In writing on the importance of living open-hearted and growing relationships with our neighbors and communities, Shannan Martin impresses on the reader that, “This work requires all of us reaching out, taking turns. Attention and intention. Eagerness to share. The full-throated belief that healing is always possible—and it often looks a lot like lunch. This is our recipe for making it through.”

Start With Hello is a beautiful and practical book filled with Shannan’s humor, warmth and passion for knowing and understanding others. We were designed to be in relationships with others, to live in community and Shannan writes with the perfect amount of encouragement, hope and push to nudge us into action…opening our hearts and spaces to others!

Each of her three books have impacted my life in different ways, the best of ways. I am always eager to read anything Shannan Martin writes!

Start with Hello is a must read! It is a warm invitation to being present with those around us. It is also a challenge to live in community with intentionality and awareness that it’s not all about me. I love Shannan Martin’s heart and how she expresses it through a pen to paper to bring about positive change in our hearts and into our community. We’re all in this together so let’s act like it!

We are all hungry for community after the pandemic, but Shannan’s latest book invites us to take a look at the deeper issues behind our disconnect and encourages us that it’s not as hard as we think to draw closer to our neighbors. She writes of her personal experiences in a beautiful but relatable way, showing more than telling. Her style of writing is poetic but easy to read. I love how each chapter ends with “one simple way to move toward each other”, giving the reader practical ways to put each theme into practice.