REVIEW: Laugh It Up by Candace Payne

About the Book

The world knows Candace Payne as “Chewbacca Mom,” the wife and mother of two from Dallas who captured the hearts of nearly 200 million people around the world with nothing but a toy Chewbacca mask, a smart phone, and infectious laughter.

Candace’s viral moment of simple joy became Facebook Live’s top video. But what the video doesn’t show is Candace’s storied journey of daunting obstacles on the way to the joy-filled life—extreme poverty, past trauma, and struggles with self-worth.

Laugh It Up! tells the rest of the story behind the woman in the mask. Like most of us, Candace has often felt overlooked, undervalued, and insignificant. But she has also discovered the secrets to unshakable joy that no circumstance can take away, and Laugh It Up! will help you discover and experience the same.

Join Candace to discover the gift God has given us all to experience life to the fullest. All you need to do is answer “yes” when joy, whom Candace personifies as a friend, calls you to come and play.


Do you feel tempted to give up on your dreams? Joy stays the course.
Do your knees knock when thinking about the future? Joy hopes for what can be.
Do you feel unseen and unnoticed? Joy is content whether backstage or center stage.
Do you feel crushed under the weight of regret? Joy loves you enough to weep with you, but also enough to help you move on.
When life punches you in the gut, it can be difficult to muster a smile—much less a laugh. But with humor and power, wit and wisdom, Candace lights the way forward to a life that is free indeed.

My Review

Laugh It Up is the memoir of everyone's favourite mom, Chewbacca Mom! Candace Payne made her name simply by posting a video to Facebook that garnered millions of view just for her joyous reaction to a Star Wars electronic Chewbacca mask. In Laugh It Up Candace goes back to her childhood how her family moved from place to place. Laugh It Up really is about experience joy through the smallest of things.

The Last Girl by Nadia Murad

About the Book


In this intimate memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story.

Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon.

On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia's brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade.

Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.

Today, Nadia's story--as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi--has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.















My Review


The Last Girl is the captivating and heartbreaking story of Nadia Murad. Nadia was born in a village to a Kurdish family in the Middle East. As she grew older ISIS began taking over villages and towns one by one. Eventually ISIS made it into Nadia's village. ISIS destroyed everything in sight and slaughtered most of the residents including Nadia's mother and 6 brothers. And Nadia- ISIS took her into captivity as an ISIS sex slave. Nadia eventually escaped her evil captors and has become a voice against the Islamic State. Even speaking to the UN. Nadia's story is an important one and this book should be read by everybody.

REVIEW: The Crooked Path by Irma Joubert

About the Book

As retired physician Lettie Louw looks back upon her life, she recounts her coming of age in WWII-era South Africa in this compelling story of delayed love, loss, and reconciliation.

Lettie Louw is the daughter of the town physician in their South African village. She spends her childhood in the warm African days playing with her friends and being adored by her doting parents. When she becomes a teenager, she experiences her first taste of unrequited romantic love in the form of her best friend’s older brother, De Wet Fourie. When De Wet pursues the beautiful and wealthy Annabelle, Lettie’s dreams are crushed, and she moves to Johannesburg to pursue her studies in medicine.

Life in Johannesburg feels strange to Lettie, and the world around her is in profound upheaval as the Second World War rages. Her feelings for De Wet never waver, and Lettie is heartbroken when he marries another of her childhood friends. Lettie soon meets Marco Romanelli, an Italian immigrant, and they marry and raise two daughters, as the racial and political tensions in South Africa swirl about them.

Lettie never forgets her first love, even as the ravages of time, war, and illness play upon her life and the lives of those she loves. In their later years, Lettie and De Wet are thrown into one another’s company again, and they are given another chance at a life together. 

My Review

The Crooked Path is yet another beautiful but haunting work of art from South African author Irma Joubert. The Crooked Path begins with an older and retired Lettie who begins to look back at her life and recount her younger years in WWII South Africa. Her first encounter with her first love De Wet who eventually marries one of Lettie's childhood friends and Lettie who meets a young Italian immigrant whom she marries and has a family with. Then years later Lettie and De Wet meet again and reconnect. The Crooked Path is a story about love, loss, faith, and second chances. This is a story, as all of Irma's works, that will stay with you long after you turn the last page. Irma Joubert skillfully and masterfully is able to create characters that leap off the page and into the reader's heart. This is a must read!