Wren in Black Book Reviews

February 28, 2022

The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom

“Beginnings and endings are earthly ideas. I go on. And because I go on, you go on with me. Feeling loss is part of why you are on Earth. Through it, you appreciate the brief gift of human existence, and you learn to cherish the world I created for you. But the human form is […]

February 26, 2022

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

“The truth is we don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t even know the questions we need to ask in order to find out, but when we learn one tiny little thing, a dim light comes on in a dark hallway, and suddenly a new question appears. We spend decades, centuries, millennia, trying to […]

February 25, 2022

A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne

“Where do [writers] get [their] ideas? And the answer is that no one knows where the come from and nobody should know. They evolve in thin air, they float down from some mysterious heaven, and we reach and grab one, to grasp in our imagination, and to make it our own. One writer might overhear […]

February 23, 2022

Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others by Barbara Brown Taylor

“I can respect almost anyone who admits to being human while reading a divine text. After that, we can talk – about we highlight some teachings and ignore others, about how we decide which ones are historically conditioned and which ones are universally true, about who has influenced our reading of scripture and how our […]

February 21, 2022

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

“The stars! All those nuclear explosions sending out light waves, a very few of whose fate is to dissipate on my retinas. I look into the voids in between, a nothingness more absolute than any vacuum on Earth. In space, without any atmosphere to cloud my view, even that void resolves into more distant pricks […]

February 19, 2022

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

“At forty-two, I had never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem–my chronic inability to astonish myself. I promise you, no one judges me more harshly than I do myself; I caused a brilliant wreckage. Some say I fell from grace; they’re being kind. […]

February 18, 2022

Looking for Alaska by John Green

“Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” – John Green, “Looking for Alaska” Review: Looking for Alaska is the second John Green book I’ve read […]

February 16, 2022

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

“This never knowing, it weakens us,” Bunu would say. “It’s a form of control. They know exactly what they’re doing.” – Ruta Sepetys, “I Must Betray You” Review: I Must Betray You is Ruta Sepetys’s newest historical fiction novel marketed for young adults. I absolutely love how Sepetys manages to take a little known (at […]

February 14, 2022

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

“You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.” – Chris McCandless, in a letter to […]

February 12, 2022

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

“I saw a civilization that could destroy itself before it even reached the nearest star.” – Sequoia Nagamatsu, “How High We Go in the Dark” Review: How High We Go in the Dark is a new and excellent work of speculative science fiction, and in my opinion one of the best works of art (that […]