Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Triumph by Sheila Johnson (A Book Review)

Sheila Johnson overcame immeasurable odds. When she was just sixteen, her family imploded when her father left their family for another woman. It destroyed her mom. Defiantly determined she would not be caught in this predicament as a woman, she set out to prove just that. However, this singular event shaped Sheila in more ways than one.  

Music was her refuge. She became an accomplished violinist and managed to get a full scholarship to college. She was well on her way. Then she met a young, ambitious man named Bob Johnson in college. They began dating and married a few years later. Her life and self-esteem was being shaped and molded by her new husband. His drive and ambition had carried them to great heights professionally.

However, behind closed doors, their marriage became a toxic breeding ground of lies, deceit, and emotional abuse. She had come full circle to the moment of her youth that she was determined not to experience again. When her thirty-three-year marriage to Bob ended, Sheila was struggling to find herself and rebuild life on her own terms.

She walked through shame, humiliation, male chauvinism, and racism to find her sweet spot. She became a philanthropist, entrepreneur, and formidable businesswoman. Sheila has indeed walked through fire and triumphantly come out on the other side.

I am grateful to Sheila Johnson for sharing her story. It is a story of courage, redemption, and fierce determination to keep moving forward.

Impactful moments/quotes from the book:

Sheila was reading in her bunk bed and was climbing down the ladder to come down for dinner.

Sheila’s dad to Sheila: “Just jump, I’ll catch you,” Dad said stretching his arm toward me. He’d never suggested such a thing before, so I was excited. I threw myself off the bunk, grinning from ear to ear-and then smack! I hit the floor hard. Confused, with the wind knocked out of me, I looked up at him.

“That’s a lesson,” my father said. “Don’t trust anybody.”

I started crying. “I trusted you,” I said. But he just turned and walked out of the room.

Sheila: “I wouldn’t want to live through that pain again. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today if I hadn’t gone through it. I walked through fire and survived. I am the salamander.”

Sheila: “My journey here has been arduous, as you’ve read in these pages. But going through those awful times built my character and my strength.”

Rating 10/10

I Am Debra Lee: a Memoir By Debra Lee (A Book Review)

Debra Lee sends the following message in the beginning of her memoir: “To all the shy girls, the introverts. Believe in yourself, work hard, use your voice, and you can be anything you want to be.” As a shy young girl herself, she started on a straight trajectory to college and then law school. The strong love for Black culture that she held fiercely throughout her young life came full circle when she started her tenure at BET.

Starting as general counsel and ending as CEO, she was a trailblazer who walked through the murky and sharky waters of office politics to carve out her own path. A path carved by fortitude and forged by fire that resulted in her becoming a force to be reckoned with in the business. She developed her skills by absorbing, observing, and working tirelessly in the trenches.

As a female executive among many male colleagues, she was oftentimes subjected to the patriarchal structure that sought to silence her contributions and ideas. However, she masterfully adjusted her sail and forged ahead with creative ways to use her voice. She stated: “That’s one of the many challenges of being a woman in the workplace, you always have a double consciousness.”

She used everything she experienced, good and bad, to build and cement her legacy. Debra Lee left a great blueprint to navigate through both career and life.

Debra Lee on perseverance: “I persevered not by becoming someone else but by embracing who I was (plus practice, practice, practice). 

Debra Lee on leadership: “Stepping into your flaws and all is the only way to lead.” 

Debra Lee on self-acceptance: “Whatever you do, own it. Because the consequences-good or bad- are yours and yours alone. 

Debra Lee on self-awareness: “There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be the center of attention.” 

This was an insightful read. It was written in a straightforward way that provided great advice on how to show up in the workplace and the world at large. I liked how she demonstrated with grace an alternative way to show up in the workplace that may also garner success and grant one’s greatest desires.

She also demonstrated how a shy person can walk in their purpose by simply embracing all that they are, standing firm, and forging ahead despite insecurities. She worked and led in that perspective, and it unlocked so much for her. I am happy that she shared her story with us.

Rating 10/10

Hush Delilah by Angie Gallion (A Book Review)

Delilah Reddick is a woman trapped in her own life. She’s in a brutal cycle of abuse at the hands of her husband, Chase. Her best friend Carmen constantly pleads for her to leave, but it’s not so simple.

As Delilah folds into herself and examines her life both present and past, she sees a very small glimpse of a silver lining in the unraveling of the tight grip of the abuse. However, exactly what that silver lining will cost, is a thought that shakes Delilah to her core. There is her son Jackson, who would be collateral damage in it all.

This book delves deep into multiple perspectives of what abuse and the decisions linked to it looks like, depending on what a person’s viewpoint about it is. It explores how an abused person wrestles with vaccillating and ruminating thoughts and the difficulty in deciding weighty matters.

Delilah’s inner guilt leaped through the pages. I felt her guilt of how she found herself in what she viewed as a very pitiful place in her life. It appeared most of her guilt involved what she viewed as a betrayal of her own self.

As a reader, it was important to know the delicacy of the situation and not judge her, but to feel compassion. This book opened my heart and made it sensitive to inner battles that others may have to deal with, sometimes with very arresting characteristics. The author really captured the essence of the whirlwind, the fog, and the ties of a toxic relationship.  It was a great book.

Rating: 10/10

The Two Lives of Sara by Catherine Adel West (A Book Review)

Sara King, an expectant mother, appears in Memphis under the cloak of hidden truths to start life anew. She arrives at a boarding house ran by a fiesty but warm matriarch named Mama Sugar. Shortly after Sara arrives, she gives birth to a son she names Lebanon.

They’re embraced as family by Mama Sugar, her husband Mr. Vanellys, their grandson William, the boarders and some of the people in community. Sara’s hard exterior starts to soften. It all but vanishes when she starts a romance with William’s teacher, Jonas.

Sara’s embraces her newfound joy. But when the past collides with the present, it brings with it the possibility of forever altering the future for Sara and the people in her life both now and in the future.

There were so many profound moments in this story. The writing was impeccable and poignant. This story will stay with me always. Some of the quotes that both moved me and gave me pause were as follows:

“Well, what’s done is done but I found out when people go through hard places, they don’t need tough’ an they don’t need coddling. They need mercy.” ~Mr. Vanellys

“Friendships are strange evolving collections of laughter and fights and secrets, this rarified brew of humanity you choose to share with another person. And I want that again. To feel close to someone. To share with someone.” ~Sara

“So if you struggle or see someone struggling, seek understanding. You don’t know the wars people fight on the inside. No one save the Lord knows about those inside battles.” ~ Sara’s mother.

“No one likes to own the harm they did to others, it makes them hurt in a forever kind of way.” ~ Sara

“Everything we go through reshapes us, makes us new.”~ Cora

Rating: 10/10

So We Can Glow by Leesa Cross-Smith (A Book Review)

This is a great collection of stories covering the nuances and idiosyncrasies of womanhood. It explores their emotions, loves, memories, and reasons of why some women choose some things that govern their lives. Below are some of the stories that I liked most.

We Moons: I loved the sheer honesty of womanhood. It was beautifully written. It reached deeply into intricate parts of being a woman.

Pink Bubblegum and Flowers: Is about the awareness of the harshness of life’s circumstances layered right beneath the innocence of youth. The sweet smell of bubblegum and flowers provided a calming balm for the less than ideal situation at hand. It cemented the mutual love in the midst of chaos.

Knock Out The Heart So We Can Glow: This story represented the deep longing of a woman wanting love in her very specific way.

Some lines that were poignant were: “She was drawn to the dusty items no one else seemed to love.”

“She asked her husband if he remembered when she was eating pineapple and started to cry because she was alive and some people weren’t. Reminded him of that morning after church when her hair was baptism-wet. How she sat at the kitchen table, born again, drowning in the sunlight.”

“Her husband was a good man and she loved him, but he didn’t know how to be special, how to glow. She said it was pretty simple and she’d teach him. There was no big secret. You just had to let the things in your heart get real dark first.”

Two Cherries Under A Lavender Moon: This was about the sweetness of fantasy love and the heady, fast, and swelling feeling of which that love provides.

Boy Smoke: This story was about a wife discovering her husband’s affair and kicking him out of the house, while his students were driving pass their home. Some memorable lines from this story were: “Her face looks like a country song: smudged black eyeliner, red wine teeth.” “He’s Max and I’m Nina,” Coach’s wife says, snapping to normal in the way that only women can when they’re holding up the Earth. Nina says thanks to us and smokes at the front of the car, standing there like a crownless queen in streetlamp light.”

Dandelion Light: This is a sweet account of acquaintances slow dancing towards reconnection.

I absolutely loved the lyrical and poetic flow of how these stories were written. It captured the essence of each subject of each story. It was a beautiful collection of stories. This is the second body of work I read from this author and it was another great reading experience.

Rating: 9/10

Mrs. Wiggins by Mary Monroe (A Book Review)

Maggie Franklin grew up in a family of ill-repute. Her mother was a former prostitute, while her father was the town drunk. She becomes really fast friends with Hubert Wiggins. Hubert, comes from a prominent family in their community of Lexington, Alabama. Both Maggie and Hubert knows deep things about each other that solidifies their friendship.

As they grow up, Hubert becomes one of the most eligible bachelors in their town. Maggie, on the other hand is not so lucky. Both of their parents however, are pressuring them to get married. Neither of them are interested in marriage at the time. However, in an attempt to stop the parental pressure, they make a pact to marry one another. Their family is complete when their son Claude is born.

The Wiggins become the most revered family in Lexington. Maggie now has a charmed life. She’s the daughter-in-law of a pastor, her husband runs the family funeral business and works part-time at the turpentine mill, and she’s the doting mother to a wonderful son.

All is going great until her son grows up and becomes involved with a young woman named Daisy. Daisy proves to be a very challenging person. Claude’s relationship with Daisy sets a domino effect of events in Mrs. Wiggins life that threatens all that is good in it.

I enjoyed this story a lot. It showed how life can turn out, depending on how the person living it perceives the circumstances that they’re faced with. It was a story loaded with life lessons. I was hooked from start to finish.

Rating 9/10

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow(A Book Review)

Escaping the shattered home life she shared with her parents, ten-year old Joan relocates to Memphis with her younger sister, Mya and their mother, Miriam. Memphis is quite the experience and wide-eyed, Joan takes it all in, this magical, colorful place.

When they all arrive in Miriam’s childhood home, a home built by love, Joan feels the weight of a thing in this very safe haven they’ve escaped to. Her artwork is her balm for the powerful weight she’s carrying from years ago.

Joan melts into the fabric of her community, which includes people like her sassy aunt August and the ever present elders Miss Dawn and Miss Jade. She is surrounded by love, secrets, and wisdom. It ushers her into an understanding of both her family’s past and her own identity and purpose.

I absolutely loved reading this story. I especially appreciated the lyrical language the author used. It was a well written and poignant story about fierce women and their life choices and journeys. It was a refreshing experience to be overtaken by such a rich story.

Rating: 10/10

The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan (A Book Review)

Jocelyn was a young girl born into the aristocratic Holt family. Her parents are Lady Virginia and Lord Alexander Holt of Lake Hall. Her young life is suddenly upended when her nanny Hannah, disappears from her life. When Jocelyn inquires of why Hannah has left, her mother says Hannah has left because Jocelyn was a bad girl. In the years after Hannah’s disappearance, the distance between Jocelyn and her mother Virginia grows deeply. She moves to the U.S, gets married, and has a daughter named Ruby. While she’s away her father dies. She did not attend the funeral. When her husband Chris dies, she reluctantly moves back to England to her childhood home, Lake Hall. When she returns, the distance is almost deafening between Virginia and Jo, a new and shortened name that Jocelyn insists on being called.

Ruby is a spirited young girl who loves her grandmother. Virginia takes to Ruby and admires her spunk. However, Jo does not want Ruby to be influenced by her mother. One day while Ruby and Jo are at Lake Hall, a skull is found in the lake. Jo’s mind turns immediately to wondering if this is her nanny that disappeared all those years ago. Many sinister developments begin to unfold. Jo can’t decide who or what to believe.

It took me longer than I wanted to read this book. It wasn’t boring, it was just slow taking off. Once it got under way, though, it was pretty interesting. As things started coming to light, I got the sense that nothing was as it seemed. My least favorite character would have to be Jo. She kept questioning her intuition. Even her daughter Ruby accepted her own intuitions more than Jo did. It took so long for her to see the writing on the wall, in my opinion. Although the book took a while for me to get into it, it was ok.

Rating 6.5/10

The Mothers by Brit Bennett (A Book Review)

A riveting story of a seemingly aimless young girl and the various connections she forms throughout her life. Nadia is a grief stricken girl trying to find her place in the world after her mother leaves her and her father behind by way of suicide. This selfish act committed by her mother leaves Nadia to figure life out for herself in a way that has dire consequences and becomes an ugly lurking thing in her world. Luke is a pastor’s son and Nadia’s first love. He’s a young man with dashed dreams trying to find an alternate path after his football career comes to an end. With football no longer a sure thing, he’s aimless as well. Their lives burst into each other in a ball of flames with their fire extinguished as fast as it began. As they move on in their lives, new connections are formed. Nadia becomes fast friends with Aubrey., a young woman so different than herself. With Aubrey she gains a beautiful and sisterly connection that gives her the familial feeling that was abrupted by her mother’s suicide. Luke forms a meaningful yet fleeting friendship that is both detrimental and necessary to bring purpose into his life. Will the passion of their youth, long ago extinguished, seep back in and destroy any semblance of a functional life?

I loved many things about this story. From the flawed characters seeking refuge and salvation within the walls of the Upper Room sanctuary, to it being a haven for some and a harness for others, to the searing eyes of the collective known as the Mothers, the story unfolded in a bold and beautiful way. I liked how sage advice was sprinkled throughout the story with both straightness and nuance. The fresh takeaways from age old advice was fantastic. So many aha moments throughout. Many excerpts stood out, such as, “They too hard. Soft things can take a beating. But you push somethin’ hard a little bit and it shatters. You gotta be a soft thing in love. Hard love don’t last.” Another excerpt that was arresting was, “She knew the what. She could guess the why. But the how of it all had been what eluded her. The how of any betrayal was the hardest part to justify, how the lies could be assembled and stacked and maintained until the truth was completely hidden behind them.” The latter excerpt was far reaching and was applicable to several instances within the story.

A constant cry in the story was the suicide of Nadia’s mother. I would have liked to know a bit more about her and what may have led her to her tragic end. What could have been so bad to cloud her view to the point of leaving her daughter behind? Even though I had lingering questions about certain events in the story, I was still left satisfied. I enjoyed Bennett’s writing style. I liked the fact that she trusted her audience to find the sweet spot for themselves. It left a lasting impression long after the story ended. I am still feeling this story in my bones which is the best gift an author can gift to a reader. I look forward to other works from this author.

Rating: 10/10

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult (A Book Review)

Alex and Lacy are mothers whose lives crash into each other as a result of a tragic event. Though they possess different parental styles, the women simultaneously face inner turmoil and self doubt in how they reared their children. They are uncertain of their role and standing in their children’s lives. Josie and Peter are young adults trying to figure out life and how they exist in the world. But lurking just beneath the surface of their identity, is the pure unadultered truth of who they really are. That particular fact shows up differently in Josie and Peter, causing them to travel slightly different paths.

For Peter, what is has always been. For Josie, it’s a very fine line she walks that shuffles her between two very different worlds. For Peter there is absolution in how he exists in the world. For Josie, her identity is warped within her inner self. She’s aware of who she is deep down but struggles with the person she presents to the world. This causes a painful inner turmoil in her. Will she find the tools to soothe her tortured soul?

What about Alex and Lacy? When things are brought to the light, will they continue to let self doubt wash over them? Or will they accept that other factors also play a role in how life turns out for an individual?

I felt this story with my whole heart. I ached for certain characters in different ways. It seemed that Alex could not find her footing as a parent, while Lacy was initially confident in her role as a parent. However, everything Lacy thought she had right was soon placed under a microscope, prime for dissection. Lacy’s husband, Lewis, was detached in my opinion. He kept measuring reality against formulas and probabilities. I kept wanting him to be in the moment, to stare at the truth in its fullness. He did show glimpses of that in a few situations, which was good.

The story left me with several takeaways. It’s easy to judge others while you are standing outside their world. But when life sends you challenges, how you handle a situation is based on many factors, not isolated ones. It’s never just one thing. How you handle things can be affected by your experiences, your viewpoints shaped by those experiences, your feelings about yourself and the world, and the truth as you know it to be in your mind. Sometimes it’s hard to see other people’s truth if you staunchly view the world differently. It can be possible but it requires compassion and empathy. If you don’t have those traits and are not willing to find them, then hope in some situations will remain dire.

I read another novel by Jodi Picoult years ago (Small Great Things) which I enjoyed also. After reading this novel, Picoult has secured a place as a favored storyteller. I like how she can leave me bewildered with all the complexities in the story. More times than not, I questioned myself on how I really felt about a situation in the story. She arrests the reader in how she delivers her stories. If you want to be challenged in how you think you view things, Picoult masters this as an author.

Rating: 10/10