Thursday, March 6, 2014

Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages

"The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages" by Shaunti Feldhahn is a book that attempts to give tips and advice about enhancing your marriage with your spouse. As with any book that attempts to offer relationship advice, some of it is great and some of it I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

For example, this book offers up the idea of "keeping score", just not in the traditional sense. This book proposes that you should keep score of how much your partner is doing or giving, in order to give back to them even more. I found this thought to be a little bit flawed - If you have to keep track of what your partner is doing to support his family, in order to establish how much of yourself to give back, I think it puts too much focus on the wrong things. So this was one of the "I don't think I'd try this" sections of this book.

The book, does, however, offer some good advice for happy marriages, such as looking higher, being plugged into a faith community, sharing key values, and trusting God for the outcome. I think this book offers some healthy and realistic advice that can be poured into marriage, but as I mentioned earlier, I think you have to look at it from a perspective of what will work for your particular situation, rather than an all inclusive marital fix.

Overall I'd give this book a 3/5 - some good advice and observations, but not all of it is what I consider to be healthy and productive. Just like any other self-help book, I would take away from it what works for me, and leave the rest.

FTC DISCLOSURE: I received this book for free from Multnomah Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Young Woman of Faith Bible

The "Young Women of Faith Bible" is a Bible designed for girls, ages 6 and up. This is a traditional NIV translation, with tons of study tools to help young women get the most out of their Bibles. This Bible is a hard cover, with bright colors on the outside. The inside is a traditional black and white text, but features light pink boxes on nearly every page that offers some kind of additional explanation or elaboration on the text.

These pink boxes offer everything from perspective on the societal situation of the time, explanation of complicated verses, and modern day situations that reflect the same Biblical lessons as found in the text. Memory verses are occasionally highlighted with a bright pink flower, followed by the verse, which naturally draws your eye to it. There is also a pink box entitled "Journal" that also appears periodically throughout this Bible. This journal feature is a fictional journal entry from a young girl that uses an everyday situation for young girls to further expand on Biblical concepts.

Overall I thought this Bible was a great first "real" Bible for young girls. I think the age bracket of 6 years old and up is perfect. My daughter is 6 and this is her first real Bible. In the past she has always had the colorful Bible Story books that concisely tell popular Bible stories. I think this is a great companion to those type of books, as now we are able to look up those stories and use this as a more detailed story for her.

I would give this Bible a 5/5, and highly recommend it to anyone looking for a first Bible for the young girl in their life.

FTC DISCLOSURE: I received this book for free from Book Look Bloggers in exchange for an honest review.