2022 Book It Reading Challenge: 01

Title:  Belong

Author:  Radha Agrawal

Info:  Copyright 2018. New York: Workman Publishing Company.

Rating (on a scale of 1-4 stars):  ✮ 1/2

Where Acquired: Purchased at a Women's Health Expo in 2018

Category (ies) - Impulse buy and Potty books.

Synopsis: Agrawal, a self-proclaimed "community architect," offers strategies for getting out of your head and off your phone in order to build community.  She walks the reader through exercises in self-awareness to help identify the most important characteristics of a healthy community.

The Positive:

• Her analogy about the "mean girls" of the mind producing nothing but comparison, perfectionism, and judgement is spot on.  This is a true detriment to a healthy community.
  
• Agrawal puts great stress on getting away from the screen and making face-to-face connections with people.
  
• The cover artistry and the illustrations were innovative.
  

The Negative: 

• After finishing this book, I feel duped. This tome isn't really about building friendships and bringing your strengths and talents to enhance a community It's about building your own little kingdom based on specific sought after benefits and sucking it dry.  Agrawal's definition of community is a homogeneous group of people who look the same and think the same.  In other words, she's teaching the reader how to build a gated community, not a beautiful diverse community. 
• Her advice for building community is unnecessarily complicated.  Her steps are more conducive to building a brand or a platform.  Getting out in your neighborhood, meeting people, being friendly, genuine, and hospitable does not require building your own fonts, slogan, and language. 
• The content reeked of too much "woo-woo," and not enough substance.  For example, the author's main focus in selecting optimal candidates for the community is "energy."  Do what now?
  
• I don't think the author considered how visually traumatizing all the font size and type changes would be to the reader.  I appreciate what she was trying to do, but it was like being pinched one minute and slapped in the face the next.
• I understand the description of FYF (F--- Yeah Friends).  We do need encouraging friends in our lives.  However, Agrawal leaves out an absolutely necessary type of friend; HNF  (the Hell No Friend).  True friendship and healthy community requires accountability, not just dances and "energy."
• If I were a senior citizen, the chapter on "Belonging and Aging" would be a huge insult.  Well, I'm not even 50 yet and it still felt like a huge insult.
  

Conclusion/Takeaway:

This book really rubbed me the wrong way.  Like Uninvited and books of that nature, it felt backhanded: "You belong unless..."   Good thing I was sitting on the toilet when I read through this because it was full of crap.

Book Trek 2018 - 01 (Revisited 2022 & 2026)

 

I read this book again in 2022.  I've added additional comments in purple.  I read this book for the third time in 2026.  I've added additional comments in orange.

Book:  The Turquoise Table.

Author: Kristin Schell

Info:  Copyright 2017: Nashville:  Thomas Nelson

Rating (on a scale of 1-4 stars):  ✮✮✮✮

Where Acquired:  Borrowed from a friend.   2022:  Borrowed from the library.  Borrowed from the library and reread again in 2026.

Category:  Impulse Reads.  2022: Glorious Rereads, Potty Books.  2026;  Glorious Rereads.

What it's about:  A calling, a deep desire for community, and an inexpensive picnic table from a home improvement store; these are the ingredients for a renewed commitment to show the love of Christ to a neighborhood.  Kristin Schell, a busy wife and mother, shares the story of building friendships and renewing the lost art of hospitality through a simple turquoise-colored wooden table.  She offers stories, advice, scriptures, and recipes to encourage her readers to become "front yard people."

Favorite Quote(s): 

We've all felt the sting of not being included, the yearning to belong.  Whether the pain of the circumstance is short-lived or long suffered, the loneliness of exclusion is hard to shake.  Community is a basic need of humanity and the table--all tables--should be a place of inclusion. - pp. 115-116.

Before we can be a good host, we must experience being a welcomed guest, and before we can create a place of belonging for others, we must believe we belong.  For that, we must first know to whom we belong.  We are able to love because we were first loved. - p. 121

What I liked:

• The author kept it simple and far from perfect.  The goal is hospitality, not entertaining.  She didn't give us a list of chores and prep work to rival Martha Stewart or Southern Living magazine (to which I subscribe and thoroughly enjoy, by the way).  In fact, she emphasized that the simpler we keep our efforts, the more the focus will be on the visitor rather than on us as the host. 
• Though she is a wife and mom, Schell didn't turn this into a Mommies-only club.  Ideas from the book can be used by anyone.
• The photos were a refreshing surprise...and in color to boot.
• I find it funny that I thought there was going to be some esoteric, ethereal meaning behind the color turquoise.  Nope, the author just liked the color. 2022:  I don't know how I missed this the first time, but on page 52, Schell  says "In many cultures turquoise symbolizes friendship."
  

What I didn’t like: 

• The publisher's use of the aside box, aside page, and repeat bar.  Yes, I know I gripe about this in every book I review that contains them.  But this was the most disruptive use of these I've seen in a while.  I'd be in the middle of a sentence at the bottom of the page, have to flip over a couple of pages to finish the sentence, and then, flip back to see what was written in the box.  I wish I could understand the purpose for this mess.  All it does is disrupt the flow of reading and annoy the stew out of me.  Surely I'm not the only one.  UPDATE 2026:  I read the audiobook and noticed that the narrator, though very good, had a hard time knowing where the proper pauses went because of the jumbled format of the print edition.  So no, it isn't just me.

Takeaway:

The Turquoise Table was a fun read full of encouragement and good stories.  It reminded me of my childhood neighborhood: all the neighbors knew each other and most spent time together over a simple table (either inside or out in the yard).  There was no Pinterest board we needed to consult or social media comparisons with which to be concerned.  We were just giving the gift of gracious hospitality and making friends.  Quite frankly, I miss that.  This book has sparked many ideas of how to go back to being a "front yard person." (And I don't even have a yard).

2022:  After reading this for the second time, my opinion about this book hasn't changed.  In fact, I've gotten even more ideas for being more hospitable to my neighbors.  And no, I still don't have a yard.

2026:  Still love the book; still don't have a yard.