What do you think?
Rate this book
Running Beyond Empty
Fun and entertaining, Running Beyond Empty explores the many challenges faced by mother and daughter when their world crumbles. Dinah is suddenly jobless and forced to move in order to provide for herself and Selah, who is hurt, angry and confused. Face-to-face with life‛s realities, their emotions are stretched by the new people and events in their lives. Both learn to stand up to obnoxious folks and fi nd that their hard work helps them stay focused on their goals. The empowerment of caring relationships carries Selah and Dinah through heartbreak and loss as they discover that running starts with believing in yourself. Ultimately their resiliency opens up new hopes and dreams — shared with Bill and Norm, the two special men in their lives. Enriched by many colorful characters — Johnny Pancakes, Blackie, Patsy, Wawaneehi — the story of these two feisty women will capture your imagination.
ebook
Published November 10, 2016
7 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 16, 2017
Welcome to the 32 miles race of this book! - That’s table of content. I liked this unique style of writing index.
Meet characters who are going to run in this race -
Dinah- live life by her rules and principles, resilient by nature. I loved her the way she was fighting her way through difficult life. Such an amazing mother. Selah- Daughter of Dinah. Smart, intelligent and sassy. Stand up to bullies of the school and very kind by nature. Bill and Norm- I thought something might go wrong in the end because of their secrets. But, they were really great in this book. Johnny and Blackie- Entertainment of the book. They were funny and mysterious duo. I’m still scratching my head and I really want to know more about them. Little ones in the book were so lovely. I’m in love with characters of this book.
First of all I loved the concept of this book. Meaningful plot. This book was fun and entertaining. I liked how story progress in this book. Difficulties arise in the life of characters and how they deal with it. Another thing I liked was, how different characters with different background come to know and help each other in the small village. Even the forest mystery was intriguing. I enjoyed reading running practices and tips in the book. In every chapter there is some motivating inspirational lines. If I start writing all the morals and great things written in the book (minus characters), I think I’ll end up writing almost half of the book again. So, long story short. I loved ‘morals’ behind the story.
End of the book was really good. Importance of- running, principles, environment, friends and living life fully- was all this book was about. I could see skills of author in this book.
Overall, it was entreating and everyone can enjoy reading it.
(Note: I received a review copy of this book from publisher via LibraryThing, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Author and publisher. I am glad I got a chance to read this book.)
Meet characters who are going to run in this race -
Dinah- live life by her rules and principles, resilient by nature. I loved her the way she was fighting her way through difficult life. Such an amazing mother. Selah- Daughter of Dinah. Smart, intelligent and sassy. Stand up to bullies of the school and very kind by nature. Bill and Norm- I thought something might go wrong in the end because of their secrets. But, they were really great in this book. Johnny and Blackie- Entertainment of the book. They were funny and mysterious duo. I’m still scratching my head and I really want to know more about them. Little ones in the book were so lovely. I’m in love with characters of this book.
First of all I loved the concept of this book. Meaningful plot. This book was fun and entertaining. I liked how story progress in this book. Difficulties arise in the life of characters and how they deal with it. Another thing I liked was, how different characters with different background come to know and help each other in the small village. Even the forest mystery was intriguing. I enjoyed reading running practices and tips in the book. In every chapter there is some motivating inspirational lines. If I start writing all the morals and great things written in the book (minus characters), I think I’ll end up writing almost half of the book again. So, long story short. I loved ‘morals’ behind the story.
End of the book was really good. Importance of- running, principles, environment, friends and living life fully- was all this book was about. I could see skills of author in this book.
Overall, it was entreating and everyone can enjoy reading it.
(Note: I received a review copy of this book from publisher via LibraryThing, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to Author and publisher. I am glad I got a chance to read this book.)
May 20, 2017
From Amazon: Fun and entertaining, Running Beyond Empty explores the many challenges faced by mother and daughter when their world crumbles.
Dinah is suddenly jobless and forced to move in order to provide for herself and Selah, who is hurt, angry and confused. Face-to-face with life's realities, their emotions are stretched by the new people and events in their lives. Both learn to stand up to obnoxious folks and find that their hard work helps them stay focused on their goals.
The empowerment of caring relationships carries Selah and Dinah through heartbreak and loss as they discover that running starts with believing in yourself. Ultimately their resiliency opens up new hopes and dreams -- shared with Bill and Norm, the two special men in their lives.
Enriched by many colorful characters -- Johnny Pancakes, Blackie, Patsy, Wawaneehi -- the story of these two feisty women will capture your imagination.
This book started out promising. I liked the characters, it had an interesting premise, and was funny. I liked how the chapters were presented as miles in a marathon. That detail supported how the author used running and training to run as the driving force to the plot line.
But, the book just didn't hit the target for me. The writing style was difficult to adjust to. It felt like the characters all rambled and gave speeches where they announced their thoughts and decisions and motivations. I could not hear realistic dialogue in most of the conversations.
The pacing was also off. I felt like characters made decisions that simply fit with the plot, rather than because that was what any reasonable person would do. Or, even, what any unreasonable person would do. They just didn't feel genuine or realistic to me. Because the characters tend to talk a lot, and reveal everything while talking, I just didn't feel that there was any mystery to the plot. When things unraveled, there was no aha! moment, or surprise to the events. If anything, I felt more frustrated at the lack of mystery. There was no compelling pull to keep reading.
Overall, this was a fast read, and did have it's funny parts. It is a very sweet story, with a lot of emphasis on believing in yourself and the power of kindness.
I was given a copy of this book for an unbiased and honest review.
Dinah is suddenly jobless and forced to move in order to provide for herself and Selah, who is hurt, angry and confused. Face-to-face with life's realities, their emotions are stretched by the new people and events in their lives. Both learn to stand up to obnoxious folks and find that their hard work helps them stay focused on their goals.
The empowerment of caring relationships carries Selah and Dinah through heartbreak and loss as they discover that running starts with believing in yourself. Ultimately their resiliency opens up new hopes and dreams -- shared with Bill and Norm, the two special men in their lives.
Enriched by many colorful characters -- Johnny Pancakes, Blackie, Patsy, Wawaneehi -- the story of these two feisty women will capture your imagination.
This book started out promising. I liked the characters, it had an interesting premise, and was funny. I liked how the chapters were presented as miles in a marathon. That detail supported how the author used running and training to run as the driving force to the plot line.
But, the book just didn't hit the target for me. The writing style was difficult to adjust to. It felt like the characters all rambled and gave speeches where they announced their thoughts and decisions and motivations. I could not hear realistic dialogue in most of the conversations.
The pacing was also off. I felt like characters made decisions that simply fit with the plot, rather than because that was what any reasonable person would do. Or, even, what any unreasonable person would do. They just didn't feel genuine or realistic to me. Because the characters tend to talk a lot, and reveal everything while talking, I just didn't feel that there was any mystery to the plot. When things unraveled, there was no aha! moment, or surprise to the events. If anything, I felt more frustrated at the lack of mystery. There was no compelling pull to keep reading.
Overall, this was a fast read, and did have it's funny parts. It is a very sweet story, with a lot of emphasis on believing in yourself and the power of kindness.
I was given a copy of this book for an unbiased and honest review.
December 15, 2017
I received a free copy of this book in accordance with the terms of LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
When I picked this book, I expected something different from what I usually read, the cover and the blurb suggest something like how running saves your life. And I was not disappointed, this book does relates the story a lot to running, nature, and has colorful characters.
This book has unique good characters as well as unique bad characters. Selah with her blue hair, Bill and his friends with their odd jobs and habits, extraordinary Mrs. Murphy with her extraordinary best friends, Wawaneehi and her followers with their very high devotion to Mother Gaia, and many others. Although only some characters are developed well, they have natural relationship growth with each other.
Aside from those colorful characters, this book has some things that I couldn't enjoy. There are just too much humiliation to my taste. . Then, some things are too convenient for Dinah. . Last but not least, some conversations just didn't feel like real conversations. Between Dinah and Selah, there are many that are more like ramblings and retelling of what happen the whole day.
Well, I did like the colorful characters in this book and would love to understand them better. But I just couldn't enjoy their story. So, 2.5 stars for this book.
When I picked this book, I expected something different from what I usually read, the cover and the blurb suggest something like how running saves your life. And I was not disappointed, this book does relates the story a lot to running, nature, and has colorful characters.
This book has unique good characters as well as unique bad characters. Selah with her blue hair, Bill and his friends with their odd jobs and habits, extraordinary Mrs. Murphy with her extraordinary best friends, Wawaneehi and her followers with their very high devotion to Mother Gaia, and many others. Although only some characters are developed well, they have natural relationship growth with each other.
Aside from those colorful characters, this book has some things that I couldn't enjoy. There are just too much humiliation to my taste. . Then, some things are too convenient for Dinah. . Last but not least, some conversations just didn't feel like real conversations. Between Dinah and Selah, there are many that are more like ramblings and retelling of what happen the whole day.
Well, I did like the colorful characters in this book and would love to understand them better. But I just couldn't enjoy their story. So, 2.5 stars for this book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews