A young Black woman joins the U.S. Army on a quest to find a better future in this memoir, co-written by her daughter.

Reese and her younger brother were raised by a single mother in Washington, D.C., and to the teenage author, the future looked grim: “My day-to-day existence taught me this: my mother was poor, I was smart enough to dream, and dreams cost money I didn't have.” A bright student, she longed for a better, and perhaps even glamorous, life. An Army recruiter showed up at her high school in 1989, shortly after her graduation, and Reese enlisted, scored high on Army tests, and picked military intelligence as her field. She writes that basic training was tough, physically and emotionally, but she struggled on. Then came the Gulf War, and to her shock (“War wasn’t supposed to be part of the equation”), she found herself in the desert during Operation Desert Storm, right behind the front lines as soldiers pushed on to Baghdad. It proved to be a brief war, but due to an act of passion with a fellow soldier during the conflict, Reese became pregnant, complicating her struggles with Army life: sergeants who singled her out for hard duty (including burn-pit duty, tending “fires that consumed not just human waste but trash, plastics, electronics, chemicals”) and the loneliness and fury that plagued her but also motivated her. When she was ordered to report for a year’s tour in Turkey but told that she had to leave her infant daughter stateside, she took a hardship discharge.

A sincere and passionate remembrance that will draw readers in, despite occasionally uneven execution.

A Christian author’s account of humorous stories from the Bible.

The Old and New Testaments have plenty of moments of violence, betrayal, and tragedy, so it may at first seem like a nearly impossible task to enumerate its humorous moments. But Reese (Victorious!, 2017) is nothing if not persistent, and she adopts a jocular tone as she relates various biblical tales in a lighthearted way. When she retells the story of Jonah, for instance, and gets to the point where he stubbornly refuses to prophesy to Nineveh, she writes, “I believe God probably found Jonah’s theatrics comical as well as pitiful, which is why He didn’t wring his stiff little neck and put him in his place.” In writing about Elijah, she describes his struggles against Baal as “more exhausting than John Wick’s fight scenes.” And when she’s writing about rare instances of actual humor in the Bible, such as a scene in which St. Paul literally talks a man named Eutychus to death, her prose is particularly enthusiastic: “He was also a notoriously incessant talker,” she writes. “Yep, you heard right. He was a ‘chatterbox’, ‘motormouth’, ‘chatty-Cathy’, ‘gum-flapper’ aka ‘Sir Talks-a lot’.” This has a cumulative cheering effect, and Reese broadens it in several ways; she includes detailed, colored maps to illustrate the stories, and her textual commentaries skillfully find deeper lessons in them. About the travails of Tamar, for instance, she writes, “One lesson learned here is, don’t let anyone come between you and your dreams because God’s got big plans for you if you’re bold enough to take it.” About Samson, she points out that he acts without fear and tells readers that “we all should ask God for this type of courage in similar situations.” Christian parents will particularly enjoy sharing this book with their children.

Unexpectedly sunny versions of some of Scripture’s most famous narratives with some useful takeaways.

A guide to dealing with bullying that draws inspiration from biblical stories.

In her direct, punchy nonfiction debut, Reese focuses on a seemingly universal element of human society: the bully, the braggart, the person who takes advantage of others. In the author’s view, bullies can take many forms: “They can be an irascible, hot tempered person in the mall parking lot,” she writes, “a fellow customer waiting in line at the DMV, or the person sitting behind you at the movie theater, who is quick to pick a fight with a perceived weaker person.” To illustrate how to deal with such people, Reese enlists a handful of famous stories from the Old and New Testaments. She talks about David and Goliath, of course, but also about David and King Saul as well as a trio of biblical “mean girls”:Peninnah, Jezebel, and Athaliah. She writes about King Herod the Great and his descendants, and she concentrates on the persecution of Jesus Christ, whom she refers to as “our perfect example of victory over bullies.” As that description makes clear, some of the author’s readings of Scriptural readings may be problematic for some readers; for example, Jesus was horribly beaten, scourged, and crucified by his bullies before his eventual victory. Also, in her retelling of the story of Moses in Egypt, she describes Pharaoh as “a malevolent bully boss” whose belligerence and short temper were illustrated by his refusal to free his Jewish slaves. As Reese jubilantly points out, “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart for the purpose of glorifying God’s awesomeness while simultaneously giving the foolish Pharaoh a divine bully beat down!” It should be remembered, though, that part of God's “divine bully beat down,” in this case, resulted in the deaths of thousands of Egyptian first born males. Still, the author’s reassurances, such as “God will help you no matter where you are,” will doubtless comfort fellow believers, as will her book’s general tone of optimism in the face of confrontation.

An often helpful work that uses the “bullies” and “mean girls” of the Bible to show readers how to overcome their modern-day counterparts.