Tag: christianity

Book review posts, Uncategorized

June 2026 Reads

amybenoit

I read 3 books in June. I realized that I inadvertently didn’t include a book I read in May 2026 (“Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service” edited by Michael Lewis) in my last blurb, so I am including it in this blog post. Then, I will blurb about each of the 3 books I read in June.

“Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service” was edited by Michael Lewis and revealed that the human beings behind government institutions – dedicated professionals whose work often goes unrecognized despite its critical importance. Here are some parts that stood out to me:

  • Democratic government isn’t really designed to highlight the individual achievement of unelected officials. This book reframed government as people who work is largely invisible but essential – civil servants whose decisions impact public safety, economic stability, and national well-being.
  • The National Cemetery Administration has received the highest rating of any entity, public or private, in the American Consumer Satisfaction Index for 7 consecutive years. The National Cemetery Association has standardized cemetery operations, developed innovative memorial programs, and has created opportunities for unhoused veterans while ensuring that all veterans receive identical honors regardless of rank. There are 155 national cemeteries across the U.S.
  • The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) makes government records accessible to all U.S. citizens regardless of geography through the Citizen Archivist Program and History Hub. Anyone can submit a query on History Hub and a roster of NARA archivists, other federal staffers, and citizen volunteers will chime in with answers or advice on where to look to find out more.
  • I also enjoyed reading about a mining engineer, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Consumer Price Index.

4 out of 5 stars

“No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson” was written by Gardiner Harris, who was the public health and pharmaceutical reporter for The New York Times and is now a freelance investigative journalist. This book was fascinating and frustrating; it took me 16 days to read it, mostly because I became frustrated reading about Johnson & Johnson’s repeated negligence, manipulation, and coverups.

Johnson & Johnson has been beloved for generations, and many Americans use its products daily: Johnson’s baby shampoo, Johnson’s baby oil, and dozens of other baby lotions, conditioners, and sprays: Aveeno, Neutrogena, Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec, Benadryl, Pepcid, Sudafed, Imodium, Listerine, and Nicorette. Many of the company’s products are lifesavers, including medications to treat HIV, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis. 7 in 10 patients globally who undergo surgery are stitched up with Johnson & Johnson sutures. Johnson & Johnson is the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world. Still, this book’s main theme is that Johnson and Johnson has knowingly contributed to the deaths and grievous injuries of millions.

Here are some of my many takeaways:

  • The Talcum Powder Cover-Up: Johnson’s baby powder contained talcum powder and asbestos, which led to mesothelioma, lung cancer, and ovarian cancer. J & J knew this but repeatedly lied about it.
  • The Tylenol Danger: Johnson & Johnson heavily advertised Extra Strength Tylenol as the “most potent pain reliever you can buy without a prescription.” At least 150 Americans die every year and 30,000 are hospitalized from taking too much acetaminophen, and acetaminophen has been the nation’s leading cause of acute liver failure for decades, yet J & J has refused to put a product warning about not exceeding recommended dosage due to the risk of severe liver damage.
  • Procrit & Risperdal Exploitation: EPO Procrit stimulates red blood cell production and J & J promoted it aggressively to cancer patients emphasizing increased energy, reduced fatigue, and improved quality of life, yet many of these benefits weren’t demonstrated in rigorous clinical trials. Instead, multiple studies showed increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, blood clots, higher mortality, and simulation of tumor growths. Risperdal was originally approved to treat schizophrenia, but was promoted for treatment of symptoms such as anxiety, hostility, impulsiveness, and agitation, and serious side effects were minimized: rapid weight gain, strokes, death, metabolic problems, diabetes risk, elevated prolactin levels, and breast development in boys.
  • Defective Implants & Devices: Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implants caused metal surfaces to wear against each other, damaging surrounding muscles and bones, triggering inflammatory responses, elevating cobalt and chromium levels, and requiring complex revision surgery.
  • Risks to Women’s Health: The Ortho Evra birth control patch resulted in inconsistent hormone delivery, blood clots, strokes, and other serious cardiovascular events. The Prolift vaginal mesh caused a sharp increase in painful sex and mesh protrusions in vaginal canals that required surgery.

All in all, Johnson & Johnson concealed clinical trials that yielded unfavorable results, manipulated literature and hired ghostwriters to publish biased, favorable studies, and used aggressive legal maneuvering and heavy-handed PR strategies designed to silence whistleblowers and intimidate media outlets with financial ruin.

Some of my reflections:

  • “Every drug has risks” became an excuse to tolerate any risk whatsoever for the sake of not risking the chance of making as much money as possible.
  • Consumers cannot afford to give blind trust to healthcare conglomerates or rely entirely on federal watchdogs to protect them.
  • The sad truth is that the FDA is chronically underfunded and consistently outmatched by the legal and lobbying power of multi-billion-dollar conglomerates, and the FDA ignored, enabled, and encouraged every Johnson & Johnson disaster in this book.
  • This book is an urgent, real-world warning to be vigilant and question the safety, research, and marketing behind every day medical products.

I highly recommend this book!

5 out of 5 stars

“The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You’ve Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended” was written by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky. The authors conducted extensive research through a survey of 20,000 women, focus groups, and interviews, alongside a deep-dive review of bestselling Christian sex & marriage books. Through this data, they identify how common marriage narratives have damaged women’s sexual well-being, pleasure, and marital satisfaction. This book was incredibly eye-opening and offers a vital correction to some of the harmful perspectives many Christian women have been taught to beleive.

What is most stark throughout the authors’ findings is the sheer contrast between how much is expected of women versus how little is expected of men in mainstream Christian marriage literature.

  • The Double Standard: Of the 13 Christian bestsellers the authors analyzed, only 3 books asked all of the following of husbands: stay faithful (without offering caveats), make sex pleasurable for her, do not insist or expect sex of any kind whenever your wife is physically or emotionally unwell, and seek consent from your wife. Meanwhile, these same books asked, on average, over 5 of the following of women (and 5 books asked all of them): have intercourse as frequently as the husband would like to have intercourse even if he is watching porn or has a lust problem; understand that without intercourse, her husband is more likely to have an affair, and it will at least partly be her fault; help him reach climax in some way even when she is on her period, recovering postpartum and not sleeping, or during any other problem she may face, since her problems are not reasons to refuse sex; prevent weight gain to stay attractive; let her husband feel that he is a good lover; and initiate intercourse and be enthusiastic.
  • The Harm of “Duty Sex”: Church culture and Christian books frequently emphasize, “Do not deprive your husband” rather than recognizing that a woman’s sexual pleasure matters. When the message focuses strictly on a husband’s fulfillment while ignoring the wife’s, it breeds resentment, anxiety, and a higher rate of physical pain for women.
  • The Cycle of Pain: Believing the obligation-sex message makes women more vulnerable to sexual dysfunction. Forcing oneself to “muscle through” painful sex strengthens the biological association between intimacy and pain, making physical recovery and treatment much more difficult. True intimacy must be freely chosen and mutually desired.
  • Redefining Satisfaction: Evangelical culture has used frequency as the primary measure of marital success, but research proves it is a poor predictor of actual relationship health. Interpersonal dynamics, mutual respect, and emotional safety are far superior measures.

Some of my reflections:

  • A healthy view of intimacy should be personal, pleasurable, pure, prioritized, pressure-free, passionate, and focused on putting the other person first. Women’s experiences, emotions, and bodies matter just as much as men’s.
  • If your body isn’t working as it should, please seek out medical help. To ignore physical pain or dysfunction hurts both partners.
  • While a spouse is receiving treatment for sexual dysfunction, it should be viewed as an opportunity to extend deep, Christlike patience and love toward them.

Many more topics, myths, and cultural paradigm shifts were discussed in this book, and I highly recommend it to Christian women.

5 out of 5 stars

“10 Simple Things to Remember: An Inspiring Guide to Understanding Life” was an easy read written and illustrated by Marci. Here are some main lessons.

Love is forgiving. Only God can love you unconditionally. The rest of us are human. Do not ask for perfection from others because they will make mistakes.

  • The happiest moments in life take place in the context of relationships.
  • If you always do your best, you will not have regrets.
  • In spite of your best efforts, some things are just out of your control.
  • Often we find it is only when we look back that we can see that what we thought was a “wrong turn” has brought us to exactly the right place and every step was a right one after all.
  • Some of the most important ways we define ourselves come from the obstacles we face, the challenges we overcome, and the losses we sustain, as it is most often the difficult times in our lives that call us to understand what we are made of.
  • True friends share your joy, see the best in you, and support you through your challenges.
  • Friendship is a gift of commitment, trust, listening, and encouragement.

Whatever is happening in your life, keep these things in mind:

  • Big problems can be solved in small steps.
  • When you are still, the gentle voice from within will guide you. Listen carefully.
  • Remember to pray and let God take the burden of worry from your heart.
  • Accept that we each learn life’s lessons in our own way.
  • A lot of people love you more than words can say.

4 out of 5 stars

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

April 2025 Reads

amybenoit

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog since I have had other priorities. I read 5 books in April. Here is a blurb of each of the books I read in April.

“Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic: A Comedian’s Guide to Life on the Spectrum” was written by Michael McCreary, who does stand-up comedy about being on the autism spectrum and uses comedy to help demystify autism and break down stereotypes. He has performed across North America and lives in Toronto, Canada. Although this is not a comprehensive educational book, I learned more about autism. Here are some takeaways.

Everyone with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is different. People with ASD have many of the same thoughts and feelings as anyone else. The difference is in the intensity of those feelings and the degree to which they affect functioning.

The DSM-5 defines autism as a “triad of impairments” that presents challenges in these areas:

  1. social interaction
  2. communication
  3. repetitive behaviors

Some people have heightened senses and can’t handle sudden bursts or noise or tags on clothes, while others are under-sensitive to sensory information and need to seek out stimulation. This is known as “stimming” and can include rocking, staring at lights, repetitive blinking, tapping, making sounds, spinning objects, rubbing your skin, clapping, or leg-shaking.

The author took improv classes. Improv requires you to listen to people, respond to them, and go with the flow: “Improv taught me more about social skills than any learning strategies ever could.”

When I’d seen comics lean on a mic stand, I always thought it was a power move. I soon realized that it was meant to make your shaking less obvious.

In media, the characters often seem like a checklist of symptoms rather than real people, a collection of quirks that have been mistaken for a personality. The problem with presenting autism on-screen is that it becomes the crux of the character. Having autism is a characteristic, not a character.

Although this book provided some useful information, it left more to be desired.

3 out of 5 stars

“The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels” by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans is a powerful work of narrative nonfiction that explores what happens when people die with no one to claim them. Prickett, a sociology professor and former broadcaster, and Timmermans, a UCLA sociologist known for his work on death investigations, follow the lives of four individuals in Los Angeles who died between 2012 and 2019—some with family and means, others without—revealing how easily people can become invisible. Alongside their stories, the authors introduce us to the scene investigators, notification officers, and crematorium workers who step in when no one else will. I found the book deeply moving and full of surprising insights. Here are just a few that stayed with me.

  • Today, more and more relatives are abandoning their dead, leaving it to local governments to dispose of the bodies. Up to 150,000 Americans now go unclaimed each year.
  • The term of choice for those sent to the potter’s field is no longer indigent but unclaimed – reflective of relatives’ inability or unwillingness to take care of their dead.
  • There is no federal agency to track or oversee the unclaimed – just a patchwork of ad hoc local practices.
  • Los Angeles – “Over five hours, the men poured 1,461 boxes and envelopes into the grave – a year’s worth of ashes.”

Just because a family might be indigent does not mean a decedent is. To access a decedent’s $, the family needs a death certificate. The medical examiner’s office would not release the death certificate until the family hired a private funeral home to transfer the body from the crowded crypt. Quick access to the death certificate was one of the few carrots the office had to entice hesitant families to claim.

Meanwhile, even as they refused to claim David’s body, Mikel and Tiffany were planning how they would spend David’s money. When the estate was settled, after expenses and fees amounting to $30,000, Tiffany’s share came to $10,996.71. Feeling no shame about benefiting from the investment account of a man they hadn’t spoken to in decades, they decided to take a late honeymoon.

Patterns that increase likelihood of being unclaimed: social isolation caused by eroding family ties, never getting married, estrangement

I highly recommend this fascinating book! I learned so much about the unclaimed.

5 out of 5 stars

“The New Rulebook: Notes from a psychologist to help redefine the way you live” was written by Dr. Chris Cheers, an Australian psychologist and educator with a focus on elevating mental health in the arts and LGBTQIA+ communities. In this book, Dr. Cheers compassionately asks readers to examine 5 key areas of their lives: self-care, emotions, work, love, and body, and offers evidence-based solutions to redefine their lives not based on expectations of how they should live but led by what they need. Here are some reflections.

If you only focus on self, you start to view self-care as something that is a solo effort – something you buy for yourself, do alone, etc. Many of the worthwhile actions of self-care are carried out in relation to other people, such as communicating boundaries, saying no, or standing up for yourself.

We often recognize that we’re unhappy in our relationships, at work, or in daily life, but we rarely see major change as a real option. Instead, we try to feel better about the lives we already have and convince ourselves that change is too hard or simply not possible. In that process, self-care can become a soothing distraction rather than a solution. If your version of self-care is helping you cope with something that truly needs to change, it may not be care at all. It may be a quiet form of self-neglect.

Self-Care Reflection Questions

  1. How can I care for myself today?
  2. What are the barriers to making that happen? Can they be challenged?
  3. What can I do to help make that care happen?
  4. What positive impact will this care have not only for me, but for my community and the people in my life?

Values – How do you want people to describe you? What words do you want them to use to describe what you have held as most meaningful and important in your life? These are your values.

  • Values are useless if they just remain an ideal. Our daily actions become our life and identity. Consider how your actions have aligned with your values over the last six months and consider which behavior you could limit to make space for more meaningful actions.

We promote belonging in our relationships through intentional gathering. Safety comes from clear communication and trust. Trust is earned through actions that show accountability, integrity, and reliability. We can also promote a sense of safety in our relationships through learning how to have a difficult conversation, apologize, and come together after conflict.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to examine the 5 key areas of their lives: self-care, emotions, work, love, and body.

4 out of 5 stars

“Bibliotherapy: Books to Guide You Through Every Chapter of Life” was written by Molly Masters, a writer, podcaster, director and CEO of Aphra, and CEO of Bookshop Limited. Bibliotherapy is the application of literature towards a therapeutic goal. This book was a bibliotherapy concierge for confidence and courage, adulting, empowerment, first loves and great loves, heartbreak, self-love and self-discovery, LGBTQIA+ identity, new beginnings, new parents, creativity and inspiration, escapism, your mind, grief and loss, and feeling directionless.

This book was split into sections and provided one-sentence blurbs about most books recommended. I wrote several titles down to research more or read, and I highly recommend this book if you want book recommendations for the categories listed above! I will not be sharing titles recommended at this time because I don’t want to endorse books I have not read yet.

4 out of 5 stars

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“The Fountain of Youth – Confession: The Only Key to Living Forever” was written by Dave Durand. This book was handed out by my Catholic church and explores a topic that many Catholics (and Christians in general) struggle with: the Sacrament of Confession. Dave Durand takes a direct approach, addressing common excuses people make for avoiding confession, and offering responses rooted in Scripture and Church teaching. Here’s a brief look at a few of those points:

  1. “It is not necessary to go to a priest. I can just tell my sins to God directly.”
    Durand reminds us that Jesus gave His apostles the authority to forgive sins—a gift passed down through the Church.
  2. “At least I’m not as bad as others.”
    The book challenges the idea that God “grades on a curve” and instead invites us to humbly acknowledge our need for grace, just as many saints once did.
  3. Self-Justification
    Rather than justifying our actions, confession helps us confront our faults honestly before God, which can lead to deeper transformation in all areas of life.
  4. “Who is the Church to say what’s a sin?”
    Durand addresses this with a reminder that moral truth doesn’t change based on opinion and that Jesus established the Church for guidance and accountability.
  5. “I keep committing the same sin—what’s the point?”
    He encourages persistence in confession, noting that repeated sin doesn’t mean failure if we sincerely strive to grow in virtue with God’s help.
  6. Emotional Blocks
    Past negative experiences can make confession difficult, but Durand gently urges readers not to let one painful moment keep them from God’s healing grace.

Overall, The Fountain of Youth offers a clear and convicting view of confession within the Catholic faith grounded in both Scripture and the Catechism. Whether you’re a lifelong Catholic or simply curious about the sacrament, it presents a perspective worth reflecting on.

4 out of 5 stars

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!