If You Only Read One Book This Year, Read This One

If you only read one book this year, choose this one. Why? Read on to find out!

I receive free electronic advanced reader copies of these books through an arrangement between the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion on NetGalley’s website. I only review books on my blog that I really love.

Only Read One Book? What?!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate you read only one book this year. But, if you’re really busy, and don’t have a lot of time to read, choose All That Fills Us. Why? Because most of us don’t understand anorexia nervosa, but we all have disordered thinking of some kind. Even if we don’t want to admit it. And all of us have a least one strained relationship with a loved one. Most of us have even suffered from a host of little ‘t’ traumas, and don’t realize how those can snowball into something bigger than we can handle.

This beautiful novel fills a soul-hunger caused by starving different areas of our lives. So if you can only read one book this year, make it this one.

All That Fills Us

By Autumn Lytle, Revell, May 2022, 352 pages.

Mel Ellis feels guilty. Guilty because she’s had a good life (average, but without trauma). When she passes out in front of her apartment (again), she wonders if she should finally listen to everyone who tells her she should go into rehab. Her doctor and grandmother both believe Mel’s life hangs in the balance.

Mel doesn’t know if she cares which way the life-or-death scale tips. But the bathroom scale? An entirely different matter. If she can just get her weight to an acceptable number, maybe all her other problems will resolve themselves.

She makes one last-ditch effort to avoid admitting herself to an eating disorders program. But her choice to walk across America might just kill her anyway. Along the way she finds kind strangers, quirky fellow pilgrims, and a slow unraveling of everything she thought she knew about herself. Which may be what she needs to find healing.

Why I Loved This Book

Every few years I pick up a book with average expectations and find myself laughing, crying, and grieving over hurts I didn’t know I carried. All That Fills Us did that for me. As Mel struggles with her eating disorder, I questioned my relationship with food and the way it has interfered in my life. As she compares every female she meets to her own journey with weight, I see myself and how I struggle with comparison.

Mel’s struggles with her relationship with her mother exposed little pockets of grief I didn’t realized I harbored over my relationships with my daughters. All That Fills Us rings true as Mel struggles to understand how the weight of little traumas can steal our joy just as easily as the weight of one big Trauma.

Ultimately uplifting, at times difficult to read (because it triggered emotions from my daughter’s struggle with an eating disorder), All That Fills Us is a must-read for anyone who struggles and wants to believe in hope.