Good Apple is subtitled “Tales of a Southern Evangelical in New York” and it’s Elizabeth Passarella’s memoir about life as a Christian and a New Yorker, which is different from the conservative Southern life she grew up having in Memphis. ⁣
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Is it easy to get a family of 5 to church in NYC? It’s not impossible, but getting everyone into the car on time, driving, then trying to find parking there sounds harder than it might be in Memphis, or many other cities. What about getting sausage for a Thanksgiving recipe? Sure, you can get sausage at a butcher shop, but it probably won’t be the Jimmy Dean sausage traditionally used by the family. ⁣
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My favorite chapter was “They got lost and were never seen again”, where Elizabeth talks about her dad and the morbid stories she wrote as an 8 year old child, fascinated by death and kidnapping. The last 3-4 chapters, which includes this one, were the strongest and resonated most with me. ⁣
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Good Apple is a book about being ok with a somewhat complicated life and about NYC living. It’s an entertaining story with a solid dose of humor. I enjoyed this and look forward to reading Elizabeth’s newest book soon

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

This book was engaging and entertaining. It felt like chatting with a girlfriend and sharing funny stories about motherhood, marriage, faith, & the cultural differences and similarities between the north and the south.

Thank you for giving a chance to read this. I found this hard to finish but enjoyed reading-not sure why, perhaps it felt choppy to me. A quick read.

This book is a wild adventure. I enjoyed experiencing NYC through the author's eyes and appreciated the author's honesty and vulnerability as she shared her faith and political journeys.

Elizabeth Passarella was raised in the South and headed for Manhattan for work. Good Apple is her memoir that explores how she combines the traits of the south and the City.

It is a funny book that is also moving and touching as she lives her life with her husband and three children in an apartment building in Manhattan. She explores the humorous side of life like getting stuck in an elevator and the sad side like going through a miscarriage.

The book will make you laugh and make you think. I enjoyed it.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

The subtitle for this book and the fact that the author is from Memphis really drew me into this. I'm always curious about how Christians come to their political beliefs. However, about three pages total were dedicated to how her politics were formed, which was a little disappointing. It mostly feels like she was saying, "my husband and all my friends are Democrats, so I am, too." The rest of the book was about being a mom in New York, which I also appreciated but wasn't why I picked the book up. However, her humor and humility and honesty kept me reading, and I'm all-in-all glad that I read it. It's a fresh perspective that I don't really get living in the South.

This was a nice, leisurely read. I really like memoirs, and Passarella's writing skill, sense of humour and ability to address serious issues made this one fun to read. Her essays address serious topics in a lighthearted way so its less heavy but still meaningful.

I felt that this book was all over place. It seemed like a memoir/parenting book/christian/political/new york life book. I felt that reading all her opinions on various topics felt like TMI and it kind of bothered me. Let's be honest here, she's a New Yorker who is from the South not a southerner living in New York. Overall I wasn't a huge fan.

Thank you Netgalley and Thomas Nelson for the gifted book that I read paired with the library audio.

I devoured this book in one day. I could not get enough. If you are fans of Christianity with a heavy dose of humor and real life, then you will love this. (See also Melanie Shankle's books). Passarella covers a vast array of topics with grace and with frankness. Reading this book was like sitting across from a new friend at coffee for hours and having her spill her life story. Each chapter is it's own essay and story. I felt like I was in that apartment or on that sidewalk in New York with her experiencing the stories she told.

Content Warning: Miscarriage

I enjoyed the premise of this book but didn’t love it. I got a little lost in the weeds usually I will buy books that I review for netgalley .if I really like them but not sure why this one was just ok for me.

I was glad to have the opportunity to read this book via Netgalley. It is an enjoyable read, and I appreciate the author's honesty, especially about topics like anger, conflict in marriage, and miscarriage. But as someone who grew up in New York, I appreciated most her likening New York City to the Kingdom of Heaven. You'll have to read it to understand what she means.

The title of the book threw me off a little bit, because I expected it to share a little bit more about her transition and adjustment to living in New York City after growing up in the South. It is rather more like a love letter to the City, and a defense of it to those who disapprove or just do not understand why anyone would want to raise a family in NYC.

As a Christian who grew up in NYC and in no way felt out of place, I felt the author overstated the unusualness of her Christianity in the city. Perhaps she means her specific brand of Christianity, but it is inaccurate to give the impression that it is unusual to be a Christian in NYC. There may not be plenty of Southern evangelicals, but there are plenty of Catholics, mainline, Protestants, and Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Christians. I hope she manages to get to know these communities in the city she so loves.

While I enjoyed Elizabeth’s honesty about her life interwoven with her faith, I was put off by some of the ways you addressed certain topics. At one point, while seemingly admitting to being less than cautious on dates, whether with alcohol or the quality of company she kept, she reflected on how God had protected her from worst things not happening. While I absolutely believe in the protecting power of God, I found her words flippant and lacking a certain sensitivity. For women who have been victims of assault, under the influence or not, is she suggesting God was not protecting them in those instances? It was moments like this that tainted the reading of this book for me.

GOOD APPLE is a collection of memoir essays written by Elizabeth Passarella, a southern transplant to New York City. She talks about moving far from home, marriage, raising kids, letting go of control, fitting a family of five in a 1200 sq ft apartment, and trapping a giant rat in her bedroom. Passarella’s writing is smart, tender, and at times laugh-out-loud funny.

There were several ways I related to Passarella, and because of those commonalities, I felt a fast connection and affection for the book, especially when she wrote about living far from your home of origin, parenting, and learning to let go of control. This is one of those essay-memoir books that you end and feel like you made a new friend. Thanks for the good conversation, Elizabeth. I hope we can do it again sometime.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free review copy of this book.

As a northerner living in the south, I felt this book into my core and loved it! Highly recommend especially for implants like me.

I really enjoyed this memoir! GOOD APPLE is Elizabeth Passarella's account of moving to and falling in love with New York City as a southern, evangelical Christian and a progressive Democrat.. I appreciated that her experience goes against current stereotypes of American evangelicals. It was genuine, heartfelt and funny. Lots of memorable anecdotes of marriage and motherhood. Highly recommend.

Thanks #netgallery for this book in exchange for an honest review. As a liberal, Southern, Christian, I expected this to be a positive review. Unfortunately,I didn't enjoy this. I kept trying but I found myself disliking the author, her writing style and her story.

Fun book to read. Author is a Southern evangelical transplant to New York. Her life Irving in the City with her 3 children is a whole different world for this Southerner (NC). I enjoyed reading about her adventures, her children and her family life.

I most definitely wasn't the right audience for this book. I caught myself judging the writer and her views several times. I didn't enjoy this story.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book. I was drawn to request it because it promised a humorous view of an evangelical Christian's life in NYC. Unfortunately I found it hard to find the humor in the book when the author's privilege and programming from her youth still underlies so much of her perspective. It's true she's more progressive than the people she grew up with but then she'll make a comment about how she was lucky not to have been sexually assaulted in her younger days when went home with guys which to me feels like blaming other women who were less "lucky" when they left a bar with a guy. This isn't to demonize the author but more to say that I'm not the audience for this book. I think others who are at a similar place on their journey may find it entertaining.