Whales and Redwoods by Phil Joel

The Quick Cut: A wandering through today's societal woes and how to encounter them with more faith based solutions. 

A Real Review:

Thank you to Emanate Books for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

 If you spent your childhood in the 90s around the Christian community, it's almost guaranteed you listened to the Newsboys. I still can't think back to those years without remembering the music and how it captured the happiness of life. As the years have passed, so have the simpler approaches and instead been replaced by complex social media situations along with too many issues to count. From here, Phil Joel's take on life and how to deal with complex situations comes into play. 

 It's pretty clear based on the writing style that this book came out of a moment, quickly followed by a train of thought. Although this approach starts out very intriguing and exciting, it soon tampers out into some topics that don't seem very well coordinated. This takes away from the original focus that made it so interesting. 

 On the upside, the material discussed does make for a good starting point on many tough topics (such as social media, addiction, mental health issues). He even talks about his own ADD diagnosis and the aftermath to it. However, the discussions do turn into a far too typical case of faith based arguments using Bible passages and the equivalent reaction of "Have faith in God". As much as I can appreciate the thought, it's not very helpful and certainly doesn't get to the core issue. Life takes work and changing as a person is a rarity. If you want to be better, surround yourself with positive influences, a strong support structure, and don't be afraid to put in the hours. 

 Although this book means well, it ends up being little more than a quick read that doesn't finish what it started. 

My rating: 3 out of 5