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Do you ever wonder what it's really like to be a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?  

When David and Megan receive letters from their Uncle Clay, they get a little taste of what an LDS mission is all about.  They learn how elders and sisters teach people the Gospel, serve others, bear their testimonies, and invite everyone to come unto Christ.  They also hear about more mundane parts of the missionary experience, like learning to eat unfamiliar foods, living with a companion, dealing with rejection, and exercising to keep their bodies strong.  Most importantly, Uncle Clay assures them they don't have to wait until they're older to be missionaries—there are things they can do right now, as kids, to prepare themselves to serve the Lord.  After all, you don't have to wear a name tag to help and teach other people!

I don't review many picture books, but when Benjamin Hyrum White asked "Sister BBB" to take a look at his newest, I couldn't resist.  I Hope They Call Me on a Mission, written by White and illustrated by Corey Egbert, is an uplifting, informative tale about what LDS missionaries do day in and day out.  It gives a great overview, with bright, appealing pictures to enhance the text.  I especially like the "What Can You Do Now?" sections, which help kids understand that they can do many things right now to not only help them serve missions in the future, but also to live Christ-centered lives in the present.    

While I Hope They Call Me on a Mission may be difficult for young children to read by themselves, it's a great tool for parents/teachers to use for Family Home Evenings, Primary lessons, and Sacrament Meeting entertainment.  Middle graders will enjoy absorbing all the information in the book as well.  Personally, I plan on sharing it with my own offspring in an upcoming FHE.  You should, too.

Want more opinions of I Hope They Call Me on a Mission?  Follow the book's blog tour here.

(Readalikes:  Hm, I can't think of anything.  Can you?)

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(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for UnDivided, it may inadvertently spoil plot surprises from earlier UnWind installments.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

In UnDivided, the action-packed conclusion to Neal Shusterman's popular Unwind dystology, the tension and fury surrounding the controversial issue of unwinding is escalating.  While the Marcella Initiative—a law that would allow the unwinding of teens without parental consent—gains favor in the U.S., Proactive Citizenry plans to create an army of patchwork soldiers patterned after Cam Comprix.  Meanwhile, the increasingly maniacal Starkey, followed by his gang of angry disciples, target unwinding facilities with the intention of freeing prisoners and killing all their adult captors.  Stuck in the middle, Connor, Risa, and Lev race to find a solution that will end unwinding forever.  But, with ruthless black market harvesters hot on their trail, they may never get the chance.  All Connor wants is the guaranteed safety of unwanted children—will he finally see his dream realized?  Or, will the Akron AWOL meet the brutal end that's been his fate from the beginning?

While I've enjoyed all the books in this series, the first and last are my favorite.  Although in some ways, I didn't want to reach the end of UnDivided, once I started the novel, I couldn't stop reading.  To say it's a blood-pumping, edge-of-your-seat, adrenaline-fueled thrill ride is a vast understatement.  It's so much more than that.  The book is chilling, startling, funny, clever, provocative, and most of all, hopeful.  It's sad to see the end of a series that I've loved since its beginning, but I know Shusterman's got many more brilliant tricks up his sleeve.  I can't wait to see what he does next.  

(Readalikes:  Other books in the Unwind series [Unwind; UnStrung (novella); UnWholly; and UnSouled)

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Nora Glass is more Martha Stewart than Martha Stewart.  The 44-year-old loves nothing more than reigning over her clean, orderly universe with precision and pride.  Her domestic supremacy has earned her legions of fans who turn to her syndicated newspaper column not just for household hints, but also for advice on weathering storms like divorce and single motherhood with grace—things at which Nora excels.  So what if her angelic daughter has morphed into a sullen teenager, whose words wound her mother daily?  Ellie's antics make Nora's readers laugh just as much as they did when she was a toddler.  So what if Ellie hates that total strangers know all the intimate details of her life?  Nora's ability to mine their everyday experience for nuggets of publishing gold is what pays the bills. 

When Nora receives a devastating diagnosis of Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease (EOAD), she feels her tidy world start to crumble.  Losing time, words and memories of things she did just moments ago terrifies her.  She can't stand what the disease is doing to her—taking away from her.  Knowing that EOAD is almost guaranteed to kill her within a few years doesn't make things any easier.  Nora can't stand the thought of 16-year-old Ellie, who has already been abandoned by her father, losing her mother as well.  Although Nora's fraternal twin, Mariana, promises to be there for both of them, that doesn't provide much comfort.  Marianna can barely take care of herself.  

As the symptoms of Nora's disease grow progressively worse, she must learn to let go—of control over her life, of grudges long-held, of perceptions that don't ring true, and of emotions she's always bottled up.  With all of it stripped away, Nora will have to put her trust in the very people she's had to care for all her life.  People who might fail.  People who might let her down.  People who will help her see that, sometimes, everything you need is right in front of you—if only you can remember to look.  

Disease novels are always a hard sell for me.  I'm sure they're not easy to write either—somehow you have to make them touching, but not sappy; affecting, but not melodramatic; realistic, but not depressing.  Original, especially surprising, disease novels are tricky to pull off (one of the reasons John Green's The Fault in Our Stars is so popular).  Considering all this, I didn't expect a whole lot out of Splinters of Light by Rachael Herron.  And that's pretty much what I got.  A character-driven story, the novel focuses on the relationships between the three Glass women—Nora, Ellie, and Mariana—and how they evolve in the face of Nora's illness.  Plotwise, there are small conflicts (Ellie's older boyfriend, Mariana's inability to commit to a relationship, Nora's romance with her neighbor, etc.), but mostly it's all about Nora's suffering.  I'm not going to lie: I got tired of Nora's wallowing.  In fact, I didn't find any of the characters that likable.  They depressed me, the lot of them.  Herron writes well, it's true, but, overall, I just didn't find this overly-long novel that enjoyable.

(Readalikes:  Reminded me a little of Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson and a teensy bit of Half a Chance by Cynthia Lord as well as almost every book I've ever read about someone dying of cancer)

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If this were a movie, it would be rated:

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(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for UnSouled by Neal Shusterman, it may inadvertently reveal plot surprises from its predecessors, UnWind and UnWholly.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

Now that The Graveyard—the unwinds' sanctuary—has been destroyed, Connor Lassiter and Lev Calder are on the run.  Trying to keep a low profile, they head toward Ohio, where they hope to finally get some answers about Proactive Citizenry.  Their quest does not go smoothly, of course.  There's a kidnapping, a couple of car wrecks, an ostrich, and a band of Native Americans with their own agenda.  While all of these things distract them from their ultimate goal, neither Connor nor Lev will quit until they can stop unwinding forever.

Meanwhile, Camus Comprix, the world's first composite human being, is taxed with convincing the higher-ups that he's a worthy investment.  Risa's betrayal has made him suspect.  He wants to hate her for that, but he can't.  She's all he thinks about, whether he likes it or not.

Between Connor's adventures, Cam's exploits, and the increasing number of clapper attacks happening all over the country, the journey to stop unwinding is going to be one heck of a wild ride.

Although UnSouled, the third installment in Neal Shusterman's popular UnWind series, juggles so many different stories that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins, it's an exciting read, if an unfocused one.  Lev's back story gets filled in and we get to catch up on the doings of other familiar characters.  UnSouled is more humdrum than the first two books, but Shusterman's characters are compelling all on their own.  This isn't my favorite novel of the bunch, I admit, and yet, I still enjoyed it.  As a whole, I love this clever, thought-provoking series.  If you're not reading it, you should be.

(Readalikes:  UnWind, UnWholly, and UnDivided by Neal Shusterman)

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