In the midst of all the reading and writing and childcare and housework and trying to get some amount of sleep, I again find pieces of time to run over to my blog and give you all five more mini-reviews of my 2022 reads!

This post is full of five- and four-star reviews, so you should be in for a treat today! Though as usual, it’s quite an eclectic selection…

I read this in my continued quest to further my healthy weight loss journey and to make sure I was really doing the best and most advantageous version of intermittent fasting.

And I found it absolutely fascinating! It really delves into the science of what causes weight gain and why and how to influence the process. It helped me understand my body and hormones much better than I had, and as I mentioned before, I did end up meeting my goal of losing 45 pounds. And even now that I’m pregnant and can’t practice the fasting lifestyle, the information in this book continues to inform the way I think about food and eating as I go about my days. I highly recommend it!

This completed my read-through of The Lord of the Rings along with the Babylon Bee podcast. I had stopped following the podcast before I made it this far, which meant finishing up the book was a little bittersweet, but as a completionist, I had to do it!

And I definitely feel, as with the other two, that while they aren’t my favorite books of all time — and *gasp* I still like the movies better — I gained a much deeper appreciation for the books on my second read-through. Tolkien really did have a profound gift for communicating his world and his ideas, and I really value the messages of hope and courage found in this trilogy.

My church gave copies of this book to each lady in the congregation, challenging each of us to read it and then discuss our thoughts and takeaways at our retreat in the summer.

The book was absolutely life-changing for me. I have always struggled with making daily quiet time in the Word and in prayer a priority in my life. Some times I’ve been more consistent with it, but generally less so.

While reading this book nearly a year ago, I was so convicted about my lack of faithfulness in this area that I set a timer for early in the morning, and determined that I would have to get up when it went off every day if I wanted to actually do this. With kids who are going to get up and need me at a certain time, that was the only way I was going to be able to truly commit to this daily practice. And with a few days missed during sickness or travel, I can honestly say I have been faithful for the entire year since, and it’s been such a beautiful and beneficial journey. I highly recommend both this book and serious prioritization of time with the Lord each morning!

I re-read this one because I had never gotten around to reading the third book in the series. When I picked up the third book to read it, however, I found that I couldn’t really remember enough of the first two books, so I went through them both again.

I loved this book just as much the second read-through. I found it thought-provoking, enjoy the characters, and appreciate much of what Roth communicates. However, spoiler alert, the third book once I got to it was so thoroughly awful that it’s hard in hindsight not to let that affect my enjoyment of the entire trilogy. But more on that later…

I had been meaning to get to this series for a long time and just hadn’t done it. Finally, I got the ebook from my library and just went for it. And I enjoyed it!

As I’ve mentioned a few times to family and friends when talking about these books, they remind me a little of A Series of Unfortunate Events, but a bit less funny, a lot less dark, and the adults are actually smart and helpful! In Unfortunate Events, all adults are either evil or stupid, but in this series there are many adults who are helpful and intelligent and protective, which was very refreshing!

There you go — five more book reviews for you to ponder! Have you read any of these? Please comment and tell me your thoughts, or tell me whether you’d like to add any of them to your to-read list!