Thursday, March 5, 2009

In the Eye of the Storm Review

I finally finished "In the Eye of the Storm" about Elder John H Groberg's mission to Tonga. Disney made a movie out of the book and renamed it "The Other Side of Heaven." I know, this is old news. I think I saw this movie at the Dollar theater when I was engaged, but I'm still going to review it.As I said when I started reading this book, it's filled with faith, love and inspiration. Elder Groberg was a humble and hard working missionary. It was so fun to read and learn about this culture. In some ways I felt like I was born in wrong country. He talked about Tongan men liking women that area little thicker. Skinny women are looked on as sickly and unfit to bear children. HELLOO!! I would be so HOT there! He also wrote about the Tongans natural rhythm and grace in dancing and movement. OH how I wish I was born with that (I am sorely reminded each week at my friend Loni's hip-hop dance class that I am full "white girl". But if your looking for a super fun workout and don't mind making a fool of yourself, you should so come to this class with me!) I was, however, very happy to be a white girl when I learned that a lot of Tongans (at least at the time) gave their first child or two to the grandparents to raise or the grandparents just lived with them. Although my mom is a better mom than I will ever be, I really love raising my kiddos!
This was a good and bad "treadmill book" (as I call it) in that it was more lots of little stories. This makes it easy to stop and get my sprints in. Unfortunately, it also makes it easy to get off the treadmill and not much pull to get back on. This is a quick and uplifting read and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a Mormon nonfiction.
I'm reading The Scarlet Letter in bed, but that is not a good treadmill book. It's a small book with small print and little hard to read and keep up with. In fact, I'm getting the gist of the story, but not sure I'm getting all the details!
So I need another easy, engaging treadmill book. Any ideas for me?

4 comments:

Jami said...

Sounds good, I'll have to try that one. Do you like to listen to them on the treadmill? I downloaded some of the Princess Diaries books from my library. Entertaining and easy to follow.

Holly said...

You'll have to sign up for goodreads.com, it's like facebook where you can stay connected with friends and find out what they are reading. The book I'm currently reading is "The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak. It's about a 9-year old German girl living with foster parents at the time of WWII. She finds a book while her and her mom are at the cemetary bearing her little brother and in her desperate attempt to keep her brother alive in her memory she connects that book with her brother, but, unfortunately, she can't read and she does everything she can to read that entire book. Anyway, it's about her love for books and how she'll do anything to get her hands on more. It's a really interesting book, it's written in a different style but, so far, it's very good.

(Nicole) The Very Hungry Caterpillar said...

I do goodreads too, I really like it, you can review books and see what other people recommend too. I am reading the last lecture about a man in his 40's who is dying of cancer and does a last lecture at the university he teaches at but it isn't a normal one it is all the things he wants to teach his children 3 under 6 that he will not be able to when he is gone. uplifting and lots of quick stories. easy to read. not depressing like I made it sound

Hayward Family said...

You are so funny!! Thanks for the SHOUT OUT about my dance class! ;) However, you are an AWESOME dancer!! You can't use that as an excuse, because I'm half white too! hehe.. K, so.. I LOVED this movie, but I never read the book!! Elder Groberg is an AMAZING man!! He knew my grandpa when he was in Tonga, so we saw him at my grandpa's funeral! VERY COOL!!