Another month has come and gone. I don’t know if it’s the baby haze, or what, but they seem to be getting faster. But anyhow let’s get to my March 2025 wrap up.
It was a good reading month overall and I’m proud of what I accomplished. I listened to several great audiobooks, and I started a series that I could see becoming an easy favorite. If that not a sign of a good reading month, I don’t know what is.
The Reformatory
Synopsis:
Gracetown, Florida
June 1950
Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.
Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.
My Rating: 5/5
My Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2025/03/10/the-reformatory-review/
Empire of Silence
Synopsis:
It was not his war.
The galaxy remembers him as a hero: the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a monster: the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.
But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.
On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe starts down a path that can only end in fire. He flees his father and a future as a torturer only to be left stranded on a strange, backwater world.
Forced to fight as a gladiator and navigate the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, Hadrian must fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.
My Rating: 4/5
My Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2025/03/21/empire-of-silence/
All Systems Red
Synopsis:
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
My Rating: 3/5
My Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2025/03/25/all-systems-red-review/
Audiobooks
All My Knotted Up Life
Synopsis:
“It’s a peculiar thing, this having lived long enough to take a good look back. We go from knowing each other better than we know ourselves to barely sure if we know each other at all, to precisely sure that we don’t. All my knotted-up life I’ve longed for the sanity and simplicity of knowing who’s good and who’s bad. I’ve wanted to know this about myself as much as anyone. This was not theological. It was strictly relational. God could do what he wanted with eternity. I was just trying to make it here in the meantime. As benevolent as he has been in a myriad of ways, God has remained aloof on this uncomplicated request.”
My Rating: 5/5
My Thoughts: I didn’t know anything about Beth Moore before picking up this book. I’ve just been devouring memoirs lately and this was highly rated at my library. And let me just say it was better than I expected. This woman has been through so much, yet she still managed to trust God to build her life into something great. It made me want to know more about her.
A Heart Like His
Synopsis:
We all go through times when we feel insignificant or times when we feel certain that we have experienced a degree of failure from which there is no return. This is not a reality we experience alone, but is one that a man after God’s heart experienced as well. From shepherd, to refugee, to king of Israel, David exhibited the purest virtues and the most heinous sinfulness, but through it all his relationship with the Lord continued to grow.
A Heart Like His looks at this bond of mutual love and admiration between a man who was not unlike any of us and the one true God who is all good and all powerful. Beth Moore walks us through an exploration of David’s incredible life, drawing spiritual insights from a man who boldly fulfilled his divine destiny not merely by what he did, but who he loved and served. Bringing lessons from David’s life to bear on your own, this picture of a man who loved and followed God will help you to serve with a heart focused on Him no matter the circumstance.
My Rating: 4/5
My Thoughts: I think this would have been a better physical read. I really needed to be able to reference my bible and I couldn’t do that in the car. That’s on me though. The book overall had a lot of insight that helped me understand David’s story just a little bit better.
So that’s my March 2025 wrap up. What did you read this month?
Discover more from Wildwood Reads
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
all systems red is different from the sci-fi i’ve picked up, but pretty enjoyable, hope you enjoyed!🙌