I love reading books for review, and I was instantly intrigued when I saw the title of Donna Freitas’ new book, The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy. Now that I’ve finished this book, I feel like I have many new ideas about how I want our family to approach the topic of sex.

Donna Freitas uses The End of Sex to describe the findings of her research on hookup culture on college campuses. Hookup culture is defined by the absence of relationships and emotions in sexual encounters, with a hefty dose of alcohol added in for good measure. Freitas uses the students’ own words to explain how college students are expected to hookup, and the huge pressures within the culture for students to have no feelings for the person with whom they are hooking up. The students explain how dating no longer happens on campuses. In the majority of cases, students either didn’t know anyone who has ever been on a date or they only used the term to describe “serial hookups”, where you hookup with the same person, but still don’t spend time with them when you aren’t intoxicated or having a sexual encounter.

She polled students in a variety of settings — public and private secular colleges, private Catholic colleges, and private evangelical Christian colleges. The results of her study were fascinating. With the exception of private evangelical Christian colleges, the hookup culture was virtually identical on college campuses. Freitas found that private evangelical colleges have an alternate scene – a purity scene – which was filled with its own quirks. Having attended a private evangelical college, I didn’t need any further explanation. She does, however, suggest additional resources for people who want to read more about the culture of purity.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book is that Freitas looks at many different angles of the subject, including ways that different students have attempted to “opt out” of the hookup culture, and programs that have worked (and failed) at college campuses across the country. One of her biggest points is that students realize that they want to have GOOD, meaningful sex, but often don’t know how to get it in the midst of hookup culture. Young men are encouraged to act out macho roles, pretending that they only care about getting a lot of random sex. Young women are encouraged to play out fantasy roles, inspired by pornography, at theme parties every weekend, and feel extreme pressures to neither appear “needy” nor to want more than semi-anonymous sex.

I feel like I am walking away from this book with a much stronger understanding of the sexual attitudes that I want to teach my kids. Freitas’ research shows that students who feel empowered to make a stand to wait for meaningful, good sex are much more likely to avoid the depression and emptiness that many describe as part of hookup culture. She encourages the reader to not only reconsider religious, conservative abstinence-only programs (which do not influence a majority of college students), but to equally scrutinize the far-left curriculum which focuses primarily on avoiding STIs, pregnancy and rape as opposed to being selective about sex. She feels that there is a need for education that shows students that there is a middle ground, and that it is important for both sides to adjust the rhetoric for the sake of the students.

I really enjoyed this book, and I’d recommend it to any parent. It has not been many years since I was in college, but I know that the culture has shifted a lot in a short time. This book adds much to the conversation about young adults and sex, and it is well worth the read.

As I mentioned, I received an electronic copy of this book to review for NetGalley. I was not otherwise compensated, and I was under no obligation to give a good review.

I am not sure what led me to request a copy of No Easy Choice to review. Maybe I chose it because it deals with birth, which is a topic that I always love.. after all, I am a midwifery student, birth doula, and mom of 4. Maybe I chose it because the author is a Christian, and I was curious to hear her take on ethical and moral issues. Maybe it was that I was drawn to the idea of a book that asks the difficult questions about when life begins.. Whatever the reason, I must say that I was really blown away by the quality of this book.

Ellen Painter Dollar uses this book to share her story of living with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) — a dominant genetic bone disorder that causes bones to break, often without warning — and the impact that OI had on her decision to become both a wife and mother. She passes OI on to her first daughter, and then grapples with the decision of whether or not to use reproductive technology, including preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to attempt to ensure that she will carry a child who does not have this trait.

Besides being beautifully written, Dollar does a superb job of explaining the views on both sides of the debates. She goes far deeper than just the question of whether or not life begins at conception, and explains why focusing on that one issue can lead you to overlook dozens of equally important questions.

The way that the reader is taken on the journey is beautifully crafted, and I can honestly say that I will never consider the ethical choices surrounding reproductive technology and even the pro-life and pro-choice movements the same again. I recommend this book very highly.

I received an electronic copy of this book to review for NetGalley. I was not otherwise compensated, and I was under no obligation to give a good review.

After reading several heated threads about this book, I decided that I needed to read it ASAP. I have to say that I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did, and it has given me new insight into cultural beliefs about food that are decidedly American (but I thought were universal.)

As the longer title suggests, this book is about a family who moved to France, revolutionized the way their family ate, cured their picky eaters, stopped snacking, and then ultimately moved back to North America and realized that it was much harder to maintain when you’re outside of the French culture.

First, let me say that this is not the same author who wrote French Women Don’t Get Fat. That’s a whole different lady, making a whole different point.

This author, Karen Le Billon, married a Frenchman and decided that it’d be fun to go live in France for a year. At first, it was hard for her to adjust to the way of life in France. She was one of the few people at the supermarket. The locals shopped at their local fresh market that was held downtown. At the market downtown, you tell the vendor which day/meal you plan on eating a particular food, and they pick the perfect item for that timing. It is a slow process, and very personalized.

As she adjusted to the ways of shopping, she also learned that the French approach food education with their children completely differently. They encourage the kids to view new foods as exciting, rather than scary, and expect for kids to need to try foods many times to develop a taste for it. They don’t snack, as that makes the child less hungry for real food at the meals. They also view mealtimes as a special occasion (with most people still going home for hot lunches, their biggest meal), and eating on the go is a big no-no.

The author also learns first-hand that school lunches are a whole different beast in France. There is only one option, the kids sit at tables with tablecloths and real silverware. The meal is a traditional 4-course meal, with a cheese course and everything, and there is NO personalizing the meal. The idea is that if you are given good food, you should eat it. They view the idea of giving kids a choice in what they eat as stunting — leading to having an adult population who is still picky like toddlers.

One thing that I didn’t expect, but really appreciated, is that the author is coming from a background of what she considers attachment parenting (although it is bordering on permissive), and she has no desire to adopt the parts of French culture that are far from AP, including the appalling low breastfeeding rate in France. I didn’t feel like she took an overly rosy view of French culture, but I did like how she took the things that worked and found ways to use them in her life, both in France and when they returned to North America.

I think this book is well worth the read. It has yummy recipes in the back, including a killer mousse au chocolat that we made. Her descriptions of how food is approached in France were really eye-opening for me, and have changed the way we approach mealtimes. Definitely check it out if you get the chance.

Well, not every book can be a winner.

My kids LOOOOOVE animal encyclopedias. They read them like novels. We were at Barnes and Noble a few days ago when my kids found the National Geographic Animal Encyclopedia and begged us to buy it. We ended up surprising them with it later. Tonight I asked my son how it is, and he said, “It is nice, but a lot of the pictures are wrong.”

We sat down, and he showed me a picture of a Ground Squirrel that was labeled as a Prairie Dog. I agreed with him that it was a Ground Squirrel, but a fairly innocent mistake. Next he showed me a picture of a King Vulture that said it was an Andean Condor. There was definitely no mistaking that one. Next he showed me this page:

Red Ant?

Erm, yeah… That’s pretty bad.

He went back to reading, and just a second later noticed that the Sea Nettle was labeled as an Urchin, and the Urchin as a Sea Nettle. I’m sure he’ll find more mistakes as he continues to read it.

What a bummer. I expected them to have better editors at National Geographic. If your kids want an animal encyclopedia, I definitely recommend on passing on this one.

While browsing to see which book I might want to review next, Cliques, Hicks, and Ugly Sticks by K.D. McCrite immediately caught my eye. It is the second book of “The Confessions of April Grace” series, although I didn’t realize that until I finished the book.

The story is told by April Grace, an 11-year-old in Arkansas in 1986. April Grace is starting junior high and her world seems to be falling apart. The new school year starts and one of her best friends is now snotty and mean to her at school, boys are starting to notice her (which makes her uncomfortable), and then her parents drop the bombshell that they have a new baby on the way. The book follows April Grace’s life through the first half of her school year as she tries to adjust to all of the changes in her life.

Reading this book was fun. I smiled at the descriptions of life in the 80′s. April Grace’s character has a great blend of innocence and spunk that translates well for the tween crowd. I think my daughter will really relate to her. I’m going to get the first book of the series and I plan on reading them aloud with my kids.

This book is published by Thomas Nelson, but the Christian message is very subtle in it and I think it would be an appropriate book regardless of a person’s faith. The overall tone of the book is positive without being syrupy. I’d definitely recommend this book and I look forward to checking out the rest of the series.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

One of the reasons that I love reading autobiographies is because I believe strongly in Charlotte Mason’s teaching that “autobiographies… often lift the veil, for the writer may make free with himself.” Even though this book isn’t the kind of book I normally discuss on here, I find it really interesting to read other people’s stories and learn from them. I thought some of you might like it too

I picked up this book with no expectations. Aside from the press attention that occurred during the trial of Warren Jeffs, I knew very little about the FLDS or Elissa Wall.

This book taught me many things about the FLDS sect. Before reading this, I didn’t realize that the “prophet” had such power over the everyday lives of the members of their community. As Walls says early on in the book, “The prophet decides when two people should marry, when families can form, and when families that are not working are to be reorganized.”

She also describes how,

It was common practice to expel men… all that is required is for the prophet or someone acting at his direction to say: “You have lost your priesthood.” The significance of this is enormous for believers, as it creates a culture of fear. If a husband loses his priesthood, his family is literally no longer his. In addition, he has to leave his land and home because his home is owned by the FLDS Church and controlled by the priesthood. Faithful wives and children will accept these decisions and wait to be reassigned to another man.

Elissa’s story helped me to better understand the mindset of someone in the FLDS. I’ve never understand why polygamy was so central to the faith of those in the FLDS. Wall’s explanation of how a man must have three wives in order to attain the highest level of heaven was really eye-opening. This “need” to have at least three wives drives men to do what they can to please to prophet and show how faithful they are. This is the only way that they may have at least 3 wives assigned to them and not have their wives ever taken away. Removal of their wives (and subsequent reassigning of their families to new men) causes men to lose their place in heaven.

In this book, Elissa is honest about what her life in a polygamous family was like. There were parts that were great and parts that they tried to hide. I’ve seen interviews with women who live in plural marriages, but reading it from a child’s point of view was enlightening. It is clear that Elissa really loves her family and that she feels that her mother and father were trying to do their best to walk the line between taking care of their families and doing what they felt they needed to do to ensure them all a place in heaven.

Reading about the psychological impact of cultural conditioning was both sad and fascinating. Many of the teachings were strange and contradictory, but they were accepted. One such is example is that “Warren preached that when a family remarried to another man, God changed their blood and DNA to match that of the priesthood man they now belonged to. If we did not have worthy blood running through our veins, we could not gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven.” Pretty crazy, no?

I saw that other reviewers criticized Elissa because she could come across as immature or unable to take responsibility. It did not come across that way to me. On the contrary, I read it as a book written by a woman who is still young, still finding herself, and still in the midst of healing. I thought that she tried to be honest about her shortcomings. I think that she shared a lot of her flaws and that they made her story more credible rather than less.

I enjoyed reading this book. My one complaint is that I wish that they would’ve made the authorship more clear. I finished the book wondering how many of the words were from Elissa and how many were from her co-author. On GoodReads, Elissa’s name is listed first, but the Kindle edition has her co-author, Lisa Pulitzer first. The book is written as a first-hand account, but the listing of Lisa Pulitzer first makes me wonder how much was reconstructed by her.

Overall, I’m glad that I read this book. It was far less graphic than I expected, and I think she did a good job of explaining her side of the story.