Amateur Review of a Really Good Book…

My friend and author @Pameloth (Pamela Fagan Hutchins) recently published several books. She and her husband @Trimon29 (Eric Hutchins) are a blended family living in Texas, but their roots extend from the Caribbean Islands all the way up to a remote lake in Maine. I ‘met’ them online a few years ago, and just recently was able to meet them in person. My wife, Bryce, and I met up with Pamela and Eric (along with their daughter and her beau) in NH as they were returning from some quality time in Maine. But this isn’t about that.
It is about one of Pamela’s books, “Love Gone Viral”, which I was fortunate enough to preview a few months ago. Yes, I am slow. No, it hasn’t taken me this long to read the book. In fact, I cruised through the book because it was that good. Why? Because Pamela has a way of teaching me something without making me feel like I just learned something. Her stories are personal, real, funny, honest, and thought provoking.
Woah. Did I just say that? Yes, yes I did. The book made me think.
The timing of me reading this book could not have been better: I am struggling with some things in my life now that I haven’t really faced before, and it is challenging parts of my brain and heart that I never thought I would have to investigate. While reading “Love Gone Viral”, I was able to take a step back from my own experiences and plunk myself down into the stories being told. (Mind you, I have never come across a partially submerged carcass, but…)
Pamela uses anecdotes from her own life to help explain ways that perhaps our lives could improve. One chapter is called “How Do Pukey Couples Do It”, and another is “In Which Eric Brings Me Something Back From India.” Both had me laughing and thinking about my life, my relationships, and how I can make them better. Throughout, the reader is asked to take some time to reflect on our own lives, how we do things now, and how we might do things differently to get better results.
While not quite a ‘self help’ book, I would call it a “help yourself” book (yes, I just made that up. I am a GENIUS! bit out there….). Pamela doesn’t come out and say, “in order to blah blah blah better you must do these three things while lighting a candle with your toes and blah blah flibbity flew.” Nope. If you are looking for that, this book isn’t for you. This is more of a “hey, this works for me, through trial and error, and well, perhaps it will work for you, too. if not, at least you’ve read some funny stories about my life and family.”
As you can likely tell, I don’t review books for a living. I don’t write for a living. I read perhaps 4 books per year, and all of them are non-fiction. THIS BOOK, however, was a GREAT read. I took notes, and have gone back to re-read sections a couple of times. (Especially the part where…..nah. I’m not going to tell you. You’ll have to read it yourself!).
Pamela has written several books, and all are available through Amazon. Click here to see this book, and be sure to check into her other works as well.
(yo, FCC…these opinions are my own.)
Thank you, Pamela and Eric!!
geno