1 out of 4 stars
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When I was a kid, everyone I knew would throw quotes from movies and TV around. It didn't matter if you were an adult or a kid, if you wanted to be cool you could at least quote the entirety of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride and Spaceballs, and you could use quotes in everyday life in fitting ways. Did someone ask you for something? "As you wish." Beat someone at a game? "Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." Someone do something mean? "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" Even today I find interesting quotes worth remembering everywhere that words are spoken or written.
When I saw Quotes: Humbled but, Yet Eloquent, I was very interested to see what kind of quotes author Winifred Lee Richardson had amassed. The book promised not only quotes but also poetry, photographs, scripture passages and more, all within less than 60 pages. That checks pretty much every single box on my list of awesomeness, so I was excited to give the book a shot!
The book begins with some poetry and photographs, and the poetry is my favorite portion of the book. Her poems may not follow rhyme or meter so well but they're more eloquent than any other part of the book. Humbleness, fittingly enough, is my favorite as it details "turning the other cheek" perfectly in a harsh, unkind world. On the downside, the photographs used are all black and white, but they all seemed like the kinds of photos that would've been much better in color. Close-ups of a butterfly and flowers in black and white just don't do them justice!
The majority of the book after this is a list of "quotes". I put quotes in quotation marks because there are so many issues with them: some are paraphrased, lesser versions of famous quotes without attribution; some are motivational sentences that really aren't quotable; some don't even make sense; and others are just advice. Some of them are pretty good, but I'd estimate 1 or 2 out of 10 is any kind of good, and even those were sometimes found to be watered-down versions of quotes from other people. I was excited when I came across "We can make a living by what we earn, but we are rewarded by what we give", it seemed like an exceptional, positive example of something the author came up with! So I was very disappointed when I searched it online and found that it's actually a paraphrased version of Winston Churchill's "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give". Instead of a perfect example of the author's creativity, it became a perfect example of a quote being listed that's a lesser version of a quote by a famous person. If the original quote was listed (with reference to Churchill) then it would've been an amazing find!
This isn't to say everything about the quotes is terrible. I did find a few good ones that weren't paraphrased quotes from others, but they weren't really quotes. "Send a greeting card to someone not expecting it. This may bring joy to their heart" is a terrific example of something that's great advice, something I never would've thought of before (seriously, that's less than a few bucks to brighten someone's day!), but also something that isn't a quote. One of the "quotes" listed is about jury duty! "Jury duty consists of law-abiding citizens; students; grandparents; and even retirees. Your personal background plays an important factor when being chosen for a jury pool. If not, you will be dismissed." This has potential as well; even if not as a quote, it had potential to inform the reader about why the author believes jury duty is an important responsibility for citizens. Maybe she could've made it a call to be impartial, to decipher information, and to fight for justice. Instead it boils down to "you might be dismissed because of your background", which can actually be a good thing for people who don't want to do it.
Finally, toward the end of the book are around 3 pages split into two headings both titled "Scripture Readings", but they just list passages, such as "John 3:16-17" or "James 5:13, 16". These lists also include "Revelations" and "Genesis" twice each, as if the "scripture reading" is the entire 50 chapters of Genesis and 22 chapters of Revelations. This section would've been much better if the passages themselves were actually included.
I really wanted to like Quotes: Humbled but, Yet Eloquent, but so much of it didn't even fit the title of the book. I don't know what kind of legalities an author has to go through to use quotes in a book they sell, but there's no excuse for these paraphrased versions of quotes, and even the better lines aren't quotes at all. There's also no categorization, just long lists of quotes. Maybe this book should've been titled Random Thoughts I Had When I Couldn't Sleep or Selections From My Fortune Cookie Twitter Bot, then expectations would've been set more accurately. I also found a total of 8 errors, not counting some issues with sentence flow since quotes sometimes don't adhere to proper grammar. Because of all these issues, my rating of the book is 1 out of 4 stars. For what it's worth, the few poems included and handful of good "quotes" would've earned it 1.5 stars if we included half-star ratings. I could see myself being interested if Winifred puts out a poetry book, but this collection of thoughts isn't something I'd recommend to even the most quote-loving people.
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Quotes Humbled but, Yet Eloquent
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