Book Review: Made from Scratch

Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade LifeI recently read the book Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life by Jenna Woginrich. This book is the personal story of a young woman interested in and exploring a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Some of the topics she explores include keeping chickens and bees, sewing, making music, and home cooking. I started this book expecting to really like it, but in the end was disappointed by it. I kept thinking as I read it that I should find the story interesting, but while most of the topics were of interest to me, the writing just did not hold my interest and the jokey, hokey humor fell flat about 90% of the time.

If you are interested in some of the topics covered in this book, I think it's still worth checking out of the library. Skim or skip the personal story section of each chapter and go straight to the research and concrete info at the end. I also thought the the Resource section (Research, Son) at the end of the book was quite useful.

I get the feeling that if the author lived in my community we would run in similar circles and we might even be friends (if she could overlook this negative review of her book!) but I just did not enjoy the book. I guess this just reinforces that you can be an interesting person doing interesting things and still not be able to tell your story in an interesting way.