Category: memoir

Posted in author, book reviews, memoir

Review

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Check out the great book review I got from the link below.

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Here it is my third review. If you want to read it with bigger letters and with some extra notes go to the link in my BIO. 😁 The Promise: A Memoir By Connie Rife To start. The book is short, so it can be read fast because it is exciting. The book is about the adventures and life of an adolescent girl, Connie, growing up. However, the excitement comes from the theme of the book, which revolves predominantly on the problems that Connie faces when growing up. The circumstances of the main character in the book are exceptional. I was impacted and interested in every tale that was related. It also intrigued me how the mind of this girl worked through everything that was going on around her. What got me the most was the way she talked and interacted with the people around her. Also, the way she handled herself in the problematic situations she found herself in. There is only one thing that held me back from completely loving The Promise. What held me back into completely loving this book was the amount of emotional distress. The number of emotions expressed in The Promise was a little bit overbearing in my opinion. However, this is probably because I am personally somewhat disconnected from my feelings. Nevertheless, this does not make it a bad book, but it is important to know if you are interested in reading it. There are also many conversations with The Big Guy, if you know what I mean. If you do not understand the expression, then you should read the book and find out for yourself. The conversations between Connie and The Big Guy made me smile, laugh, and wonder, which as you may know are all things I love to do when reading a book. In my opinion, you should read it having the mindset that the author is a friend of yours telling you their life story. Even though the story did not contain any action or suspenseful scenes, I enjoyed it. Finally, the story has a little bit of everything (adventure, love, friendship, and drama), which makes it exceptional. #bookreviewlatino #bookreview #bookstagram #book #onlyreadwhatsgood #thepromiseamemoir

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Posted in author, Father's Day, memoir, Our Story, reading

My Dad

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Since my book, ”The Promise” was published in January many who have read it might wonder how I could love my dad as much I still do. Those who knew him may not even want to know the mistakes he made by reading my book. But then you are missing the point that he is no different than anyone of us. He overcame the demons of his life. He apologized for the hurtful things he’d done knowing that it would never take away the shame that he’d take with him to the grave.
Jesus once said, ”he who is without sin can throw the first rock.” I’d be the first to drop my rock on the ground. Can any of us say there is not something in life we wish we could take back?
It was my dad who encouraged me to write my story from the moment I first came to live with him at 16 years old. He believed in what life had to teach us and that if we could help others by sharing our own mistakes than we give each other the opportunity to grow and learn through their own.
I miss my dad everyday. I miss his hugs, his sparkling smile, our conversations. But his words of wisdom lives on in me. I am the lucky one to have had the relationship we shared and I thank God that I was blessed to have a Dad as special as he was to me.
Happy Fathers Day, to my Dad!❤️

Posted in author, book reviews, memoir

My First Guest Post

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Monica Lee

Here on Connie’s World, it is my pleasure to welcome Monica Lee, the author of Church Sweet Home and three other books. Today, she writes about home, a topic we both address in our respective memoirs.

When one thinks of a journey or an adventure, exotic destinations come to mind. Who bothers to embark on a long trip only to end up at home?

But in this odd world filled with government orders, infection rates and death counts, home is the blessed end of many treks out in the world. Whatever we’re doing—seeing a doctor, going to work, even simply buying fresh produce at the supermarket—we all just want to get home. Home is the ultimate destination, a sanctuary from all the world’s evils.

Even the word home evokes warm, fuzzy feelings. No wonder home, sweet home is a saying. We’re always looking for home, making a home, just being ourselves at home, reminiscing about home or trying to go back home. Home represented love, comfort and security long before lethal viruses floated through bandana face masks sending us to the hospital to die horrible, lonely deaths.

So while a travelogue is a great distraction in this strange time (I recently enjoyed Bill Bryson’s jaunt through Australia in In a Sunburned Country), a story where home plays a starring role may be the best salve to soothe the soul.

My latest memoir, Church Sweet Home: A Renovation to Warm the Soul, opens with my husband and I marveling at the snow falling outside our camper. Yes, we were camping in northern Illinois in late October. We weren’t foolhardy outdoorsmen; we lived in our RV at the time, trying to figure out how to carve out a living space in a century-old church.

We called the 355-square-foot fifth-wheel camper home because we’d sold our four-bedroom house earlier in the year to travel through the West Coast. It was an epic trip, but our home was like a turtle shell, one we carried on our back. During the renovation of the church into a residence, we lived in the camper, a tiny rental house, back to the camper and finally the church. The building inspector required a functioning bathroom and kitchen and a real bedroom before issuing a residential permit for the church, but of course, almost everyone agrees a home is so much more than plumbing, kitchen appliances and a bed.

In my story, home is a literal space.

In Connie Rife’s story, home is less a specific place than an emotional one. In The Promise: A Memoir, Connie is looking for the security and love only loved ones can provide. She begins her journey with her sometimes irritating yet nonetheless related little sister, progresses to a house in which she becomes more a mother to her benefactor’s children than the real mother, and then to an apartment she shares with her sometimes recovering alcoholic father. All of these places have functioning bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms, but none of them are really home because the people she shares the spaces with are wrapped up in their own responsibilities and problems.

So a true home requires certain physical luxuries and also emotional security. In order to be a true sanctuary, a home must be an oasis, a shelter in the storm.

Your turn! How would you define home? What is essential? Anything missed? Share below!

Have you read books in which home is the ultimate destination? Will you be reading Church Sweet Home? Do you have questions for Monica Lee?

My latest book is available on Amazon & AmazonKindle:
Church Sweet Home: A Renovation to Warm the SoulSubscribe to my author blog at http://mindfulmonica.wordpress.com/ for the latest