REVIEW--Balancing It All

Any Full House fans out there?  C'mon, you can admit that you were glued to your TV on Friday nights for TGIF!  I definitely was, and Full House was one of my favorites.

I've kept up with Candace Cameron Bure since she's returned to acting in the last few years (she took a break to raise her three children) and just enjoy her all around--she's adorable, stylish, an unapologetic Christian, and just real.  I love following her on Twitter and reading her blog posts.  In fact, my friend Ariel and I traveled a year-ish ago to see Candace speak at an event and I got to meet Candace and have this cool T-shirt signed:

It's a great addition to my office!

So I was really excited when I saw that Candace had written her second book, Balancing It All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose.  It's basically Candace writing down the answers to the question she is constantly asked: how do you balance everything--being a mom, wife, actress, Christian...?  I read the book in two days, which is super fast for me.  So let's jump into the review, shall we?

 

Cute cover, don'tcha think?

The Gist:

Candace Cameron Bure is often asked how she balances being a mom, wife, and actress who loves to shop, work out, and share her love of Jesus.  How can she be strong in everything with limited time during the day?  In this book, she answers that question by targeting specific parts of her life that she's had to learn to balance.  She honestly discusses her marriage, parenting, and womanhood and how she keeps it all from overwhelming her.

What I Loved:

•  Candace doesn't play it safe in this book.  She's willing to talk about her faith, the ups and downs of parenting, and the lessons she's learned through her marriage.  In fact, she even sparked a little "controversy" on her recent book tour when discussing her passive role as a wife--and she didn't back down from discussing it!  I appreciated her candor in this book, because it's just so easy for Christians to lay low in Hollywood (and in life in general).  
• I remember that some readers criticized Bure's first book for having quite a few fan letters expressing their love of Candace and Full House (when it seemed a little over the top).  Bure keeps this book focused on the overall topic and really downplays her fame.  So I really appreciated the focus of this book.

What I Didn't Love:

• Because I'm a Candace Cameron Bure fan, I know a lot about her.  Like I said, I've seen her speak in public and I'm an avid Twitter follower.  So there were some parts of the book that I already knew about her--I'm very aware how she met her husband, when she first started taking her faith seriously, that she spent her first years of marriage as a stay-at-home wife and mom.  And while I understand that she had to include some of these details, I felt like I'd heard them a lot before now.  It made me really appreciate the stories that I didn't know about her, though!
• I'll admit it--I don't know if this topic required an entire book.  I felt like I had the gist of what Bure was trying to say by the middle of the book.  I thought some parts, like discussing picking your child's school, were very spread out just to make more pages in the book.  As a reader, I think I only needed a few sentences to know what she meant.

A fun read for me since I'm a Bure fan and a fairly quick read, too!  I give it three stars!

Tomorrow I'll be sharing an outfit from my own wardrobe--an outfit for how to look like you've got it all together even when you don't feel like it!  I'll share some of my favorite accessories to use when you need to look balanced!  See you then!