta maternity shirt. In my mind’s eye, I am in a hallway watching this interaction, seeing a pregnant young woman being cheerfully scolded by a woman she respected.

“We always need to support our husbands,” she said. “When Christian was talking, your face looked like you wished he would stop talking. It seemed like you weren’t interested in what he had to say.”

Well, I wasn’t? I thought. I was kind of bored and also worried everyone else would think he was talking too much.

“When our husbands are talking, no matter what they’re talking about, we should smile sweetly and look at them in encouragement,” she said.

I don’t remember if I said anything to her. I remember that I felt like I was going to cry. Had I really insulted my husband with the look on my face? Had everyone in the class thought I didn’t respect my husband? Was I a less than excellent wife?

Christian worked for the church, and one of his responsibilities was to sit in the sound booth and record the service. I went and found him and immediately burst into tears. I told him what had happened and he was simultaneously confused and bothered.

“I probably was talking too much,” he said as he comforted me.

Up until that point, I had assumed everyone who was old, which to me meant older than 30, and definitely 40, had it all together and knew what they were talking about.

Now I am 40, experiencing a strange dichotomy of feeling very old and also feeling like I don’t know enough about anything to actually be this old. I think back on 23-year-old me, desperate to be a good wife and mom, eager to follow the advice of men and women who eventually turned out to not be right about everything, and in fact to make some very wrong decisions. I think about the times when I have been that woman who scolded me, when I have unknowingly hurt a younger woman. I know now that age is no indicator of whether anyone has it all together, and, in fact, someone thinking they have it all together is actually a pretty good sign that they don’t.1

It is time for me to schedule yearly mammograms, and it is getting a little bit harder to get off the ground after helping Noah with LEGOs, and my oldest son is only 7 years younger than I was when I got married.

I’ve also had a few moments of panic when I’ve been at a doctor’s appointment or spent time with someone who is an expert in their field and realized they’re probably about the same age as I am.

I’m almost 40, I have thought, and what have I accomplished with my life that compares to this person? A spinal surgeon, a physical therapist, an established author, a practiced musician. And me. In what field am I an expert? What have I accomplished? What do I have to show for my life?

I don’t have a medical degree. I don’t have any published works (other than, I guess, this Substack?). I never earned more than a bachelor’s degree. While I have worked for most of our marriage in some capacity, I’ve never had a job that anyone would consider valuable or esteemed. My dream of becoming fluent in a foreign language and working in national intelligence dissipated once I met a blue-eyed boy from Tennessee my sophomore year of college. When he was getting his M.Div., I was nursing a newborn and chasing a toddler and trying not to drown.

I don’t say all this in order to elicit pity or because I’m resentful. I’m also not fishing for compliments. Reflecting on the past and on what I’ve “accomplished” in these first forty years of life has forced me to reckon with what I think is important—and what God thinks is important. And not just important for anybody, because of course it is important that some people become doctors or ambassadors or foreign intelligence agents, but important for me. This life I’ve had for four decades was planned out for me before I left my mother’s womb, and I am only just now beginning to make sense of it.

I was born in Florida in 1986, which one day would classify me as an elder millennial. Being born at this time in history meant that I was 13 years old and in the throes of puberty when Y2K arrived, and I was sitting in my 10th grade Algebra 3 class when the planes hit the Twin Towers. My first presidential election was in 2004, when I proudly voted for George W. Bush, because I did not believe Christians could in good conscience vote for anyone who was not a Republican. I was 18, and I pretty much had life figured out.

It didn’t take long for me to realize I actually didn’t.

Here are some things that happened in my 20s: debilitating depression, a long-distance relationship, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, moving, the loss of my grandmother, pregnancy, childbirth, moving, a painful church departure, unemployment, moving, and then an extremely painful church implosion culminating in a mental breakdown. It was toward the end of my 30th year of life that we settled into a new church, which meant a new job for Christian, and soon after turning 31, I found out I was pregnant.

Here are some things that happened in my 30s: a complicated and high-risk pregnancy, moving, childbirth, postpartum depression, the loss of my grandfather, a horrific work situation, another painful church situation, another complicated and high-risk pregnancy, childbirth, moving out of state, a global pandemic, and postpartum depression. That actually all happened in the first half of my 30s. These last five years have been marked by fewer major events like those listed and more low-grade, constant stressors like, well, being married to a pastor.

There has not been any one year or even portion of a year in the last twenty years that has not been marked in some way by something difficult. Surely, surely, working at the CIA as a language analyst would have been easier than this has been?

There are so many things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self. The lessons I have learned in what I’ve experienced as well as what those experiences have shown me about my earlier life would not have happened if the hard things hadn’t happened. Growth has happened in suffering. I still have a long way to go. But 23-year-old me would not recognize 40-year-old me, although she would be very jealous of my extensive marker and pen collection.

If I could go back and tell her what she has learned that has changed her the most, here is what I would say.

You might be part of the reason why something hard is happening. For many years in my 20s and even into my 30s, I was very lonely and felt like I did not have any friends. Part of this was because we kept changing churches due to circumstances outside my control. I had very little continuity in relationships, and the nature of ministry life is such that it is hard to maintain multiple relationships outside of church when you are also pouring your entire life into your church. But I also think that I was not very good at being a friend. I liked to talk about myself. I wasn’t very good at empathizing with others’ pain. I was turned inward. I very much wanted to be loved and cared for as a friend, but I wasn’t aware of how little of that I was offering to others.

Normalizing someone’s emotions for them is one of the greatest things you can offer another person. This is so easy. It’s so easy it almost feels silly to say. But if someone tells you about something hard they are experiencing and how it’s making them feel, saying something like, “It makes sense you would feel sad that you aren’t able to breastfeed your baby,” might give them some hope. So much of the angst a human experiences is not only certain emotions but the emotions about those emotions. We can feel guilt or shame for our feelings of anger, sadness, joy, grief, anxiety. Normalizing appropriate emotions for someone can help them release a lot of emotional pressure. It might not stop them from feeling sad, but it might take off the baggage of feeling sad.

The hardest things you go through will be because of other people. Being in close proximity to humans guarantees pain and suffering. We have never lived a private life. It is impossible in ministry. This is a blessing, because it forces us to live outside our little bubble, and it can also be extremely painful. I was just talking with the wife of a pastor about how when people stop coming to church or leave the church, sometimes I want to say that I wish I could leave, too. Maybe if I wasn’t around people, people wouldn’t hurt me? But I am, and they will, and knowing it is inevitable makes it just a teensy bit less painful when it does.

The best things you experience will be because of other people. This is not a surprise, because God is a relational being and he made us to be in relationship. It is very hard not to be in any relationships, and those who manage it don’t seem to be very happy. I don’t have enough room to write about the ways other people have blessed us. There are the tangible: A seminary education. Free vehicles. Discounted rent. Free car repairs. Meals upon meals upon meals. Free babysitting. These only happen in relationships. Then there are the intangible: prolonged checking in during hard seasons, prayer, remembering important days, believing our stories about painful experiences. God has used people to help heal the wounds created by people. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s how it is. The lesson is this: Don’t stay away from people, even when you want to.

Once you figure out how to be a good friend, you will have a lot of failed friendships, but eventually, a few will stick. The very best friends I have ever had are friends I have made in the last five years. I can only pray these women are friends who I will have for the rest of our lives. What would I do if I did not have a few good friends with whom I can share some of my deepest aches and greatest joys? The fact that I have more than one friend like this is a gift I do not deserve. I can’t take much credit for it, because I could tell you right now ways that I have failed each of these friends. But they have shown patient and forbearance toward me, and I try to do the same for them, and I am so grateful.

Marriage will change you if you let it. I thought I was pretty great when I got married, and Christian seemed to think so, too. It wasn’t long, though, before I realized that I had an anger problem. This was surprising because I didn’t think I had ever been angry. Marriage brought with it many circumstances in which I found myself angry, some that were legitimate and many that weren’t. Each situation required me to talk to Christian and for us to work it out. We were very bad at this, but we have gotten better. Each conflict, each argument, each misunderstanding, each miscommunication has given me the opportunity to decide if I want to act in the same way I always have, or if I am going to listen to the Holy Spirit and take one step in a different direction. This step is almost always painful and is always humbling. But I think, in 17 years of marriage, that I am less angry, yes, but I am faster to repent of my anger and to realize what’s at the bottom of it. I’m not at the end of the road, but I’m farther down the road than I was. (Also, I am really grateful for my husband, and I’m not just saying that because he reads every single post I wrote. He’s my best friend.)

Parenting is going to be a big hot mess and no one has it figured out completely. I would have thought by the time I had a 16-year-old that I would pretty much be an expert on parenting, but here’s the thing: you never stop parenting your kids, and no two kids are the same, and each time you kind of figure out an age or stage the kid gets older and enters a new age or stage that you have no experience with. Other people can offer wisdom but only you can parent your kids. Be encouraged that all the mistakes you make when your kids are young won’t seem to have a lasting negative effect on them. But be challenged by the fact that it’s very easy to get in parenting ruts and it’s very hard to change the trajectory once you’ve settled in. One good thing is that your kids are always going to love you, even when it doesn’t seem like they do, and on the rare occasions when you realize how much you love them and that you love them ten thousands more and would literally die for them, you’ll wish you could bottle up that feeling.

Find something that you love to do, and find pockets of time in which to do it. For me, that has been reading, exercise, writing, and needlework. I was doing almost none of these things 20 years ago, although I had loved to read when I was younger. All of them bring me joy now on a daily basis, and I wish I had pursued any one of them sooner.

Just acknowledge that you’re a dork or a nerd or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I love to read. I have read over 100 books a year for the last 7 years. I have made spreadsheets about every important thing in my life that could be expressed on a spreadsheet. I love making trackers and tracking things. I love budgeting and working on our budget. I love grocery shopping and finding the very best deal on anything. I don’t buy anything without researching it to death. I have an inordinate amount of knowledge in my brain about the Holocaust, cults, narcissism, serial killers, psychology, neuropsychology, theology, nutrition, and random historical figures. I have almost mastered the Russian language course on Duolingo. These are all things I am interested in. I’m kind of done with being embarrassed about these things, although if I sense you are not interested in these things, I have learned how to change the subject. But I’ve also found that if I take a cautious step and mention one of these interests, I might just find a kindred spirit.2

It’s a wonderful thing to be a Christian. I am paraphrasing that quote from Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, who is one of my favorite pastors and authors. He often ends his sermons with, “Isn’t it a wonderful thing to be a Christian?” I can’t say that doubt has been something I’ve struggled with over the time that I’ve known the Lord. But we have experienced deeply painful things, and many of them have been aimed at us from other Christians in Christian contexts. At times I have thought, “Is following Jesus worth it?” While I am sure I will still have seasons of despair in the future, I can say at least after the first 40 years of my life that yes, it is worth it, and even more than that—it’s wonderful to know the Lord. Especially in these last ten years, my greatest comfort has been knowing that I am cared for by a God who is gentle with broken hearts, who loves the truth and who sees all things, and who is using the hard things I’ve gone through to soften my heart and make me someone who loves other people better.

Today, I am 40. I kind of want to cry, but I also want to take all that the last forty years have held for me and carry them with me into the next forty years. May the following words, written by one of our youngest son’s namesakes, William Cowper, continue to be the theme of my life.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs
And works his sov’reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.3

Over 10 years ago I was asked to share about my journey with anxiety and depression, and as part of my presentation, I came up with a list of resources I would recommend. I recently came across the list I made and added other books and resources I’ve found since then. This is a list I will continue to update as I find other great resources. If you have a resource on anxiety and depression that you would like to share, please let me know!

You can also see some of my best tools for working through depression in Chelsey’s Depression Toolkit. If you’re wondering about medication, you can read Life with meds and/or Life without meds.

For those who are depressed or anxious

• The Anxious Christian: Can God Use Your Anxiety for Good? by Rhett Smith

• The Broken-Down House by Paul Tripp

• Christians Get Depressed, Too by David Murray

• Companions in Suffering: Comfort in Times of Loss and Loneliness by Wendy Alsup

• Created to Care: God’s Truth for Anxious Moms by Sara Wallace

• Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop

• Deserted by God: Understanding the Ways of God Through the Experience of the Psalmists by Sinclair Ferguson

• The Hilarious World of Depression by John Moe

• Mindscape: What to Think About Instead of Worrying by Timothy Z. Witmer

• On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living by Alan Noble

• A Small Book for the Anxious Heart: Meditations on Fear, Worry, and Trust by Ed Welch

• Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

• Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for Those who Suffer from Depression by Zac Eswine

• The Worry-Free Parent: Living in Confidence So Your Kids Can Too by Sissy Goff

• The Anxiety Audit: Seven Sneaky Ways Anxiety Takes Hold and How to Escape Them by Lynn Lyons

• David Murray’s blog

• Depression-related articles by Brad Hambrick

• “When the Darkness Will Not Lift” by John Piper (article)

For those who know someone who is depressed or anxious

• Being There: How to Love Those Who Are Hurting by Dave Furman

• Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness by Ed Welch

• Side by Side: Walking With Others in Wisdom and Love by Ed Welch

• Untangling Emotions: God’s Gift of Emotions by J. Alisdair Groves

• What Grieving People Want You to Know About What Really Helps (and What Really Hurts) by Nancy Guthrie

• Why Is My Teenager Feeling Like This?: A Guide for Helping Teens through Anxiety and Depression by David Murray

Other helpful resources

• Sandra McCracken’s music

• “The Hilarious World of Depression” (podcast)

• “Flusterclux with Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry” (podcast)

• “I had a black dog, his name was depression” (YouTube)

• Sermons on Job by Dr. Derek Thomas

February was a good reading month! I’m excited to share my 18 reads with you. I’m experimenting with not listing the picture and title of each book individually, leading to a very long scrolling experience. It makes the post a bit more compact and, I hope, easier to follow along. I’d welcome any feedback if you prefer this format over the way I used to do it—or vice versa.

Books of the Month

I had to pick three favorite books this month—it was too hard to decide.

Blame It on the Brain?: Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience by Ed Welch

I cannot commend this book highly enough. This is a revised version of the initial book that came out in the 1990s, and I found it simultaneously informative and evidence-based as well as pastoral and truth-telling. He addresses Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injuries, ADHD, homosexuality, depression, and more.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

This book has been all over the place and I love a good memoir, so I waited weeks and weeks to be able to listen to the audiobook. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. The premise is that the author’s husband of 20 years suddenly said he was leaving her shortly after the Covid lockdowns started in 2020. The rest of the book is her grappling with the end of her marriage and it’s effect on her and her kids. She is extremely self-aware and is willing to examine herself while also realizing that it’s OK for her to say that what her husband did was wrong.

This is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee

I didn’t know what to expect about this book, but it turned out to be a delight. The book is read by Stephen Fry, which was the first point in its favor. But this was a fascinating look at how the World Wide Web actually began and the journey from huge computers sending basic messages to each other to the Internet we all rely on today. He addresses AI, social media, and other current controversies. I know you can’t know a person completely from reading their book, but Sir Berners-Lee seems like a genuinely nice person, and most importantly, he does not take himself too seriously. He is credited with one of the greatest inventions of all time and he still seems surprised throughout the book when he is invited to do things with famous people.

Nonfiction

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill

This was the only nonfiction book I read other than the two that were some of my favorites. That is rare for me! I thought I would be engrossed in this book because it has all things that I have previously loved reading about: the CIA, cult behavior, murder, etc. However, this book completely dragged on and on. It was mostly about this period of history but also about the author’s attempt to find information about the Manson murders that had been covered up for decades. It felt very disjointed and boring at times. I was disappointed.

Fiction

The Gwendy’s Button Box series consists of three books: Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King, Gwendy’s Magic Feather by Richard Chizmar, and Gwendy’s Final Task by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. (I don’t know why Stephen King isn’t listed as an author on the second book.)

Anyway, these were all published in the last 10 years and the last book actually features the pandemic in the storyline. For some reason, when I initially heard the title, I imagined the series would be about a little girl who collected buttons. Why I thought Stephen King would have written an innocuous book like that, I don’t know. The actual plot is much darker and more intense, not surprisingly. The three books span the life of one Gwendy Peterson, and each book sees the button box (which is not a box of fabric buttons) showing up in her life unexpectedly. I flew through these three books and enjoyed the dopamine hit from a good binge read.

The Black Wolf by Louise Penny

This is the 20th book in the Inspector Gamache series, and I’ve read every single one. I feel like not enough people know about this series. If you’re interested in starting, you need to start with the first book, Still Life, and press on for several books until you start to get to know the characters. Then you won’t be able to stop reading.

I went to look up Still Life and saw that the 21st book in the series has already been announced and will be coming out in October. I count on her fall Gamache release in the same way as I count on Christmas to come every year.

Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite

I read the author’s debut novel, My Sister the Serial Killer, and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see she had a new book. This one is slightly slower-paced, and there are a good many trigger warnings (suicide, child loss), but it is set in Africa and the setting was so unrelatable to my life that I wanted to keep living there while reading the book.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This was a Substack recommendation from . She listed this as one of her favorite books. I didn’t realize it was a middle-grade/YA book until I got into it, and I often struggle with that genre. I thought for what it was, it was a really beautiful book. It would be a wonderful book for a tween/pre-teen who is struggling with grief.

The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

This was another book recommendation I got from Substack, but I can’t remember who. Whoever it was said it was one of their best books of 2025, and based on the premise I thought I would really enjoy it. It was fine. The narrator’s voice was a little annoying, and I didn’t love the main character.

Loved One by Aisha Muharrar

This one is all by itself because it was a surprise finish. I already had most of this post finished before the end of the month, and then I finished the audiobook sooner than I expected. I really enjoyed this book. These kinds of books—general contemporary fiction—always feel risky to me. Sometimes, they’re great. Other times, I don’t even finish them. This one captured me at the start with the main character, who is funny, smart, and willing to recognize her own character flaws. The book is mostly about the relationship between her and her ex-boyfriend’s most recent girlfriend. The guy in question has just died (not a spoiler—the book opens at his funeral) and the two women have to wrestle with what the other meant to the man they both loved. I found out later that the author was one of the writers on Parks & Rec, a show I loved—so it’s not too surprising I enjoyed her book.

Spiritual

These five books were all books I read in order to prepare to teach on prayer at our church’s women’s retreat. Three were re-reads; two were new. I’d recommend all of them, but if you are only going to read one, then I’d choose A Praying Life.

Both Praying Together and Prayer deal more with praying with others and the importance of corporate prayer, while the other three are more about one’s individual prayer life.

• A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul Miller

• Pray With Your Eyes Open: Looking at God, Ourselves, and Our Prayers by Richard L. Pratt, Jr.

• Praying Together: The Priority and Privilege of Prayer in Our Homes, Communities, and Churches by Megan Hill

• If God Already Knows, Why Pray? by Douglas Kelly

• Prayer by John Onwuchekwa

Surviving an Unwanted Divorce: A Biblical, Practical Guide to Letting Go While Holding Yourself Together by Lysa Terkeurst

This was my final read of the month. I’ll admit that I felt a little strange carrying it around with me to appointments and wanted to give disclaimers if I felt anyone was reading the title. Happily, my marriage is fine, but I do have several friends who have been or are currently walking through unwanted divorces. I’ve also listened to Lysa Terkeurst’s podcast over the years and have found her ministry’s position to be biblical. I had a few things I’d disagree with in this book on a theological level, but overall, I think this would be helpful for anyone in this situation or anyone who loves someone who is in this situation.

2026 Reading Goals Check-In

I set a list of goals for each month, and this month I met 4 out of my 7 goals. I am struggling with reading a classic; that’s the only goal I haven’t met in either month this year so far. I am reading Les Mis, but I believe I’m only 5% finished.

• 🎯 3 spiritual books (I read 3!)

• ❌ a classic

• ❌ a book published before 1986 (I was close, though — Pray With Your Eyes Open was published in 1987)

• 🎯 a physical TBR book (Blame It on the Brain)

• ❌ a Kindle TBR book

• 🎯 book by a BIPOC author (3—Prayer, Loved One, and Cursed Daughters)

• 🎯 17 books total

Books Abandoned

I’m an unapologetic DNF’er of books. I think I usually give books a pretty good chance. Usually what causes me to DNF them are the following:

1. The narrator’s voice (audiobook)

2. I keep having to repeat the first few chapters (audiobook)

3. The format or style of the book isn’t what I expected

4. I truly hate one of the characters who is introduced early on

Sometimes I abandon an audiobook because I realize I will better be able to enjoy it in print form. That said, here are the four books I abandoned this month:

• Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell — I have just come to realize I don’t enjoy books set in 16th/17th century Great Britain/England. Even if it’s Shakespeare. Even if it’s about the Black Death. I restarted it three times.

• 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It Shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin — This was a book I thought I’d love. But it just did not start well. Another one I restarted twice before giving up.

• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden — I think I might try this one again some time. The pace just wasn’t working for me.

• Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski — I WILL return to this book. This book did not meet any of the above categories. I could tell I would love it. It is just extremely long and I got it from the library and I need to purchase it for my Kindle so I can take my time.

Books Purchased

I don’t buy books that often, so when I do, I think it’s worth mentioning.

• Psalms ESV Scripture Journal — bought as part of our women’s retreat at church

• The Writing Life by Annie Dillard — Kindle deal

• Partypooper (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #20) by Jeff Kinney — bought for my daughter

• With God in Russia: The Inspiring Classic Account of a Catholic Priest’s Twenty-three Years in Soviet Prisons and Labor Camps by Walter J. Ciszek — a Kindle deal that looked interesting

• Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry — a replacement for a copy I lent out

Books Continuing

These are most of the same books I brought into February, which isn’t all that surprising given the kinds of books they are and the length. I would really, really love to finish The Wingfeather Saga book with my kids and move on to the next one in March, as well as finish How to Read a Book, which I’ve been slogging through for a year.

• 52 Weeks in the Word: A Companion for Reading Through the Bible in a Year by Trillia Newbell (using to stay accountable to Scripture reading)

• Deserted by God by Sinclair Ferguson (reading with a friend)

• Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (long-term classic)

• How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren (personal development)

• On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (The Wingfeather Saga #1) by Andrew Peterson (reading out loud to my kids)

As always, I’d love to know what books you read this month—what did you love, what did you hate, what are you hoping to read next month?

The Dopamine Den got a new addition this month after Christian got me this adorable wall hanging when we were out on our Valentine’s Day date. I have always loved Winnie-the-Pooh so this was an incredible mash-up.

Tidbits

Over the course of the last month I saved a few things to my photos that I wanted to mention in this. They are simply things of interest or things that delighted me.

Because I am feeding two adults, two man-children and two growing kids, I go to the grocery store a lot. I also end up at various stores for my job to hunt for deals, which means I’m very aware when a new flavor or product enters the groceries market. I ran across this Cherry Float Coke Zero at Kroger a few weeks ago and was intrigued. Cherry Coke Zero is my carbonated beverage of choice. I bought the new flavor and took it home, but I ended up not liking it. My kids did, but most of them love cream soda and root beer flavored soda, neither of which are my cup of tea (soda). In any case, I appreciate Coca-Cola trying.

You’ll have to zoom in to read the most common dreams in every country, but I found this fascinating, especially since our 5-year-old recently told me his worst nightmare is having someone tie his loose tooth to a doorknob and closing it. I have never been afraid of my teeth falling out and would have more in common with people in Central American countries, apparently (SNAKES).

This just made me laugh.

And this is just a perfect example of the kind of word-related absurd humor I find delightful.

Watched

Christian and I have watched some very good television this month, as well as some “meh” television.

• Broadchurch (Netflix): We finished the final season, and this show just kept getting better and better. David Tennant and Olivia Colman are tremendous.

• The Pitt (HBO Max): I had already watched the first season and had started the second season, but then Christian was interested in watching the first season. We watched it together and I put a pause on Season 2. We’re about to start Season 2 and at some point all the episodes will be new for both of us. There are times on this show when it really feels like they are pushing an agenda. However, it doesn’t overwhelm the entire show and the characters and their relationships are great.

• Sinners (HBO Max): We have loved Michael B. Jordan since Friday Night Lights. He plays twins in this movie and he’s such an incredible actor it really seems like they are played by two different people. This movie is very edgy and violent and is about vampires. Proceed at your own risk.

• Fallout (Amazon Prime): We watched Season 2 and it continues to be a delightful and disturbing show about life post-nuclear catastrophe.

• Murder in Monaco (Netflix): In between shows we sometimes will watch a documentary as a palate cleanser. Christian had this one tagged and it was certainly bizarre. The person who ends up being charged with the crime is not who you’d expect.

• The Investigation of Lucy Letby (Netflix): Another documentary about a nurse charged with murdering multiple babies in the NICU. Christian was somewhat disturbed at how much I knew about how medical professionals can very easily poison their patients, but I have read The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, watched the movie it was based on (The Good Nurse, on Netflix, with EDDIE REDMAYNE), and read another book called A Taste for Poison, which had a whole chapter on how nurses have used insulin to kill their patients without anyone noticing. I contain multitudes, I tell you.

Life Updates

There were several notable things that happened this month that I don’t have any photos to illustrate. First, we had a rare day of snow the first week of February. It snowed here last year, which was our first time seeing snow here since we moved here in 2020. For it to snow two years in a row was a true anomaly. It meant that we canceled church and then the kids missed a day of school. Our oldest also completed his drivers ed class, and he will soon begin driving instruction.

Our oldest auditioned in December for District Honor Band, which occurs in February and consists of about two full days of students from all over the area learning brand new songs from unfamiliar instructors and them performing them in a concert at the end of the weekend. I was able to drive up to see Stephen perform, and it was incredible. (He is in the back row to the right; his head is directly to the right of the right blue bucket. The buckets were used for one of the performances.) For all the complaints about “kids these days,” seeing a bunch of 9th and 10th graders work hard and truly excel in a way that creates beauty gives me a lot of hope.

After no one missing a single day of school for sickness so far this year, something akin to the flu hit our house over the February school break. Noah woke up on the last half-day of school before break with what appeared to be the plague, so he missed his class Valentine’s Day party. That night, Zoe started going downhill. They each spent about 3 days in bed barely eating and drinking. Then it passed and they were back to normal. And praise the Lord, no one else got sick! (I’ve been Vitamin C maxxing so maybe it’s helping?)

Here on Substack I answered ’s request for pen pals and received my first letter from her in the mail. What a delight that was! I immediately wrote her back and am looking forward to future correspondence.

At school, one of Zoe’s classes has been reading several different books from the Girls Survive series (which consists of 35 books, apparently?!). She asked me to look for some more at the library, so the next time I returned books, I ran in and grabbed several off the shelf without really paying attention to the titles. A few days later, while getting ready for school, she told me she had read Ruth and the Night of Broken Glass: A World War II Survival Story and that it had made her cry. I told her that I was about her age when I first learned about the Holocaust and that if she was interested in learning more, I could look for some more books. She said yes and so we are now embarking on a journey into looking for more books. I couldn’t be happier to see her interest in reading and history.

ICYMI (February posts)

Not everybody reads all my posts, and that’s OK. Here’s what you might have missed this month if you’re not a subscriber or you just haven’t been able to keep up!

• Chelsey’s January 2026 Reads | 17 books

• My Top 15 New-To-Me Fiction Reads of 2025

• Strange things were afoot in Tennessee in 2006

• 21 Nonfiction Books I Read and Loved in 2025

From the Archives

We’re coming up on having lived here for almost six years. Here’s a photo essay of the 10 days leading up to moving here during once of the most difficult seasons of my life.

In Closing

Have you tried a new favorite flavor of anything lately? What’s your favorite soda? Watched anything good? I’d love to hear about it.

Investigative Journalism

In trying to separate out the books into categories, I put these together because they were all written by people who had to really push to get the information and interviews necessary. Some of the people interviewed for these books would definitely be considered “hostile witnesses.”

The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty by Valerie Bauerlein

This was one of the first books I read in 2025 and it stayed with me all year. While the Murdaugh situation happened not far from where we live, I hadn’t paid much attention to the many podcasts and documentaries. I only knew the very basic outline of what had supposedly happened. This book pulls no punches and tells the whole story. It’s tragic and terrifying.

No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson by Gardiner Harris

First of all, the person who designed this book cover should win all the awards. It’s brilliant. This book was also terrifying. I’ve never had another book make me check my medicine cabinet to see if we had any body powder that contained talc (we did—it went in the trash). This looks at the Tylenol poisoning in 1982, a situation that I learned about in college as to how a company can bounce back from a negative event, and learning about how the company has handled pretty much anything left me never wanting to buy anything they’ve ever made.

Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family by Jess Walter

I got this book on a Kindle deal last year and was curious to read it because I have heard Ruby Ridge mentioned in other books like Educated and stories about Waco and David Koresh. It turned out to be a comprehensive history of the Weaver family’s origins as well as the circumstances that led to the deadly standoff. It explored other people who lived in the area a the time and how they were affected, and I thought it was balanced in how it showed the actions of both the federal agents as well as the family. I found it a very human book.

Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr

I had never heard of the Broken Faith cult, but now I know about as much about it as I could ever want to. This book read like a fiction book from start to finish, and what makes it so awful is that it’s about true events. Word of Faith Fellowship used to have a more full-fledged website, but it looks like the book has had an impact.

History

Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown by Candace Fleming

My husband and I were trying to find a show to watch a few weeks ago and he was looking at a documentary about Jonestown. I told him that I thought I had dived all the way to the bottom of the Jonestown rabbit hole and didn’t need to consume any more information about it. This book was a good way to finish up my exploration into that awful event, as it heavily leans on the testimony of one of Jones’s children.

A Light on the Hill: The Surprising Story of How a Local Church in the Nation’s Capital Influenced Evangelicalism by Caleb Morell

I would not have thought that a book about the history of a church would be so interesting, but this book was captivating. Capitol Hill Baptist Church was planted in Washington, D.C., in the 1800s, so the church and its members lived through hugely important historical events, many of which are referenced in this book. But what really made this book stand out for me was how encouraging it was to me as a member of a church in an ordinary place. It encouraged me to trust the Lord with our little church, no matter what the future holds.

Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come by Richard Preston

If you thought the Covid pandemic was scary, this one will really send you over the edge. Another book that reads like almost post-apocalyptic fiction, the author does a tremendous job of explaining the disease and respecting and honoring the people who worked the hardest to end the outbreak—who didn’t end up being the people we read about in the news.

Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses by M.G. Sheftall

This was probably the most difficult book I read this past year, not because it was poorly written but because it was so overwhelming. It is almost entirely written as testimonies from survivors of the atomic bomb detonation. The author is not Japanese but has lived there for decades and went to great effort to track down the people he interviewed, many of whom were in their 80s or 90s. This book made me re-examine what I had learned about Hiroshima in high school and college, and a book that makes me consider changing my opinion is usually going to make this list at the end of the year.

Self-Help / Personal Development

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks

Last year I declared this book as a book everyone should read. I found it challenging and it caused me to examine how I could connect better with other people. I am an introvert, and I spent most of my life even into adulthood feeling awkward and insecure about connecting with other people. While I had already learned how to do that better before I read this book, it gave me a lot more ideas and tools to put into practice.

It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People by Ramani Durvasula

I’ve had relationships with more than one person who I think would have qualified as a narcissist, and while I am thankfully not in any of those situations now, I found this book to be so helpful in thinking about those experiences. I’ve also been recommending it to friends who are in relationships with difficult people. I appreciate that the author does not demonize narcissists and she also warns against using that term indiscriminately. Once you have met an actual narcissist, you develop a radar for true narcissistic behavior.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

This was a re-read for me, but after starting this Substack and even considering venturing into fiction writing, I found this book to be so helpful. It has also made me enjoy the King books I’ve read recently even more. You can see how he put what he has learned into practice.

Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life by Maggie Smith

I was newly introduced to Maggie Smith this year and after listening to the audiobook, I asked for the print book for my birthday so I could slowly work through the writing exercises in each chapter. I haven’t made it through the whole book a second time, but I’m glad to have this on my shelf for the future.

Memoirs

This is one of my favorite genres, and what makes me enjoy it even more is when I cam able to listen to it in audiobook form with the author narrating it. Interestingly, all the books that made the list this year were by women, and all of them read the audiobooks. We’ve got rabbits, tsunamis, cults, and Facebook covered.

Raising Hare: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton

Who would have thought that a book about raising a small animal would be so wonderful? This is a short book focused in on a very narrow season in the life of the author during the pandemic. Her relationship with the hare is beautiful.

Wave: A Memoir by Sonali Deraniyagala

I had vague memories of the tsunami in 2004, but I was still in high school and not super clued in to world events. The author lost five family members in the tsunami and barely survived herself. The part of the book about the actual tsunami is relatively small; most of the book is about how she dealt with the aftermath. As a wife and mother, I felt like my nerves were on edge the entire time because I could only imagine how I would have felt in her shoes.

Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show by Bethany Joy Lenz

I never watched One Tree Hill, and if I had, maybe I would have liked it even more, but it was compelling enough without that background. “Memoirs of people who have left cults” is one of my top categories of memoirs. I’ve thought about why this is, and I think it’s because I find it fascinating to see what had to happen for them to realize they couldn’t stay anymore, as well as to see how they kept going after a traumatic transition to real life.

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

I finally deactivated my Facebook account a few weeks ago. I didn’t do it only because of this book, but it was a part of it. Knowing Mark Zuckerberg, who does not come off well in this book, is no longer monetizing my phone time is a great feeling.1

Science

Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green

This was my first nonfiction book by John Green and I loved everything about it. Who knew that pretty much everything we’ve ever heard about is only a few degrees of separation from tuberculosis?

Slither: How Nature’s Most Maligned Creatures Illuminate Our World by Stephen S. Hall

My family was shocked that I listened to this book, and while it did not cure my extreme snake phobia, it did give me a lot of appreciation for snakes.

Miscellaneous

American Injustice: Inside Stories from the Underbelly of the Criminal Justice System by David S. Rudolf

I enjoy reading depressing books, as you have probably figured out. I think it’s really important for us as humans to understand how the criminal justice system does—and doesn’t—work. It’s not all episodes of Law and Order. This isn’t the first book I’ve read on this topic, but it was the best one I read last year.

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

This was definitely one of the funniest books I read last year. It’s composed of a variety of essays on random and unrelated topics, including Canadian geese and Diet Coke. I laughed out loud multiple times and hope he writes a sequel.

What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life by Allison Daminger

This was the most academic book I read last year. It was very affirming for me as the one in our home who managed most of the mental load of running our home. It doesn’t bash either gender, and it is honest about the challenges of sharing the mental load. It also gives really helpful and practical tips for partners to try if they’re not happy with the current mental load split.

I’d love to know your nonfiction recommendation from last year or even from more recently! If you’re not usually a nonfiction reader, did any of these jump out?