Fledge by Brenda Yoder

Fledge: Launching Your Kids Without Losing Your Mind by Brenda Yoder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"To fledge" has a double meaning. First of all it speaks of baby birds who are growing wings and about to fly. Secondly, it speaks of fledging an arrow. "To fledge an arrow means to put feathers on it to prepare it to fly toward a mark." Author Brenda Yoder does a wonderful job in this book of explaining the trials and heartaches of nudging our children out of the home nest as well as how to equip them to fly toward the mark that God has for them.

She writes from her own heartbreak and wisdom. She shares her mistakes as well as her successes. Personally, as the mom of a 15 year old, I can emphathize with many of the author's experiences as well as taking to heart wisdom for the future years. This book will certainly be a "go to" book in the future as I personally fledge my own child from the nest.

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This I Know by Eldonna Edwards

This I Know by Eldonna Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to receive a free digital ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is going to be hard to review. This is not a book you can literally critique, this is a book that you feel. Grace is one of 4 daughters of a pastor's family living in the 70s. She had a twin brother who died during birth. Her mother is suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of her last baby. Aside from the previously mentioned hardships, Grace's life is pretty normal except for one important thing. Grace has what she calls "The Knowing". Grace believes that she can still hear her dead brother talk to her. She can see things about people that other people would not know. She can touch objects of a missing person and know what has happened to him. Some people would call what Grace has a gift from God and others think it's of the devil. Her father's opinion is the latter. There is a real struggle throughout the whole book between Grace, who only uses her "gift" for good, and her father's opposition to it. The reader is left pondering his own beliefs about "The Knowing".

As I said before, this is a book that you feel. You feel for Grace as she grows up with practically no mother to guide her through her teenage struggles. You feel for Grace as she desperately wants her father's approval, but feels like she will never get it. There are also many tragedies throughout the book that tug at the heartstrings. There is a missing girl at one point in the story, a girl who was raped, a missing son in Vietnam, and a homeless man who was wrongly accused. The reader sees all of these tragedies through Grace's eyes. As a Christian, I really don't know where I stand on such things as clairvoyance or ESP. God is a big God and it certainly would be within His power to allow certain people to be able to sense things more than others. I do believe such matters are very sensitive matters because such powers could definitely be evil as well.

I would have rated this book as a 5, but there were a few scenes in the book that I would have rather not read (I actually skipped over them) due to their graphic nature. All in all, this was a great book that will make the reader really think - which I believe is the highest qualification of a good book!

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