Tag Archives: book review

Book Review: Firefly Island

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In the past month, I’ve read two books with firefly in the title! The one I most recently finished was a review book from Bethany House called Firefly Island by Lisa Wingate.

A common theme I’m finding with Bethany House books is that they all have beautiful covers: striking photographs, a silky-smooth feel, and a satisfying shape and weight. I know I’m not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but a nice cover sure does enhance my reading experience!

The book centers on Mallory, a successful and upwardly ambitious Congressional staffer who’s living up the single life in D.C. until she’s swept off her feet by a striking stranger. They enter into a whirlwind relationship and when he’s offered a seemingly top-notch job with an eccentric, wealthy researcher in Texas, she takes the plunge and marries him, becoming a step-mom to his toddler son and finding herself at loose ends getting used to small town life.

From the description on the back of the book, I expected this to be a pretty straightforward sweet romance, with some cutesy Southernisms thrown in as she acclimated to Texas. I somehow didn’t catch onto the fact that it was a mystery and somewhat of a page-turner!

Since I knew it was going to be a romance, I was okay with accepting the speedy transition from single girl to wife and mother. Daniel, the husband, was not a fully fleshed out character, but he was appealing enough to make the romance believable. I couldn’t quite believe his son Nick, though, and was really bothered by the way the author chose to transcribe his “kid speak.” It was distracting and not even that realistic to me. Other than that, their family unit was sweet and satisfying to follow.

It was fun to “get to know” the characters who inhabited Mallory’s small-town Texas, but I ended up feeling like I’d been left hanging by the way the conclusion came together. I’ll try not to give anything away, but it seemed to me like Wingate abandoned the mystery right at its climax and switched to explanatory prose in an epilogue, rather than continuing to let the reader follow along with the action. That was annoying to me. I felt like there was history with Mallory’s family and some of the other characters that was similarly brushed aside in favor of wrapping up the story, but I’m sure there’s a fine line between writing a book that reads well and writing a thousand page tome that no one will buy.

Another fun element was that Mallory becomes a blogger as she’s trying to find ways to fill her time. While her astronomical overnight success felt a bit unrealistic to me as a fellow blogger, I guess it could happen, and I was a little jealous of it!

While this was an enjoyable enough read, I found some of the plot structures to be a bit tenuous. It was as if Wingate wanted to write a book about legislation and so she had to find ways to fit that in, and it didn’t necessarily work for me. I can’t say that this book will have any sort of lasting impact on me.

Book Club Read: Wolf Hall

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Did you read along with January’s book club selection, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel?

Here’s the product description from Amazon:

“In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power. England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.”

It was a dense read, and I only finished the morning of my book club gathering! I was actually the only who made it through before we met to discuss it, which I think reflects more on the book than on the dedication of my book club friends. :-) On the positive side, I enjoyed that the book was written in modern language, and its hyper-personal focus on Thomas Cromwell drew me into an emotional connection to the characters that I might not have had otherwise. But overall, I struggled a bit to get through it. Some of my problem was an utter ignorance of the historical facts! I spent the first third of the book waiting for it to explain why they started calling Thomas Cromwell, the main character, Oliver (the only Cromwell I knew of), until I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and discovered that Thomas and Oliver Cromwell are, in fact, different people. I found the book to be wonderfully written and was often caught up in the writing itself, struck by particularly poignant passages, but overall the book was not engaging. I had to force myself to sit down and read it because it wasn’t sucking me into the story. I agree with one reviewer who says, “Wolf Hall does not have the epic sweep of some novels of its genre. [...] What grabs us here is not the broad picture but the detail, and Mantel is very good indeed at making it all real.”

All that said, I had an enjoyable time gathering discussion questions and evaluating my thoughts in order to lead the discussion at book club. The English major in me nerded out! This podcast from Slate gave me some good perspective, and I also found a discussion guide online.

Evidently Mantel treats several characters in non-traditional ways, i.e. Thomas Cromwell reads as the “good guy” and Thomas More (an actual saint in the Catholic church) is the “bad guy.” Since I had no historical frame of reference for these figures, I swallowed Mantel’s perspective hook, line, and sinker, so it was interesting to have it pointed out to me that this was a fresh take on the history!

Mantel made a few other interesting choices, such as the somewhat arbitrary time period she chose as the span of the book and the title itself, Wolf Hall. Wolf Hall is the family home of Jane Seymour, who ends up becoming Henry VIII’s wife. She is a rather minor character in the book, and Cromwell only visits the actual Wolf Hall at the end of the book, so why is the title significant? The guys at Slate pointed out the Latin phrase homo hominum lupus est - “man is a wolf to other men,” and my book club and I agreed that we think that plays into the title.

This passage, to me, is a good summation of Wolf Hall‘s plotline:

Why does everything you know, and everything you’ve learned, confirm you in what you believed before? Whereas in my case, what I grew up with, and what I thought I believed, is chipped away a little and a little, a fragment then a piece and then a piece more. With every month that passes, the corners are knocked off the certainties of this world: and the next world too.

And this quote, a good commentary on historical fiction:

Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.

Wolf Hall is well written and a good story. It’s interesting to watch personalities evolve, power shift, and relationships crumble. As a piece of literature, I can see why it was awarded the 2009 Man Booker Prize, England’s highest award for fiction. But to quote a reviewer again, “Wolf Hall is a fine read for the enthusiast of English history, then, and one that rewards the reader patient enough to submit to its length. I think I need a break, however, before cracking open the pages of its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies” (if in fact I ever do at all).

Book Review: The Air We Breathe

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The Air We Breathe by Christa Parrish is the most recent book Bethany House Publishers sent me to review.

It was a quick and mostly engrossing read, but I honestly can’t come up with a whole lot to say about it. The book is divided into chapters that each follow a different character in one of two years–Molly in 2009, Hanna in 2002, Claire in 2002, and the same Claire in 2009. It’s clear from the get-go that their stories are interconnected somehow, but it takes most of the book for the connections to be explained. For what it’s worth, I made the biggest leap well before the author explained it, so that made it sort of a letdown when Parrish finally spelled the connection out for me.

I had trouble accepting the underlying plot structure of the book. Hanna was out with her father when a horrific event occurred (I won’t say more than that for fear of ruining some of the surprise!). While I know events like this do occur, it was handled in such an understated way. It was simply part of everyday life for Hanna and her mother. But I felt like I needed it to be focused on a bit more–for someone to say, “Whoa, that is a really awful, unexpected thing! Let’s talk about it a little bit!” Hanna goes through counseling and has a chance meeting with a woman (Claire) who has lost both of her children in a car accident. The two have an immediate and inexplicable bond until another crazy, unbelievable event occurs. The resolution of the book depends on another chance occurrence, which was once again hard for me to swallow.

The relationships are what make this book, but I found even those to be a bit shallow for my liking. The bond between Hanna and Claire is beautiful. Claire is a Christian, though she is struggling with anger and doubt stemming from the accident that killed her, children, which I wanted the author to delve into more. However, this is the basis of the relationship they build, and it was cool to see how a child sought out someone to answer the deep questions she had. Molly and her mother had a lot of tension between them, walls that had grown thicker and thicker through years of anger, and I really wished that had been addressed more fully. Molly has a sweet friend named Tobias, and I liked watching their relationship develop throughout the pages. All of the characters were likeable and believable, which made me want to keep reading to find out what happened to them.

As with other Bethany House books I’ve reviewed, I was pleasantly surprised by how understated the Christianity was in this book. It didn’t try to beat you over the head with religion, but it was definitely an important theme in the book simply because it was an important part of the lives of several of the characters. I think including Christianity in that way will be instrumental in breaking down the barriers between “Christian fiction” and mainstream or literary fiction. That said, the writing itself in this book was nothing to write home about, as they say, and I’m not sure it would succeed outside of the comfy niche of Christian fiction.

I didn’t dislike this book, but I can’t offer much to strongly recommend it either.

Book Review: The Bridesmaid

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The most recent list of fiction books available to review for Bethany House Publisher didn’t thrill me when I initially saw it. But as I perused the list more closely, one book in particular jumped out at me: The Bridesmaid, by Beverly Lewis.

In the last few years, Amish fiction has taken off. No, not fiction by Amish people; fiction (mostly romances, honestly) about Amish people. In a Salon.com article on this very topic, Steve Oates, vice president of marketing for Bethany House, says, “bonnet books are a sure thing and have been ever since Beverly Lewis single-handedly gave birth to the genre in the late ’90s.” (The article also cites that, “Incidentally, Wal-Mart accounts for 50 percent of the sales of Amish fiction’s top authors.”) He continues, “bonnet book readers get really emotionally connected to the characters and their lives. That means the authors are really doing their job.”

I knew of the Amish fiction genre but have always mentally scoffed at it (despite my love of Nicholas Sparks). But when I saw this book by Beverly Lewis, “the queen of the bonnet book,” available to review, I thought, “Why not give it a shot?”

The Bridesmaid follows the story of 24-year-old Joanna Kurtz, an old maid by Plain standards, who has been three times a bridesmaid but never a bride. As you might hope, she meets a man, Eben, but he lives in a different state–a big deal for people whose lives are dictated by the Ordnung of their bishop. They struggle through a long-distance relationship, but much hinges on the return of Eben’s brother, who appears to have chosen the English (that is, non-Amish) world over his farm heritage. The book takes soft twists and turns. The romance, obviously, is understated, which was somewhat refreshing. The novel paints a picture of Amish family life that comes across as idyllic when compared with the hustle and bustle and noise most of us face. I really wanted to sit down to dinner with the Kurtz family at their weathered farmhouse table and dig into their hearty, delicious-sounding food!

I don’t know how realistic the Amish details are, but I have to admit there is something fascinating about being a fly on the wall of a different culture. However, I wondered the whole time what the Amish community would think of these books. I doubt they’re hiding under the covers reading them, but who knows! Unfortunately the dialect that Lewis uses throughout was a stumbling block to my enjoyment of the book. Presumably the dialogue is “really” happening in Pennsylvania Dutch, but the book is obviously written in English. Lewis throws in a German phrase or two as if to add to the authenticity, and there’s the odd colloquial English word or phrase too. I had trouble taking the “ya”s and “ain’t”s seriously for some reason. Although, I think I may just be adopting the word “ferhoodled” for my own use. (Feelin’ ferhoodled today, ain’t ya?)

All in all the book was enjoyable enough. It was pretty light and fluffy but mostly satisfying. I was engaged enough to find Joanna’s sister quite annoying but not enough to be moved when the romantic conclusion finally came about. It was pat and rather predictable, and I don’t think I’m a convert to the Amish fiction way. I can understand, though, why so many women have bought into the genre–it’s good old romantic escapism, and I can’t blame them for enjoying it!

Book Review: A Year of Biblical Womanhood

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A couple of weeks ago I was selected through Rachel Held Evans’ blog to be part of the launch team for her newest book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

The book officially launched a week ago, so you may have heard about it by now. Rachel has appeared on numerous talk shows and been featured in magazines and on radio segments. The book is currently #2 on Amazon in the “Theology” category and not far behind that in Spirituality and Christian Living. It’s making decently-sized waves in evangelical as well as more liberal Christian circles.

I’ve been reading Rachel’s blog for several years now so was able to follow along with frequent posts as she executed the project. Here’s the gist of it: Rachel grew up in a conservative Evangelical church where women were not allowed to preach and were encouraged to assume traditional roles in their homes and marriages. Rachel grew up and started asking hard questions. She got married, and she and her husband Dan found that they somewhat inadvertently eschewed all the traditional roles they had assumed they would embrace and created for themselves an egalitarian marriage. Rachel started delving into these issues and found a whole wealth of literature espousing the “Biblical womanhood model,” which she came to view as a misinterpretation of the Bible she loves. So, she embarked on a somewhat kooky project: for one year, she would follow every edict in the Bible that said something about women. She ended up doing things like wearing a headcovering, calling her husband Master, praising him at the city gates, cooking through a Martha Stewart cookbook, and caring for a computerized baby. (You can read more about it here and check out some FAQ’s.)

I expected to love the book. I really did. I was excited about it from the first wind I caught of it on Rachel’s blog. It seemed like a really interesting experiment that could make a lot of bold claims about the role of women in Christianity. But honestly, I had trouble getting through it. First of all, the projects Rachel chose seemed odd to me. Many of the rules she followed were from the Jewish culture, and she even made an orthodox Jewish friend who directly guided her through many of them. Yes, I am well aware that Christianity grew out of Judaism and that the culture in which Jesus preached and lived was Jewish. I am well aware that the entire Old Testament follows the story of the Jews. But to me, if Rachel was trying to refute the likes of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, choosing Jewish customs was not the track to take, because I don’t feel like these are the scriptures that people get hung up on.

Secondly, while the projects themselves were fascinating, in practice the book felt disjointed to me. Rachel tried to tell us about so many projects that I felt shorted on most of them. An entire experience had to be boiled down to just a page or two. Perhaps I’m spoiled because in reading her blog I’ve gotten a more fleshed out, longer term view of things, but I wanted more detail about fewer projects–maybe the ones that impacted her the most, for example.

And my final concern is that this is not the book that is going to convince a Christian who ascribes to a patriarchal worldview to change his or her mind. I expected to have a lot of “ah hah!” moments while reading this book, but in fact I had very few. And if that was my experience, as someone who already mostly agrees with Rachel’s stance, I can’t imagine what someone deeply entrenched in the notion that she has to be a silent wife and homemaker would make of it.

Here’s where I often run into problems with feminism: if the point of feminism is to allow women the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives, than what of the women who decide to be homemakers and stay-at-home moms? I often feel like those women are belittled by the staunch feminists as simply being part of a partiarchal hierarchy that they need to escape. But you know what? I believe, as unpopular as it may be, that men and women are different. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be paid the same or have the same rights, but I think that at root, we have some fundamental differences, and I also believe that’s Biblical. And I think that a woman choosing to live out what she feels to be her deep calling is beautiful. Just because men and women are different doesn’t also mean that all women and all men are the same as each other, but I think there are things we each are better suited for. Not all women who stay at home or choose to be the primary homekeeper are doing it out of a sense of obligation to the patriarchy or because they’ve been forced to. I work, but I also cook dinner every night, do all of the laundry and much of the cleaning, and pour Andy a beer occasionally when he gets home from work. I do these things because they bring me great joy and because I feel that I am well-suited to keeping our home pleasing. Am I less of a woman because I have chosen to be this way? I don’t think so. So I’m tired of feminists making me feel like I should want more for my life. I have crafted a life that makes me happy, and will continue to craft it as my circumstances evolve, and I don’t think it’s worth any less just because some of my choices happen to line up with a conservative viewpoint of marriage and the family.

So, all that said, I think A Year of Biblical Womanhood is a great rallying cry for a specific subset of people: women who grew up in conservative churches or families that they’ve since pegged as oppressive who have changed the way they live to a more egalitarian position for women and men. Plenty of bloggers and tweeters that I follow are in that category have shouted hoorays over this book. But for people like me who perhaps straddle the fence, and especially for people who haven’t toed up to the line at all, I’m not sure what the book will do.

I’m sounding terribly harsh, and I don’t particularly want to be. I’ve come to feel that I know Rachel from reading her blog, and I like her, and I think she’s doing great things in the world. The writing in the book has moments where it absolutely shines and passages that assert truths in a manner that can’t be ignored.

And some of her conclusions are absolutely irrefutable to me: that “The Bible does not present us with a single model for womanhood, and the notion that it contains a sort of one-size-fits-all formula for how to be a woman of faith is a myth.” She also writes, “If love was Jesus’ definition of ‘biblical,’ then perhaps it should be mine.” And this: “We all wrestle with how to interpret and apply the Bible to our lives. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed?”

But to be honest, this book has me all confused, because I’m finding myself typing this post out of a much more conservative stance than I thought I had in me. When I read the section of A Year of Biblical Womanhood that dealt with Proverbs 31, rather than feeling freed by Rachel’s conclusions about it (“The woman [...] in Proverbs 31 is not [an] ideal [...] she is present in each of us when we do the smallest things with valor”), I felt cheated. I thought, “But wait a minute–I kind of WANT to be that woman!” So now I’m just all in a tizzy and I’m not sure what sort of woman I am, or why. If nothing else, the book has got me standing back at my proverbial drawing board of Self, and that can’t be a bad thing.

I guess I can rest in one of Rachel’s conclusions, that “One does not have to understand to be obedient [to God]. Instead of [...] that intellectual understanding which we are so fond of, there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which you are not yet able to understand.” Hopefully, with the “prejudice of love,” that will get me somewhere.