Hi guys! Today I am doing my first ever book-review-blog-post! :) I don’t read a ton (I honestly should do it a lot more often) but when I do I’d like to start sharing my reads here!
A few years back I stumbled on a girl named Haleigh Everts on Instagram who had my DREAM hair. So I started following her and talking to her about how she achieved her color, what type of extensions she used, etc. She also lived in Arizona so we knew a lot of the same people.
Since then I have become such a huge fan of hers (her blog, YouTube channel, all of it). She is honestly the cutest and has such an adorable little family. I have especially loved watching her videos about Mormonism on YouTube. She has such a cool story and is able to word so many things absolutely perfectly! So, when I heard she was writing a book, I was so excited to read it!
I got her book (Why I Left the Mormon Church and Came Back) a few weeks ago. I actually couldn’t put it down for the first little bit (which says a lot coming from someone who isn’t a huge reader) and ended up finishing it the very next day! It isn’t a huge novel but is a chapter book filled with quotes from LDS church leaders as well as quotes from her very own journals.
Basically the book is about Haleigh’s experience being baptized into the LDS church, becoming a bit ‘lost’ and leaving for a while and then returning. All of this happens while she is a young girl/teenager/young adult so she is also dealing with college, boys and family stuff along the way. She discusses a lot of things that teenagers and young 20-somethings go through so it was very easy for me to identify with her story and be interested in it. It is also told in the present tense which I LOVED. It felt like I got to really see things from her point of view and in her way. The language she uses is also totally relatable and so simple to understand (no over-the-top, boring, run-on descriptions like I feel a lot of other books have).
This book made me realize how often I tend to take my testimony for granted, and how blessed I am to be a part of this church.
Honestly this book is an awesome read whether you are LDS or not. It is about navigating adolescence and figuring out who you are and what you want your relationship with God to be like, which is something we all experience at one point or another.
Overall I give this book two thumbs up! It was entertaining, thought-provoking and inspiring.
Crossing my fingers Haleigh writes another one soon! :)
xo
