What I Read In March {Quick Lit}

Welcome to Quick Lit! Here are short reviews on the books I read over the past 30 days.

Liturgy and Personality

Dietrich von Hildebrand is a titan of modern theology, but I had never read any of his works. Liturgy and Personality came up as a suggestion under another book on Amazon, so I immediately borrowed it for free with Kindle Unlimited.

Here is where I admit that I misunderstood the title. I took it as the pop-psych version of personality. Self-confessed MBTI addict here. Just know that von Hildebrand uses personality in the classical sense. Not the collection of traits and preferences unique to each individual, but rather one’s fullness as a human person. Man is most whole when he is in union with Christ.

Rosaries Aren’t Just for Teething

Edited by Michelle Chronister, this book is a collection of reflections on each mystery of the rosary. Each essay is a short personal narrative about the ways each mystery is lived in the life of a normal mom. The essays are written by popular woman authors including Kelly Mantoan, Amy Garro, Jenna Hines, and Haley Stewart.

Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands

It turns out this book, and maybe Dr. Laura in general, is quite controversial to some. I had no idea until I mentioned it to a friend. I bought it a few years ago on an older woman’s glowing recommendation. Dr. Laura is blunt, but refreshingly honest about the hard work that goes into healthy marriages.

The Autistic Brain

Temple Grandin can also be a controversial figure. Apparently she used to give the impression that her autism was the only autism. I didn’t catch the barest whiff of that attitude in The Autistic Brain. The cutting-edge neurological research she presents in this book testify to the wide neurodiversity of the autism spectrum.

Plus the included self-tests to discover your neurological strengths are just fun.  The spatial tasks gave me a searing headache. I’m so verbal.

The Entire Artemis Fowl Series

I have a problem. When I get sick, I comfort-read teen lit. And I have been sick a lot this spring.

The eponymous Artemis Fowl discovers fairies, real, honest-to-goodness fairies. And they’re technologically advanced far beyond our capabilities. He’s a nasty piece of work at the start of the first book, but the series covers his redemptive transformation to an ethical human being. Oh, and he’s 13.

The Inheritance Cycle

A teenage farm boy discovers a dragon egg. The first such egg in generations. Together the pair run from the evil king, and straight into all sorts of challenges and foes.

Honestly, the first book is cringey, but they pick up steam quickly. The author was 15 when he started writing Eragon, and published at 19. The angst that was invisible to me as a teen, now has me rolling my eyes at 25. What can I say? I was on a lot of meds, and feeling nostalgic.

Last month I had the flu, and I read four teen fantasy novels. This month I had pneumonia, and read 12 (twelve!) teen fantasy novels. I can only assume I’ll catch ebola in May, and be forced to read the Twilight series seven times.