I feel like I’m FINALLY getting back into the swing of reading for enjoyment (not just for grad school) and it’s felt SO good to get back into some good reads.

Here are two books I’ve read recently that I’ve enjoyed. And as always, you can follow me over on my bookstagram account for more book recommendations and reviews!

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

I came across this book in an airport and when I saw Susan Cain’s name I knew I had to purchase it immediately. Her previous book “Quiet” was life-changing for me as an introvert so I knew this book would be powerful too.

This book is about the bittersweetness of life, and how sorrow and longing are not something to be avoided but something that makes life rich and whole.

I found this book illuminating and encouraging as it seeks to show how pain and suffering is a part of life and not a sign that you’re getting it all wrong. And in fact, it enriches life.

“Everything that you love, you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form.”

“The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them. And transcending them is the ultimate point. The bittersweet is about the desire for communion, the wish to go home.”

“The secret that our poets and philosophers have been trying to tell us for centuries, is that our longing is the great gateway to belonging.”

I Can Take It From Here by Lisa Forbes

I came across this book inside @bookbardenver, my favorite bookstore here in Denver, Colorado.

It’s a memoir written by Lisa Forbes about trauma, resiliency, and healing.

Lisa, the youngest of 6 children, was born into a Jehovah’s Witness family and experienced sexual, religious, and emotional abuse from a young age.

She became pregnant at 16 and at 19 uncharacteristically committed a violent crime by stabbing and killing the father of her daughter. She served a 14 year sentence inside a maximum security prison where she set to work reclaiming her life and healing from her trauma.