Good inspiring book about living real and raw without pep talk! Let God adore you

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book

What an incredible book this was. I loved it so much. thanks for sharing it with me. Keep them coming.

This book has some very good points on how we are all too focused on what is on the outside, what is considered beautiful and how we all are trying to fit into a specific spectrum of beautiful instead of just being who we are.
That being said overall this book didn't really offer anything else helpful in my option. It had great points but didn't get to the actual point ton how we can really learn in a broader way how to actually change that and all focus more on something else. and i didn't really get any ideas or inspirations on how to be braver.

Bravery seems to be a common theme among bloggers these days. Some of my friends have even been focusing on this theme and sharing their thoughts on being brave. The idea of brave has typically been physical in nature. Now, we are beginning to understand that brave means doing something that is hard. To come out on the other side of something that seems like it should cripple you with strength and courage is brave.

When we forge ahead and press into the pain of a difficult experience, we see bravery, and as a result, we also see beauty. Lee Wolfe Blum, in her new book, Brave is the New Beautiful, works hard to help us understand that as hard as bravery may seem, it is also beautiful. There can be beauty found on the other side of extremely difficult situations.

Blum shares the heartbreaking stories of friends she's met throughout her life. Through these stories, Blum illustrates several areas of our lives where we find opportunities to choose brave. Through submission to God's plan, forgiveness, and so so many other hard things.

By inviting us into the stories of others lives, Blum illustrates how we can be brave, even when it may not seem like we are actually brave. It's also an example of how we can live to be authentically us. To embrace the challenges that God has placed before us in order to make us into more of His likeness.

At the end of each chapter, Blum provides thought-provoking questions to help you reflect on how you are being brave in your everyday life. Even though the stories in this book are about mostly big life events, Blum also reminds us that it's okay to feel overwhelmed in the small moments. To need to rely on God through the big things and the small things. To lean on him when there are questions and when we have answers.

These stories in Brave are the New Beautiful are not for the faint of heart. They are hard. But they are good reminders that we can prevail with God's help. That we do nothing in our own strength.

Brave is the New Beautiful: Finding the Courage to be the Real You is a book that, to me, gives a new look at what truly is beautiful. So many of us are focused on thinking that beauty is defined by expensive clothes, jewelry, trips to the nail and hair salons, staying thin and looking gorgeous on the outside. This book looks beyond the appearance into the beauty that is within everyone–waiting to be tapped and shared. Author Lee Wolfe Blum has beautifully chronicled stories in this book from ladies who’ve faced hardships and revealed to others that bravery is beautiful.

Each chapter focuses on a topic word like Hoping and Trusting. Each story is from real people and Lee’s own experiences with counseling as a mental health professional. At the end of each chapter, there are questions for the reader to reflect and examine themselves.

The general premise of this book is to be courageous in who we are as people. We all have fires to walk through. Our raw honesty, communication with others, and how we cope will provide hope and faith to others.

Readers will find stories about people who have struggled to fight and overcome tremendous life situations. Additionally, some of the stories are very raw and will draw you in emotionally. Others will make you laugh and smile and feel thankful.

Devotional-like, Brave is the New Beautiful is a book that you will enjoy if you love hearing about the testimonies of others. No doubt about it, you will be inspired by the stories documented here.

I’m happy today to take part in the Litfuse blog tour for BRAVE IS THE NEW BEAUTIFUL by Lee Wolfe Blum. I enjoyed this easy to read novel of inspirational stories about women facing hardship and challenges and coming out a changed person, with beauty truly coming from within. To be honest, I found some of the stories intense and almost disturbing in their harshness (but really, that’s life – not a bowl of cherries!). I had planned to share this novel with my young teen, but will wait a few years.
This was a good read and a strong reminder of how our culture can sometimes need to get its priorities straight.
Thank you for my review e-copy and for making me part of the tour!

Love the title, and yes it is beautiful to be brave - but does it depend on the outcome of your bravery......this book really got me thinking. It is a MUST READ for curious mind.

In the culture of perfectionism, to thrive means to be under the pressure of doing it all, while wearing a mask all the time. One might be left overwhelmed and alone. Brave is the New Beautiful by Lee Wolfe Blum deals with the idea about addressing the issues of personal pain through inspirational stories of women who have bravely stepped beyond their suffering to true beauty. This book is about recognising a new kind of beauty.

Take off your mask

In these Inspirational stories that Blum address, one pattern I noticed for every women to be able to do what they want to do, and to live authentically is that they have taken off their masks. Some have hide them in the smallest trunk of their basements and some have killed those masks completely by drowning them under water such that they would never dare to crawl back.

This book has a powerful message to acknowledge:

Be vulnerable. Be real. Be raw and let your naked bravery shine bright. In doing so, you help others see hope. You help others have faith. That is brave. That is beautiful. Now go forth and be that for one another, you brave and beautiful women!

My Take

I liked the idea and concept behind the book. I think this is no different than any other book that share similar boundaries and genre. It’s however dedicated to one half of species and that make its presence to feel strongly. It won’t take you much time to read this one as I really like how precise the content of the book is organized.

I was not impressed by her writing style and content. However, Lee Wolfe Blum’s words are an encouraging reminder needed to be shared. I am still looking forward to her next work.

3 out of 5!

Have you ever wished you were beautiful?

Our culture is so absorbed, even fixated, on the concept of personal perfection- beautiful skin, beautiful face, beautiful body, beautiful appearance and style and poise.
Advertisements and many businesses promote this striving for physical beauty. Fitness trainers, diet and weight-loss programs, skin clinics and plastic surgeons all provide help for those who seek another image than the one that stares back at them each morning from the bathroom mirror.

This book is not about that. It’s not about the idea that beauty is defined by a fit body or gap-spaced thighs. It’s about recognising a new kind of beauty that has nothing to do with sunshine and rainbows, butterflies and flowers. It’s about recognising that everyone experiences pain and suffering. ‘None of us walks through this life without a story to tell or wounds to be healed. The truth is, life is really tough, and it is full of challenges.’
Many of us are scarred both inside and out. And none of us is perfect. Life isn’t that simple.

“Beauty is the woman who sees her brokenness and acknowledges the scars of life but doesn’t try to cover them up or hide behind them.’
Instead, this book overflows with stories of beautiful women, women who bravely the pain and ask the hard questions. And sometimes the questions have no concrete answers.
Lee addresses these questions and more with inspirational stories of women who have bravely stepped beyond their suffering to true beauty.

‘The kind of bravery we’re talking about isn’t the kind that conquers; it’s the kind that submits and relinquishes control to God’ and asks, ‘Am I being true to who God made me to be?’
This is true bravery. This is true beauty.
The recount of each amazing, beautiful woman concludes with reflection questions, questions that challenge and inspire.
It’s a reminder that, more than anything, we need each other. We need to encourage. We need to share. We need to draw close and listen to each other- not because we can fix the problems, but because, in turn, we can be vulnerable. We can be brave and help others see hope. We can look for and see beauty in others. We can cheer others on. And, we need to remember that we can never run out of God’s grace.
Are you fighting a battle? Have you been wounded, scarred?
This book whispers, like a Christopher Robin telling Winnie the Pooh: “There’s something you must remember… you’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Brave is the new Beautiful is a powerful reminder that ‘when we put a period in our life story and think it’s the end, God puts a semi-colon’.

Lee Wolfe Blum is a health educator, speaker, coach and author also of Table in the Darkness- a healing journey through an eating disorder.
Publisher: David C Cook

Copy provided for honest review