Blog, Book Reviews, Articles & More
Monday’s Not Coming Banned Book Review
Monday’s Not Coming is a YA novel that dives right into the murky question of what happens when a child, particularly a Black girl, disappears. When Claudia’s best friend Monday doesn’t show up on the first day of school…
The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt plunges into the modern third rail by looking at how morals divide people primarily in religion and politics. By morals, he doesn’t mean a particular set of morals, but of individual and group moral parameters and values…
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy Book Review
Twenty-something Cushla straddles both Catholic and Protestant as a parochial school teacher living in a somewhat mixed town outside Belfast. She’s dedicated to her young students, especially a young boy from a mixed Catholic/Protestant family who is under threat from all sides…
A Half-Built Garden Book Review
Ruthanna Emrys organized some of her future Earth around watershed communities, an idea I find interesting in terms of living in a more custodial, symbiotic relationship with Earth. But wow, Emrys dove deep into the theme of symbiosis both socially and technologically.
An Impossible Thing to Say Book Review
Full of angst and heart, tears and laughter, rhythm and discord, friends and family and conflict, and the power of words no matter the language, Omid shares his unique story of adolescence in a way that inspires not only how to discover and speak your truth.
Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction
Part pop science, part muse for science fiction and other speculative writers, this gem of a book was a quick breeze through the various mass extinction events in Earth’s history, the promise that humans will face one or more of these events, and some hopeful wisdom on how we might weather the worst and survive as a species.
About Kristine
Kristine Madera is an Amazon #1 bestselling author who writes fiction and nonfiction shaped by travel, culture, and lived cross-cultural experience.
Inspired while volunteering at Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying in Calcutta, her novel God in Drag examines what happens when spiritual faith fractures in the sacred city of Varanasi. Read the first chapter of God in Drag HERE
She birthed her upcoming novel, The Snakeman’s Wife, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Papua New Guinea.
Be on the lookout for her Etiquette Express Guides, a series of short, practical travel guides that help readers understand the customs, social expectations, and everyday dos and don’ts that make travel smoother and more connected.
Her travels have taken her across India, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Papua New Guinea as both a backpacker and Peace Corps Volunteer. A portion of her book proceeds supports cross-cultural education scholarships.
You don’t need to “master” a culture to move through it well.
You just need a few steady skills:
- How to stay curious,
- How to adjust without performing
- How to recover gracefully when you miss a cue—because we all do.
This free PDF guide gives you 12 simple, human skills you can use anywhere: whether traveling abroad, navigating a new city, joining a host family, starting a new job, or even re-entering your own life after a trip.