Hope on the Inside by Marie Bostwick

A fictional book about Hope Carpenter who has spent most of her life raising four children (all now flown the nest) and running the household whilst her husband Rick has been working. After Rick is strongly encouraged to take early retirement, the dynamics between Hope and Rick change. With the medical insurance expiring, Hope decides to look for paid work outside of the home and she manages to secure a teaching position at a local women's prison. 

As she says, “What’s motherhood besides a two-decade-long teaching gig?”

To find out more about the story in this book, head over to Amazon or Goodreads as there are plenty of reviews. I, on the other hand, am more interested to share things that caught my eyes when reading this book and in true Marie Bostwick style, there are quite a few life lessons and nuggets of wisdom interspersed in the story. As my readers know by now, I like highlighting interesting, informative, fun, intriguing or even weird sections whilst reading. Below are some of these from this book;

“Make up your mind to be happy, Hope. Whatever comes your way, find the happiness in it. That’s the real trick of life.” -- such a great piece of advise!

‘Hope, you need to make peace with the fact that life isn’t fair. Nobody gets everything they want or think they want. But the sooner you learn to make the most of what you have, the happier you’ll be.’ -- life isn't fair, but how we react to difficulties and how we choose happiness, the happier we'll be. We just need to make the most of what we have.

"You won’t always have control over the circumstances of life, but you are in control of how you respond to those circumstances."

Another great little life lesson: "Her mother had a rule when Hope was growing up: Everybody is entitled to feel sorry for themselves but not more than once a day and not for more than ten minutes." -- hopefully we don't need to do this EVERY day, but nevertheless a great rule, don't dwell, let it out and move on. 

Another quote from the book about the need to make the best of any situation: "I believe we’re created to be creators ourselves, to leave our mark by making the most of what we have." 

In the same vein: “We’re created to create, Liam. When we lose sight of that, we lose sight of ourselves. When I teach somebody to make something they feel proud of, something beautiful and useful that they’ve crafted with their own hands, I am really teaching them who they are, why they’re here, and what they’re capable of."

This one is really good, and I'll look forward to using it in real life! “If you have the time to complain about something, then you have the time to do something about it.”

So what is important, and I mean REALLY important? Is it getting lots of likes on a post on Facebook or Instagram, is it winning that one race, nailing an exam, or something simpler like meeting up with friends or reading a book, or something completely different? Again Bostwick has a life lesson for us: "Sometimes you have to lose everything you think is important before you realize that none of it was."

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Hope on the Inside - click to get it on Amazon

Marie Bostwick

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