Read This If You:
🏔 read To Shake the Sleeping Self
🌙 like short insightful essays
🌊 will enjoy a stream of consciousness like a diary
✨ need a friend to relate to about the musings of everyday life
💀 like to read brutal honesty
🚐 have an adventurous soul
🌞 want to see into the mind of a philosopher
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Like Streams to the Ocean is written with 8 major topics or musings:
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- 1. Ego
- 2. Family
- 3. Home
- 4. Friendship
- 5. Love
- 6. Work
- 7. Death
- 8. Soul
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As the reader your encouraged to skip around sections and read those that may linger in your mind. In each section author Jenkins gives personal histories of his own life, trials, and tribulations. The honesty in section 2 about family had me crying. What broke me was the vulnerability between Jenkins and his brother Luke.
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You get glimpses of a relatable life with trauma and healing. The relatable sections always wrap up into life lessons and realizations. It’s honestly like having that conversation with a friend where all the barriers and embarrassments are gone.
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Here are a few musings I enjoyed from the essays:
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“Life is learning to ever widen”
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“For some of us, it’s like we’re all born with a mysterious mission, something that bugs us from day one. Mine has been a love for the natural world”
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“A mountain, as far as we can tell, doesn’t know it exists it is asleep forever”
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I’m a huge fan of Jenkins first novel To Shake the Sleeping Self. I highly recommend!

BOOK REVIEW

Like Streams to the ocean by Jedidiah Jenkins 4 ⭐

I finished this book about a week ago but have been struggling to put a review together.

As a whole I throughly enjoyed it. Jed breaks down life topics like ego, love, friendship, soul, death etc. Each chapter is dedicated to that specific topic.

I really enjoyed how it was a mixture of his opinions, life experiences or that of his friends/people he had crossed paths with in life and also just conversations he had with friends.

His writing approach was really beautiful but also really realistic and not at all preachy like alot of these sort of books can be.

I highlighted the shit out of it and strangely found so much of it either relatable or just resonated with me on another level. I say strangely because at a glance myself and this author have zero similarities but goes to show how once you dig deep there are probably many similarities between us all.

I guess the only thing is i am not religious so I tried to keep that out of my opinion of the book. I normally don't read books with religious content. Which is why I was even more surprised at how much I loved this book.

Release date 3 February 2021


Thanks to netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review

I was really hoping to see a growth in writing from his first book, but this one is all over the place too.

I just felt like a stream of consciousness with no point. Because of that it was very hard to keep my attention.

Overall, this one just wasn’t for me.

I read Jenkins' previous book "To Shake the Sleeping Self" after years of following him on instagram. Streams is just as poignant, readable, and important. His notes on self and ego will hit you until it seeps into the everyday. You will want to underline, highlight, remember his words.

Excellent book! This is a collection of short essays of sorts, some longer than others, that explore life, love, and self. I really enjoyed reading Jedidiah's thoughts on life and hearing his experiences. His honesty, including reflecting on his own shortcomings, is refreshing. This is an easy read, and could pick up and read a bit then leave for a while. I definitely recommend this book, especially if you enjoy contemplating life from a different perspective.
Note: I received this book in advance from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

To shake the sleepy self was one of my top books of 2020. I found it to be highly motivating and interesting. S0 when I received the arc for Like Streams to the Oceans I was super excited. This book hit me in ways that made me feel hopeful and alive. I love Jeddiah Jenkins style of writing and his way to express his self. He talks about some personal thing that makes you feel. I will be reading more of his books as they come out.

Sometimes self-help books really do become indispensable aides. This one, for me, was not that book.
I had not read Jedediah Jenkins before. This is a collection of short essays, and his observations about life. Some people may pick up this book, and discover it to be spot-on for whatever issue they might be dealing with.

Essays gives one a personal look at the authors thoughts and feelings. Subjects here, mimic many of those that impact all of us. Family, home, friendship, love death and others. Home struck a chord with me, his take on how our childhood homes become more special when we no longer live in them, memories of our lives lived within. Regrets about family members we didn't treat as well as we should have and taking the time in adulthood to recognize and correct our childhood blunders, missteps. Death brought his grandmother to the fore, his special relationship with her was one in which I could relate, since I had the same with mine.

This should have wide range appeal, because within there is something for most people. His writing flows well, conversational in tone, gives one much to ponder.

"I wonder how much of who we are comes down to doing what we know we're good at, and avoiding what makes us feel small."

"So much mental energy is spent maintaining self-worth."

I loved the title and the idea of the title. All our streams flow into ourselves and each other. Not the authors particular view, but my own.

Jed has a way of writing the most beautiful prose while slapping you in the face with something heavy and true but you’re not mad at him for doing so. You go back hungry for more. I just want to hand him a case of Topo Chico and a big hug.

The structure of this was different than I was expecting, more like musings than essays, but I really enjoyed it. Jenkins covers a range of subjects from family and home to love and friendship. It made me even more eager to read his previous memoir.

Jedidiah Jenkins is an author that will always be an automatic buy for me. This book takes you through so many aspects of life in a way that is approachable, funny, and heartwarming.

If you follow Jedidiah Jenkins on Instagram you will probably be biased going into this book as I was. He actually birthed this book from requests of followers asking for his Instagram content in a book! I love to read his thoughts or listen to him in an interview. Jedidiah wrote this beautiful book of essays dissected into eight subjects that all can relate to. It is raw and honest staying true to himself.

Jedidah Jenkins has a knack for intimacy - the sort of transparency and vulnerability we can all aspire to. From page one, I instantly felt right at home - like I had known this dear friend for a lifetime. Jenkins' lyrical storytelling is transfixing as much as it is fragile and sincere. Reading Jenkin's story is like stepping into the mind of someone who has breathed in life's hurts and sorrows and transformed them into a marvelous wonder.

Enjoyable story and somewhat out of the box premise as well. Originality a definite plus for this book because it is something different.

If you’re a fan of Jedidiah’s first book, you will not be disappointed. His first book was great, but this? This is just pure gold. It’s a one stop shop for all the thoughts and just God given talent that is Jed and I will absolutely be buying the physical copy in February.

I was devastated that the release date got pushed because of Covid back in September (THIS FREAKIN YEAR) so huge thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to have an ARC of this.

Such an incredible book! Reminds you of the power of storytelling and human connection. I can't thank Jed enough for this heartbreakingly honest book. It makes me want to go out there and do the hard things and live a life full of truth and wonder. Days later I still can't stop thinking about this book! Don't walk RUN TO READ THIS!

“We are three things. The car, the driver, and the awareness of it all.” - Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean

Omg that was such a refreshing read!! Thank you Penguin Random House
and Net Galley for gifting me an eARC of 𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙊𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣 . (Available February 02, 2021)

This book is a collection of the author’s reflections. It felt like scrolling through someone’s super insightful and super organized Twitter feed! This of course made it easy to fly through the entire book! 😂

Jedidiah Jenkins’ writing is very captivating. So much food for thought. Plus, there is something about witnessing someone share the deepest parts of themselves to the world! It motivates me to discover the courage to do so as well.

My favorite parts were his reflections on how he treated his brother when they were younger. It was very raw and I can only imagine how difficult it was to write all this down knowing that his family will read it. I just appreciated his honesty and his struggle. I got very emotional ( Not because it’s sad but because it’s true😉) when they finally managed to get closure at their sister’s Siblings Night. ( which btw is a tradition we should all implement!!)

Another favorite of mine is his reflections on Community. The way he looked at it and how he put it down, got me thinking about my anchor points and what connects my community.

But my most most favorite reflection was that about “ Secondhand Rediscovery”! 😭

Overall, insightful and easy read.

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The parts of the book that resonated with me the most focused on self-awareness. Jenkins writes "We are self-aware. We have a triad of worlds inside us: our mind in the present, our mind holding the past, and our mind guessing at the future." I feel like I'm constantly in a battle with my mind (romanticizing the past, practicing mindfulness in the present, and "planning" or more realistically obsessing about the future.⁣ Along the same lines, Jenkins sees that self-awareness as a gift, which is really interesting. He says, "No matter how small and random you may feel, how meaningless, your ability to say, "That is beautiful," is a power that no mountain, no planet, no sun can imagine. Think about that for a second. We are blessed to have this inner voice that speaks to the things around us.⁣ Finally, the last part of the book that really stuck with me was how some of us are obsessed with the idea of living a life of influence and leaving a legacy. I think that when Jenkins says "Your generation has an idolatry of magnitude", I want to stand up and scream and that's facts no printer. ⁣
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Jedidiah Jenkins has a way with words, and this book is the best of his musings and wisdom. The prose is neat yet lyrical, making it an easy but profound read. While I wanted to read this all in one sitting, it's best stretched out over days and weeks to digest Jenkins' life lessons and offerings fully.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for an early copy of this book.

I just could not get in to this one. The formatting seemed very choppy and I could not enjoy the flow of this one. I had to DNF and if I give this one another try, I will update my review accordingly.