Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals

Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis  216 pages

Shirley also read this book this month, so I won't elaborate about what the book is about (since Shirley's post already did a great job with that!).  I found this book to be a good read, although a few times it felt like it was repetitive.  And, at times, the author's boundless positive energy was a little much --- I feel like she's got enough positive energy to power the sun, which is great, but a few times made me feel like I just needed a break.

However, she has some good, realistic, straightforward advice here.  The one thing that I kept remembering after I finished this book was something she wrote about it being ok to ask for help. She wrote something about how there are many, many ways to swim but only one way to drown, and that is to not ask for help to keep you from drowning.  Out of everything, that was one thing that really stuck in my mind to remember.  Overall, though, this is a good read and I think I'll pick up her other book and give it a try.

Alchemy's Daughter

 

Alchemy’s Daughter by Mary A. Osborne    268 pages

Santina Pietra is a seventeen-year-old living in 14^th-Century Italy; San Gimignano to be exact. There aren’t many alternatives for young adult women at this time. The two best options are marriage or the convent. She can stay at home as a spinster and take care of her father; her mother having died many years ago.

Santina’s father has his eye set on a much older man for her husband. But she doesn’t even like him, much less love him. She loves Calandrino, a scholar and friend of her father’s.

Santina is no ordinary woman. She wants to follow her love of knowledge and be something more than a brood mare. She spends her day studying, looking forward to her weekly lesson with Calandrino. However, when he seemingly abandons her for studies at a far-away university, she is devastated.

Instead of capitulating to her father’s wishes that she marry like her sisters, Santina leaves home to study with the local midwife Trotula. In the small cabin, she learns how to fend for herself, how to help deliver the villages babies, and cure the population’s sicknesses. Santina thrives in this role, no matter that both she and Tortula are considered witches.

This story may be set in the 1340s, but Santina resembles a 21^st –Century woman. She is fearless, modern, intelligent, and strong. I feel that the young adult women who read this will find not only inspiration, but role models in both women.

The story was rather slow in the beginning, but quickly moved into a can’t-put-it-down tale of strong women. That’s why I gave Alchemy’s Daughter four out of 5 stars.