"Monkeys and the Chair: Josiah's Story" by Renee Oppenheim Peacock: Book Review



I received this book through the publisher through BookLook Bloggers. This book is the story of the author's son Josiah, who suffered from cerebral palsy. Though he was often in pain, couldn't do many things by himself, and only lived to the age of fourteen, Josiah was a happy young man who brought joy into the world and positively impacted the people around him.

I did not particularly enjoy this book. The book is just under 300 pages. For the first 200-ish pages, the author hardly mentioned her son Josiah, who the book is supposed to be about. She talked about her childhood, her other children, and her career for more than half of the book, and Josiah is just a footnote in that story. The title and descriptions that I read about the book said that the book was an inspiring story about Josiah's strength and happiness, but we didn't see that until almost the end of the book, and not in very good detail. The book was also not well organized, and people showed up in the stories with no introduction, which was very confusing.

While I do admire Josiah and his positivity, I don't recommend this book. I think that this book had the potential to be inspiring, but the author included too much unrelated stuff that took away from the message of the book. I gave it 1/5 stars on Goodreads.

Have any of you read this book?
What did you think?
xx
Heidi

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