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shelfreflectionofficial's Reviews (844)
“I wrote this book for my thirty-year-old self, the woman who needed to understand why much of what she had been taught in college and read in the media led to a dead end, and why the Bible inspired joy and peace.”
This is an excellent book about biblical womanhood written by a woman who understands the feminism movement. Knowing it was written in 2008, I wasn’t sure how relevant it would be. But it is probably even more so relevant now than in 2008.
It’s fair. It’s honest. And as a woman, struggling with the push and pull of what I’m being told to be or do as a woman, everything she said resonated with me like compassionate words from a friend.
There are many books written on this topic that expound more on interpreting the biblical passages (a few listed below). What I feel is unique about this book is the attention to historical figures and context, the inclusion of personal stories, and discussion on some topics not typically broached in these types of books. Plus McCulley has a background in cultural feminism, herself.
What is Feminism?
‘Feminism’ is a weighty term that means different things to different people. Several reviewers are turned off by her seeming placement of feminism as an opposite to biblical womanhood. I can see how they might perceive that from this book but I think definitions would clear that up.
Throughout the whole book McCulley is clear that the historical feminist movement has made great progress for women’s social and legal standing— voting rights, end of coverture, higher education, etc. She is also clear that the Bible affirms that women and men are equal and were equal from the first.
“There’s a difference between restoring God-given rights to women and setting women above both men and God. The history of the feminist movement shows that one led to another…”
The murkiness comes when we define what ‘equal’ means. The Bible is clear all people are equal in worth for we are all image-bearers of the Creator. And in this way, we are all feminists. But if we start to see different roles in the church as being more valuable than others, an ‘equal outcome’ looks different for different people.
As McCulley says, “Feminist ideology arose from partially accurate observations but offered faulty interpretations and flawed solutions.”
Another reason feminism seems at odds with McCulley’s biblical presentation of womanhood is because of some of the specific beliefs certain waves of feminism seemed to push at large. There is obviously no one platform of beliefs in which all feminists adhere to and I don’t believe McCulley attempts to create one. So, too, we must be careful to take into account all of this book before assuming McCulley’s intentions based on her use of one loaded term.
What is at Stake?
The most important thing to determine when speaking about feminism and biblical womanhood is to establish your ultimate authority and your view of the Bible.
Wayne Grudem, in his excellent book, Evangelical Feminism, systematically exposes how many interpretations of the Bible used by Christian feminists undermine Scripture by implementing theological liberalism which he defines as: “a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives.”
At the heart of this issue, in terms of how Christians view biblical womanhood, is the Bible. Is your authority God’s complete and inerrant Word? Grudem asks this hard question: “Is the authority of the Bible really primary for egalitarians? Or is there a deep-seated mentality that actually puts feminism first and the Bible second?”
McCulley affirms this position in her book.
The Real Problem
Having discovered feminism in her women’s studies courses in college, she had been attracted to their explanation for the problems in the world: Men. The Patriarchy.
Long story short, she ends up encountering Jesus in South Africa and realizes that, men, in fact, are not the problem.
Sin is. And it’s found in both men and women.
“The kicker is that feminism is partially right. Men do sin. They can diminish women’s accomplishments and limit women’s freedoms for self-centered reasons. Some men sexually assault women. Some men abuse their wives and children. Many men degrade women through pornography. Feminism didn’t rise up because of fabricated offenses.”
“Sin warps everything, including the good that God has designed in being a man or a woman. Women sin against men and men sin against women, and everyone sins against God and falls short of His standard of holiness and perfection. Sin is the reason men have oppressed women and women have usurped men. Sin is the reason for the jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, and every vile practice that characterizes false wisdom.”
I love McCulley’s approach to this topic of laying out the gospel in the very beginning because this is our framework..
She acknowledges the real offenses and wrongs that led to women’s resistance, past and present, yet she reminds us that neither men nor feminists are the enemy. The enemy is Satan and his lies.
If the problem is sin, then the solution is righteousness which can only be found through Jesus Christ. By grace through faith in his death and resurrection, paying the penalty for all of our sins.
Real joy, peace, redemption, healing, and rescue can only come through Christ.
We can’t get that wrong.
And I’m glad she began this book on such a controversial topic by clarifying that gospel message and reminding us what is ultimate. Much gets lost in these debates and we can’t settle for anything less than truth.
Does Feminism Help or Hurt Women?
While that is what is ultimately at stake in this discussion there are plenty of other things to talk about.
Something I found particularly compelling was to consider some of the main topics that feminists today are vocal about. Many feminists want the freedom to have abortions. They want the decriminalization of prostitution. They want the revealing of their body to be seen as empowerment.
Aside from the commonly expressed moral arguments against abortion, let’s consider:
Is this actually better for women?
There are millions of abortions done every year. And the majority of them are female fetuses worldwide (mostly China and India). Not only does abortion kill more women, but it has created a shortage of wives for males in India and China and thus created a lucrative market for human trafficking. Of women.
This is also connected to sex work. Is that better for women? Maybe it makes women feel empowered to use their bodies however they want to, but if they truly feel they have the control over men by doing this, they are sadly mistaken. It also creates a greater market for human trafficking to satiate the demand for more of the like.
The effects of abortion, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and prostitution are most damaging to women. And most damaging to women of color. McCulley shares some of the statistics for abortions and STDs to support this.
And yet, no ones talks about these things. Many are blinded by their misguided, culturally groomed need for certain ‘freedoms’ that they fail to see the consequences, or fail to see them as significant.
Feminism’s Influence on our Culture
McCulley observes: “Feminism has profoundly altered our culture’s concept of what it means to be a woman. We need to understand how this movement came about and what its goals have been because these are now our culture’s assumptions.”
There are many things that could be talked about here. Here are a few things she touched on that I found to be very telling, yet not told. Things that are enlightening but you don’t hear much about.
And I can already hear the objection— You are correct- not all feminists advocate for these things, past or present. But McCulley makes compelling connections to these things and popular feminist ideals.
Like how fewer people are getting married or having kids. And more divorces are happening, mostly initiated by women. Like how people who cohabit are less happy than people who are married. And cohabiting is actually a predictor of divorce.
Like how pornography degrades women and is heavily connected to violence. It also hinders positive and healthy sexual encounters because of the unrealistic expectations it creates for people. Here’s an irony for you, WAP used to stand for a feminist organization called “Women Against Porn.”
She traces the history of the home being integrated with the workplace and being a place of production to, after the Industrial Revolution, the home being separated from the marketplace which has led women to believe the home is a less worthy place to be. It has also led to the home being more about consumption than production.
A Biblical Attitude
Though McCulley addresses the Ephesians verses on submission, exposition of these verses was not her main drive for this book, and other books below would pair well with this. Yet she reminds us of very significant things that are all too often completely ignored when considering the biblical viewpoint.
The Bible calls women to submit to their husbands, not all men. And it is not a submission to abuse.
“It is not an absolute surrender of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband’s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership. Christ is her absolute authority, not the husband.”— Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
While women are choosing to follow their husband’s leadership, the Bible is directing men to care and love their wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He died for it. The Bible calls men to sacrificial and servant leadership that puts their wives interests ahead of their own, not a domineering control where the wife has no voice.
With every chapter, McCulley reminds us how the Bible is pro-woman. God’s design for men and women is good and for our good.
“Every one of us is prone to agree with Satan’s character assassination of God. We often chafe at the good boundaries God has given us. We are easily tempted to think the worst of God. And we doubt that what God has provided is anywhere near as good as what He has restricted.”
Frankly, I don’t think it takes much research to realize that many of the ‘freedoms’ people want today do more harm than good. Boundaries are not a bad thing.
We can trust God with our gender, our role, our worth, and our marriage.
Radical Womanhood
I’m realizing more and more the complexity of what ‘biblical womanhood’ means for Christians. That’s why I want to keep reading these kinds of books to expand my knowledge of what has led us to where we are today and to constantly be checking ideas and beliefs against the Bible, our ultimate authority.
McCulley acknowledges: “In the twenty-first century, few things are more controversial than the Bible’s plain teaching on sexuality and gender roles.”
It is true.
And I don’t see the controversy lessening any time soon.
But matters of gender, sex, and marriage are important to God and because they matter to God, they should matter to us.
As Christians, we need to put the work in to finding truth, not just assimilating into culture or choosing beliefs that allow the ‘freedoms’ we desire the most.
Biblical womanhood seems radical today but it is nothing less than trusting God and his Word.
I’ll end with this quote that brings it all back to the gospel:
“If this stirs up resentment in our hearts, I believe that’s because we’ve lost sight of the gospel… Does it really matter how our Lord asks us to serve Him for just a few short years on this earth when we will equally delight in Him for time without end?! Even those men who are called to be pastors will only serve in that position for a portion of their lives. All the good things we can do here on earth are trumped by the one thing that is truly good— to worship Jesus now and for all of eternity! We have received far better than we deserved, thanks to the mercy of the cross. Let us not quibble about the small part we play in advancing Christ’s kingdom and the good news of salvation.”
Further Reading
Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? by Wayne Grudem
A(Typical) Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ by Abigail Dodds
What God Has to Say About our Bodies: How the Gospel is Good News for Our Physical Selves by Sam Allberry
Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction by Kevin DeYoung
Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity, and Practice by Owen Strachan
The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims by Rebecca McLaughlin
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
This is an excellent book about biblical womanhood written by a woman who understands the feminism movement. Knowing it was written in 2008, I wasn’t sure how relevant it would be. But it is probably even more so relevant now than in 2008.
It’s fair. It’s honest. And as a woman, struggling with the push and pull of what I’m being told to be or do as a woman, everything she said resonated with me like compassionate words from a friend.
There are many books written on this topic that expound more on interpreting the biblical passages (a few listed below). What I feel is unique about this book is the attention to historical figures and context, the inclusion of personal stories, and discussion on some topics not typically broached in these types of books. Plus McCulley has a background in cultural feminism, herself.
What is Feminism?
‘Feminism’ is a weighty term that means different things to different people. Several reviewers are turned off by her seeming placement of feminism as an opposite to biblical womanhood. I can see how they might perceive that from this book but I think definitions would clear that up.
Throughout the whole book McCulley is clear that the historical feminist movement has made great progress for women’s social and legal standing— voting rights, end of coverture, higher education, etc. She is also clear that the Bible affirms that women and men are equal and were equal from the first.
“There’s a difference between restoring God-given rights to women and setting women above both men and God. The history of the feminist movement shows that one led to another…”
The murkiness comes when we define what ‘equal’ means. The Bible is clear all people are equal in worth for we are all image-bearers of the Creator. And in this way, we are all feminists. But if we start to see different roles in the church as being more valuable than others, an ‘equal outcome’ looks different for different people.
As McCulley says, “Feminist ideology arose from partially accurate observations but offered faulty interpretations and flawed solutions.”
Another reason feminism seems at odds with McCulley’s biblical presentation of womanhood is because of some of the specific beliefs certain waves of feminism seemed to push at large. There is obviously no one platform of beliefs in which all feminists adhere to and I don’t believe McCulley attempts to create one. So, too, we must be careful to take into account all of this book before assuming McCulley’s intentions based on her use of one loaded term.
What is at Stake?
The most important thing to determine when speaking about feminism and biblical womanhood is to establish your ultimate authority and your view of the Bible.
Wayne Grudem, in his excellent book, Evangelical Feminism, systematically exposes how many interpretations of the Bible used by Christian feminists undermine Scripture by implementing theological liberalism which he defines as: “a system of thinking that denies the complete truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and denies the unique and absolute authority of the Bible in our lives.”
At the heart of this issue, in terms of how Christians view biblical womanhood, is the Bible. Is your authority God’s complete and inerrant Word? Grudem asks this hard question: “Is the authority of the Bible really primary for egalitarians? Or is there a deep-seated mentality that actually puts feminism first and the Bible second?”
McCulley affirms this position in her book.
The Real Problem
Having discovered feminism in her women’s studies courses in college, she had been attracted to their explanation for the problems in the world: Men. The Patriarchy.
Long story short, she ends up encountering Jesus in South Africa and realizes that, men, in fact, are not the problem.
Sin is. And it’s found in both men and women.
“The kicker is that feminism is partially right. Men do sin. They can diminish women’s accomplishments and limit women’s freedoms for self-centered reasons. Some men sexually assault women. Some men abuse their wives and children. Many men degrade women through pornography. Feminism didn’t rise up because of fabricated offenses.”
“Sin warps everything, including the good that God has designed in being a man or a woman. Women sin against men and men sin against women, and everyone sins against God and falls short of His standard of holiness and perfection. Sin is the reason men have oppressed women and women have usurped men. Sin is the reason for the jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, and every vile practice that characterizes false wisdom.”
I love McCulley’s approach to this topic of laying out the gospel in the very beginning because this is our framework..
She acknowledges the real offenses and wrongs that led to women’s resistance, past and present, yet she reminds us that neither men nor feminists are the enemy. The enemy is Satan and his lies.
If the problem is sin, then the solution is righteousness which can only be found through Jesus Christ. By grace through faith in his death and resurrection, paying the penalty for all of our sins.
Real joy, peace, redemption, healing, and rescue can only come through Christ.
We can’t get that wrong.
And I’m glad she began this book on such a controversial topic by clarifying that gospel message and reminding us what is ultimate. Much gets lost in these debates and we can’t settle for anything less than truth.
Does Feminism Help or Hurt Women?
While that is what is ultimately at stake in this discussion there are plenty of other things to talk about.
Something I found particularly compelling was to consider some of the main topics that feminists today are vocal about. Many feminists want the freedom to have abortions. They want the decriminalization of prostitution. They want the revealing of their body to be seen as empowerment.
Aside from the commonly expressed moral arguments against abortion, let’s consider:
Is this actually better for women?
There are millions of abortions done every year. And the majority of them are female fetuses worldwide (mostly China and India). Not only does abortion kill more women, but it has created a shortage of wives for males in India and China and thus created a lucrative market for human trafficking. Of women.
This is also connected to sex work. Is that better for women? Maybe it makes women feel empowered to use their bodies however they want to, but if they truly feel they have the control over men by doing this, they are sadly mistaken. It also creates a greater market for human trafficking to satiate the demand for more of the like.
The effects of abortion, sexual promiscuity, pornography, and prostitution are most damaging to women. And most damaging to women of color. McCulley shares some of the statistics for abortions and STDs to support this.
And yet, no ones talks about these things. Many are blinded by their misguided, culturally groomed need for certain ‘freedoms’ that they fail to see the consequences, or fail to see them as significant.
Feminism’s Influence on our Culture
McCulley observes: “Feminism has profoundly altered our culture’s concept of what it means to be a woman. We need to understand how this movement came about and what its goals have been because these are now our culture’s assumptions.”
There are many things that could be talked about here. Here are a few things she touched on that I found to be very telling, yet not told. Things that are enlightening but you don’t hear much about.
And I can already hear the objection— You are correct- not all feminists advocate for these things, past or present. But McCulley makes compelling connections to these things and popular feminist ideals.
Like how fewer people are getting married or having kids. And more divorces are happening, mostly initiated by women. Like how people who cohabit are less happy than people who are married. And cohabiting is actually a predictor of divorce.
Like how pornography degrades women and is heavily connected to violence. It also hinders positive and healthy sexual encounters because of the unrealistic expectations it creates for people. Here’s an irony for you, WAP used to stand for a feminist organization called “Women Against Porn.”
She traces the history of the home being integrated with the workplace and being a place of production to, after the Industrial Revolution, the home being separated from the marketplace which has led women to believe the home is a less worthy place to be. It has also led to the home being more about consumption than production.
A Biblical Attitude
Though McCulley addresses the Ephesians verses on submission, exposition of these verses was not her main drive for this book, and other books below would pair well with this. Yet she reminds us of very significant things that are all too often completely ignored when considering the biblical viewpoint.
The Bible calls women to submit to their husbands, not all men. And it is not a submission to abuse.
“It is not an absolute surrender of her will. Rather, we speak of her disposition to yield to her husband’s guidance and her inclination to follow his leadership. Christ is her absolute authority, not the husband.”— Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
While women are choosing to follow their husband’s leadership, the Bible is directing men to care and love their wives as Christ loved the church. How did Christ love the church? He died for it. The Bible calls men to sacrificial and servant leadership that puts their wives interests ahead of their own, not a domineering control where the wife has no voice.
With every chapter, McCulley reminds us how the Bible is pro-woman. God’s design for men and women is good and for our good.
“Every one of us is prone to agree with Satan’s character assassination of God. We often chafe at the good boundaries God has given us. We are easily tempted to think the worst of God. And we doubt that what God has provided is anywhere near as good as what He has restricted.”
Frankly, I don’t think it takes much research to realize that many of the ‘freedoms’ people want today do more harm than good. Boundaries are not a bad thing.
We can trust God with our gender, our role, our worth, and our marriage.
Radical Womanhood
I’m realizing more and more the complexity of what ‘biblical womanhood’ means for Christians. That’s why I want to keep reading these kinds of books to expand my knowledge of what has led us to where we are today and to constantly be checking ideas and beliefs against the Bible, our ultimate authority.
McCulley acknowledges: “In the twenty-first century, few things are more controversial than the Bible’s plain teaching on sexuality and gender roles.”
It is true.
And I don’t see the controversy lessening any time soon.
But matters of gender, sex, and marriage are important to God and because they matter to God, they should matter to us.
As Christians, we need to put the work in to finding truth, not just assimilating into culture or choosing beliefs that allow the ‘freedoms’ we desire the most.
Biblical womanhood seems radical today but it is nothing less than trusting God and his Word.
I’ll end with this quote that brings it all back to the gospel:
“If this stirs up resentment in our hearts, I believe that’s because we’ve lost sight of the gospel… Does it really matter how our Lord asks us to serve Him for just a few short years on this earth when we will equally delight in Him for time without end?! Even those men who are called to be pastors will only serve in that position for a portion of their lives. All the good things we can do here on earth are trumped by the one thing that is truly good— to worship Jesus now and for all of eternity! We have received far better than we deserved, thanks to the mercy of the cross. Let us not quibble about the small part we play in advancing Christ’s kingdom and the good news of salvation.”
Further Reading
Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? by Wayne Grudem
A(Typical) Woman: Free, Whole, and Called in Christ by Abigail Dodds
What God Has to Say About our Bodies: How the Gospel is Good News for Our Physical Selves by Sam Allberry
Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction by Kevin DeYoung
Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity, and Practice by Owen Strachan
The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims by Rebecca McLaughlin
Book Blog: www.shelfreflection.com
Pinterest: @shelfreflectionblog
“The heart’s hunger is infinite, which is why it will ultimately be disappointed with anything merely finite. Humans are those strange creatures who can never be fully satisfied by anything created— though that never stops us from trying.”
“On the road, you’re always already following somebody. The question is: Who are you following and where are they headed?”
It is said “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”
Or perhaps as Miley Cyrus puts it- It’s the climb.
But is it?
Sure the journey is important and teaches us things and refines us, but what if we never arrive anywhere? What if we just feel like we’re constantly on the road, searching, but never feeling home?
“Do we call the road ‘home’ to avoid the pain of never being welcomed?”
Do we convince ourselves it’s better to be traveling than to reach our destination? Is it because we don’t actually know where we’re going?
Is our life the life of Sisyphus, an endless toil to push the stone to the top of the mountain only to watch it roll back down waiting for us to do it again? And do we tell ourselves we prefer it that way, that it’s fulfilling?
Worthwhile questions.
But share this view with an actual migrant, Smith says. “…to those risking their lives today in boats…trying to cross this fabled line to apply for asylum, only to be refused and returned over and over again. Are they to look to Sisyphus as the hero?”
There is something innate in us, that is seeking belonging, a place to call home.
“For Augustine, so much of our restlessness and disappointment is the result of trying to convince ourselves that we’re already home. The alternative is not escapism; it is a refugee spirituality— unsettled yet hopeful, tenuous but searching, eager to find the hometown we’ve never been to.”
James K. A. Smith has written this book because he believes Augustine’s story is all of our stories. Augustine has experienced the restlessness of the road, the pain of failure, the loneliness of achievement. He has asked the questions and ultimately he found his way home.
This is not a biography of Saint Augustine. Smith uses Augustine’s writings (like his Confessions) as a guide for us to traverse through a variety of topics like freedom, ambition, sex, mothers, fathers, friendship, enlightenment, identity, justice, and death.
We encounter questions like- What is freedom? What is authenticity? Why do we fear death? Who are we?
“If you’re weary from the chase, broken by the journey, tired of the disappointment, unsettled by a sense that you’d like to find some rest not in accomplishment but in welcome, then Augustine might be the stranger you could travel with for awhile.”
Whether or not you are a Christian, this book can easily be read by all people. Augustine understands the struggle and though he lived centuries ago, the same fears, frustrations, and pains are relevant today. They are the struggles of the human condition.
But there is hope to leave the road more or less traveled and find rest for your weary soul.
If you travel with Augustine, he can point you home.
My Favorite Chapters
This is the kind of book that covers a lot of topics. Some might resonate more with you than others, depending on your life stage. Maybe it’s a book you come back to often.
There is something to glean from each chapter but there were a few that I liked more than the rest: Freedom, Ambition, Friendship, and Death.
Freedom.
Freedom is the mantra of the masses today. But what is freedom?
So many of the freedoms people think they want today actually end up enslaving and hurting them. Our choices for immediate satisfaction turn into habits which turn into addictions.
Smith says,
“When you’ve been eaten up by your own freedom, and realize the loss of guardrails only meant ending up in the ditch, you start to wonder whether freedom is all it’s cracked up to be— or whether freedom might be something other than the absence of constraint and the multiplication of options.”
I love this. Freedom does not mean ‘no-boundaries’ and ‘endless choices.’
He calls this disordered freedom. And attached to this disordered freedom is the concept of self-sufficiency and independence. But maybe what we really need is someone else.
“Coming to the end of oneself is the way out of disordered freedom. And so the irony: my freedom of choice brings me to the point where I need someone else to give me a will that is actually free. And not merely free to choose— since that’s what got me here in the first place— but free to choose the good.”
Augustine says, “Without you, what am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction?”
This is the entrance of grace. Grace is freedom— “a revolution of the will and wants.”
Ambition.
One of the biggest measures of success in America is achievement and ambition. Our ambition may be placed in our careers or our social media accounts.
What does disordered ambition look like?
“The opposite of ambition is not humility; it is sloth, passivity, timidity, and complacency. We sometimes like to comfort ourselves by imagining that the ambitious are prideful and arrogant so that those of us who never risk, never aspire, never launch out into the deep get to wear the moralizing mantle of humility. But this imagining is of just just thin cover for a lack of courage, even laziness. Playing it safe isn’t humble.”
Laziness and complacency is on one end of the disordered spectrum, but the other side is ambition for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way.
“If our ambition becomes a roadblock to peace, an inhibitor that robs us of the rest and joy we’re looking for, it’s because we’ve substituted something in place of the end for which we were made.”
“What if you’re wired not to be ‘liked’ but to be loved, and not by many but by One?”
“You don’t have to win, but you also don’t have to quit. You only have to quit performing, quit imagining his love is earned. You can rest, but you don’t have to quit. You just need to change why you play.”
“Resting in the love of God doesn’t squelch ambition; it fuels it with a different fire.”
Friendship.
I thought this chapter was really interesting because of his relating friendship to authenticity. What does it mean to be authentic? What role do our friends play in this?
“…the generic cultural version of authenticity we drink up with our Disney Channel subscriptions: resist the crowd, rise above the masses, be true to yourself, forge your own path. “You do you!” They tell us. Of course, you need to Instagram your trailblazing path to self-discovery so everyone can see, and constantly check your likes to confirm that your authenticity has been validated.”
Then why is everyone so lonely? Loneliness is an epidemic and is killing many people.
“What if authenticity is the source of our loneliness? What if it’s precisely this unquestioned, unrecognized construal of others as threats to my freedom and autonomy that has sequestered us?”
“The problem isn’t other people but what they love, and how they love me.”
Authenticity is “answering a call” to become who we were meant to be. And who knows better what we were meant to be than the One who created us?
“The true friend is the other who hopes you’ll answer the call, who’s willing to challenge you and upset you in order to get you to look at yourself and ask yourself: What am I doing? What do I love? Who am I? The true friend is the other who has the courage to impose a conviction, who paints a substantive picture of the good, who prods and prompts you to change course and chase it—a promise to join you on the way.”
This chapter flows well into the next one on identity and finding a group to belong to that gives us meaning and purpose.
We all want to find our place in the story. This is where authenticity meets identity.
Death.
“Nobody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to die either.”
Smith posits that this is because love is a form of craving and what “haunts” craving is losing. We fear what could be lost. And this is true for me even though I have eternal hope. I still fear losing my kids or losing time together as a family. I fear losing the future in the way I want it.
“How to die is a question of how to live, but how to live is a matter of knowing how to love: how to find a love that isn’t haunted by fear, a love that is stronger than death— figuring out how to love rightly and live lightly with all the mortal beauties of creation without despising or resenting their morality either.”
We cannot treat things on earth as ultimate things.
“To love them as ultimate, to cling to them as what gives meaning, is to stake one’s happiness on realities that are fugitive and fleeting…”
So we can’t love them as ultimate, but that doesn’t mean we steel our hearts against love lest we experience pain. No:
“The solution to loving mortals isn’t to withhold our love in a protective hedge against loss; rather, we can love long and hard, trusting in the God who is all in all, who gathers up our losses in a time beyond time. Even our grieving is suffused with hope because all our loves are caught up in the immortal Beloved who loves us first. All is not lost.”
The hard and sobering reality of this, which I’m not sure where Smith stands on this, is that not all of us have this eternal hope. Those who do not believe and trust in the Lord will not be ‘caught up in the immortal Beloved.’
So the best way we can love our people is to share with them the Good News of God’s grace, hope, and life. We may want to push thoughts of ‘the after’ to the background because we don’t want to think about it. But we must not hide from death. It is a reality we must all be ready for.
“The hope of enduring love, a love stronger than death, is not some natural immortality; it is a life bought by the death of God, the resurrection of the Crucified, which now yields hope as a spoil of victory over the grave.”
Recommendation
This is a bit of an existential read. It’s one to spend time reflecting on.
Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin so philosophical musings are definitely in his wheelhouse. He makes many references to figures like Derrida or Sartre and art renditions of Augustine or his mother that may not do much for the average reader. That’s fine. You don’t have to know philosophy or art to grasp the primary conversation.
Smith also incorporated a lot of pop culture references from shows, movies, or plays. I didn’t particularly like this either. I would rather have had different illustrations or personal stories than reading a scene from something fictional, however relevant. Most of them were not earth-shattering to me. But they weren’t the main focus and can easily be skimmed over.
I had not read anything by Augustine before. This was a good introduction to what his book Confessions is like. It may inspire readers to learn more about his life and his other writings.
This is a pretty universal and useful read. There is a gospel message because there is only one home we were created for that will satisfy our restless hearts and both Augustine and Smith point us there, but I’m not sure if there is any Scripture references or anything like that to alienate those who are not Christians.
This is a book to challenge us in our journeys. To look at the road we are on, to ponder who we are following, to consider where we are going, and to honestly ask ourselves where ‘home’ is.
If we recognize that Jesus is the Way and we walk that way, our journey here doesn’t stop.
“Conversion doesn’t pluck you off the road; it just changes how you travel.”
And so this book is a guidebook on travel. It won’t transport you to some ethereal place with no pain or suffering, but it will help you find a compass, a map, and a personal and powerful guide.
“The one who is the road has given us a map…In Augustine’s experience, the Word was like an enchanted map. It not only told him, “You Are Here” and pointed him toward home; it also gave him legs to run.”
To return to the idea of ‘refugee spirituality,’ this book was a good reminder that I am not yet home, but I know where I am going and my hope is secure.
Smith wraps up his book with a description of a sign he found marking off a section of a church in Europe that read “Please, no tourists. Do not go beyond this point except for confession.”
“You reach a point on the road with Augustine where mere tourism comes to an end. You’re faced with a choice: Do you want to step in there? The next step isn’t arrival. It’s not the end of the road. To make that step won’t solve all your problems or quell every anxiety. But it is the first step of giving yourself away, arriving at the end of yourself and giving yourself over to One who gave his life for you.”
Some other books that explore some of the things he discusses.
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl S. Trueman (this one also speaks about historical philosophers and their influence of how we view the self)
Happiness by Randy Alcorn
You Who?: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It by Rachel Jankovic
When Strivings Cease by Ruth Chou Simons
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“On the road, you’re always already following somebody. The question is: Who are you following and where are they headed?”
It is said “It’s about the journey, not the destination.”
Or perhaps as Miley Cyrus puts it- It’s the climb.
But is it?
Sure the journey is important and teaches us things and refines us, but what if we never arrive anywhere? What if we just feel like we’re constantly on the road, searching, but never feeling home?
“Do we call the road ‘home’ to avoid the pain of never being welcomed?”
Do we convince ourselves it’s better to be traveling than to reach our destination? Is it because we don’t actually know where we’re going?
Is our life the life of Sisyphus, an endless toil to push the stone to the top of the mountain only to watch it roll back down waiting for us to do it again? And do we tell ourselves we prefer it that way, that it’s fulfilling?
Worthwhile questions.
But share this view with an actual migrant, Smith says. “…to those risking their lives today in boats…trying to cross this fabled line to apply for asylum, only to be refused and returned over and over again. Are they to look to Sisyphus as the hero?”
There is something innate in us, that is seeking belonging, a place to call home.
“For Augustine, so much of our restlessness and disappointment is the result of trying to convince ourselves that we’re already home. The alternative is not escapism; it is a refugee spirituality— unsettled yet hopeful, tenuous but searching, eager to find the hometown we’ve never been to.”
James K. A. Smith has written this book because he believes Augustine’s story is all of our stories. Augustine has experienced the restlessness of the road, the pain of failure, the loneliness of achievement. He has asked the questions and ultimately he found his way home.
This is not a biography of Saint Augustine. Smith uses Augustine’s writings (like his Confessions) as a guide for us to traverse through a variety of topics like freedom, ambition, sex, mothers, fathers, friendship, enlightenment, identity, justice, and death.
We encounter questions like- What is freedom? What is authenticity? Why do we fear death? Who are we?
“If you’re weary from the chase, broken by the journey, tired of the disappointment, unsettled by a sense that you’d like to find some rest not in accomplishment but in welcome, then Augustine might be the stranger you could travel with for awhile.”
Whether or not you are a Christian, this book can easily be read by all people. Augustine understands the struggle and though he lived centuries ago, the same fears, frustrations, and pains are relevant today. They are the struggles of the human condition.
But there is hope to leave the road more or less traveled and find rest for your weary soul.
If you travel with Augustine, he can point you home.
My Favorite Chapters
This is the kind of book that covers a lot of topics. Some might resonate more with you than others, depending on your life stage. Maybe it’s a book you come back to often.
There is something to glean from each chapter but there were a few that I liked more than the rest: Freedom, Ambition, Friendship, and Death.
Freedom.
Freedom is the mantra of the masses today. But what is freedom?
So many of the freedoms people think they want today actually end up enslaving and hurting them. Our choices for immediate satisfaction turn into habits which turn into addictions.
Smith says,
“When you’ve been eaten up by your own freedom, and realize the loss of guardrails only meant ending up in the ditch, you start to wonder whether freedom is all it’s cracked up to be— or whether freedom might be something other than the absence of constraint and the multiplication of options.”
I love this. Freedom does not mean ‘no-boundaries’ and ‘endless choices.’
He calls this disordered freedom. And attached to this disordered freedom is the concept of self-sufficiency and independence. But maybe what we really need is someone else.
“Coming to the end of oneself is the way out of disordered freedom. And so the irony: my freedom of choice brings me to the point where I need someone else to give me a will that is actually free. And not merely free to choose— since that’s what got me here in the first place— but free to choose the good.”
Augustine says, “Without you, what am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction?”
This is the entrance of grace. Grace is freedom— “a revolution of the will and wants.”
Ambition.
One of the biggest measures of success in America is achievement and ambition. Our ambition may be placed in our careers or our social media accounts.
What does disordered ambition look like?
“The opposite of ambition is not humility; it is sloth, passivity, timidity, and complacency. We sometimes like to comfort ourselves by imagining that the ambitious are prideful and arrogant so that those of us who never risk, never aspire, never launch out into the deep get to wear the moralizing mantle of humility. But this imagining is of just just thin cover for a lack of courage, even laziness. Playing it safe isn’t humble.”
Laziness and complacency is on one end of the disordered spectrum, but the other side is ambition for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way.
“If our ambition becomes a roadblock to peace, an inhibitor that robs us of the rest and joy we’re looking for, it’s because we’ve substituted something in place of the end for which we were made.”
“What if you’re wired not to be ‘liked’ but to be loved, and not by many but by One?”
“You don’t have to win, but you also don’t have to quit. You only have to quit performing, quit imagining his love is earned. You can rest, but you don’t have to quit. You just need to change why you play.”
“Resting in the love of God doesn’t squelch ambition; it fuels it with a different fire.”
Friendship.
I thought this chapter was really interesting because of his relating friendship to authenticity. What does it mean to be authentic? What role do our friends play in this?
“…the generic cultural version of authenticity we drink up with our Disney Channel subscriptions: resist the crowd, rise above the masses, be true to yourself, forge your own path. “You do you!” They tell us. Of course, you need to Instagram your trailblazing path to self-discovery so everyone can see, and constantly check your likes to confirm that your authenticity has been validated.”
Then why is everyone so lonely? Loneliness is an epidemic and is killing many people.
“What if authenticity is the source of our loneliness? What if it’s precisely this unquestioned, unrecognized construal of others as threats to my freedom and autonomy that has sequestered us?”
“The problem isn’t other people but what they love, and how they love me.”
Authenticity is “answering a call” to become who we were meant to be. And who knows better what we were meant to be than the One who created us?
“The true friend is the other who hopes you’ll answer the call, who’s willing to challenge you and upset you in order to get you to look at yourself and ask yourself: What am I doing? What do I love? Who am I? The true friend is the other who has the courage to impose a conviction, who paints a substantive picture of the good, who prods and prompts you to change course and chase it—a promise to join you on the way.”
This chapter flows well into the next one on identity and finding a group to belong to that gives us meaning and purpose.
We all want to find our place in the story. This is where authenticity meets identity.
Death.
“Nobody wants to live forever, but nobody wants to die either.”
Smith posits that this is because love is a form of craving and what “haunts” craving is losing. We fear what could be lost. And this is true for me even though I have eternal hope. I still fear losing my kids or losing time together as a family. I fear losing the future in the way I want it.
“How to die is a question of how to live, but how to live is a matter of knowing how to love: how to find a love that isn’t haunted by fear, a love that is stronger than death— figuring out how to love rightly and live lightly with all the mortal beauties of creation without despising or resenting their morality either.”
We cannot treat things on earth as ultimate things.
“To love them as ultimate, to cling to them as what gives meaning, is to stake one’s happiness on realities that are fugitive and fleeting…”
So we can’t love them as ultimate, but that doesn’t mean we steel our hearts against love lest we experience pain. No:
“The solution to loving mortals isn’t to withhold our love in a protective hedge against loss; rather, we can love long and hard, trusting in the God who is all in all, who gathers up our losses in a time beyond time. Even our grieving is suffused with hope because all our loves are caught up in the immortal Beloved who loves us first. All is not lost.”
The hard and sobering reality of this, which I’m not sure where Smith stands on this, is that not all of us have this eternal hope. Those who do not believe and trust in the Lord will not be ‘caught up in the immortal Beloved.’
So the best way we can love our people is to share with them the Good News of God’s grace, hope, and life. We may want to push thoughts of ‘the after’ to the background because we don’t want to think about it. But we must not hide from death. It is a reality we must all be ready for.
“The hope of enduring love, a love stronger than death, is not some natural immortality; it is a life bought by the death of God, the resurrection of the Crucified, which now yields hope as a spoil of victory over the grave.”
Recommendation
This is a bit of an existential read. It’s one to spend time reflecting on.
Smith is a professor of philosophy at Calvin so philosophical musings are definitely in his wheelhouse. He makes many references to figures like Derrida or Sartre and art renditions of Augustine or his mother that may not do much for the average reader. That’s fine. You don’t have to know philosophy or art to grasp the primary conversation.
Smith also incorporated a lot of pop culture references from shows, movies, or plays. I didn’t particularly like this either. I would rather have had different illustrations or personal stories than reading a scene from something fictional, however relevant. Most of them were not earth-shattering to me. But they weren’t the main focus and can easily be skimmed over.
I had not read anything by Augustine before. This was a good introduction to what his book Confessions is like. It may inspire readers to learn more about his life and his other writings.
This is a pretty universal and useful read. There is a gospel message because there is only one home we were created for that will satisfy our restless hearts and both Augustine and Smith point us there, but I’m not sure if there is any Scripture references or anything like that to alienate those who are not Christians.
This is a book to challenge us in our journeys. To look at the road we are on, to ponder who we are following, to consider where we are going, and to honestly ask ourselves where ‘home’ is.
If we recognize that Jesus is the Way and we walk that way, our journey here doesn’t stop.
“Conversion doesn’t pluck you off the road; it just changes how you travel.”
And so this book is a guidebook on travel. It won’t transport you to some ethereal place with no pain or suffering, but it will help you find a compass, a map, and a personal and powerful guide.
“The one who is the road has given us a map…In Augustine’s experience, the Word was like an enchanted map. It not only told him, “You Are Here” and pointed him toward home; it also gave him legs to run.”
To return to the idea of ‘refugee spirituality,’ this book was a good reminder that I am not yet home, but I know where I am going and my hope is secure.
Smith wraps up his book with a description of a sign he found marking off a section of a church in Europe that read “Please, no tourists. Do not go beyond this point except for confession.”
“You reach a point on the road with Augustine where mere tourism comes to an end. You’re faced with a choice: Do you want to step in there? The next step isn’t arrival. It’s not the end of the road. To make that step won’t solve all your problems or quell every anxiety. But it is the first step of giving yourself away, arriving at the end of yourself and giving yourself over to One who gave his life for you.”
Some other books that explore some of the things he discusses.
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl S. Trueman (this one also speaks about historical philosophers and their influence of how we view the self)
Happiness by Randy Alcorn
You Who?: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It by Rachel Jankovic
When Strivings Cease by Ruth Chou Simons
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“Christianity . . . , if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” — C.S. Lewis
Why should you believe Christianity?
Maybe you think it’s foolish. Maybe you’ve encountered questions you don’t have answers for and it’s caused you to doubt everything you’ve been told. Maybe you’ve been hurt by someone who was or claimed to be a Christian. Maybe you’re deterred by all religions. Maybe you just really don’t care. Maybe you do believe but you don’t really know why.
I don’t know where you’re at right now, but asking ‘Why Believe?’ is a good place to be. Because there are many reasons to believe and if you’re willing to ask the question, I firmly believe God will show up for you.
Like the quote above states, if Christianity is false, you have nothing to lose, but if Christianity is true, then this is a matter of life and death, as dramatic as it sounds, that is what is ultimately at stake. And either way, you have a choice to make.
This is a really good book for those who question the truthfulness or goodness of Christianity or outright object to it. It’s also for people who are Christians but are finding themselves wondering if it makes sense anymore.
Neil Shenvi (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) has worked as a research scientist at Yale University and Duke University and has published over thirty peer-reviewed papers. I’ve seen him quoted in a lot of books I’ve read and have since wanted to read something he has written. (You can check out his website HERE.)
He came to faith during his years of higher education. He says of that time:
“I had always assumed that Christianity could not possibly be accepted by thoughtful, intelligent people, at least not by people as thoughtful and intelligent as me. Surely, Christianity was for well-meaning and sometimes not-so-well-meaning people with substandard educations and a streak of intellectual fear bordering on dishonesty.”
He had his own journey through asking hard questions, researching, and figuring out how Christianity can stand up to rigorous scrutiny. This book comes from that process as a way to show that to be a Christian is not to be irrational.
He addresses all the most common topics, questions, and objections, framing both sides of the arguments in a fair and balanced way. He is quick to acknowledge where arguments are taken too far or when we come to a place of mystery.
His writing style and use of logic, tables, and analogies make this a very understandable apologetics book and will be one of my top recommendations now for that topic. It can be read straight through or used as a reference, just reading the chapters that talk about particular questions you may have.
[It’s similar to Tim Keller’s The Reason for God or Rebecca McLaughlin’s < ahref="http://www.shelfreflection.com/confrontingchristianity">Confronting Christianity.]
Some of the questions he addresses are:
- Isn’t it better for humanity to avoid conflict about religious truth claims in order to keep the peace?
- Are all religions true?
- What’s the deal with Jesus?
- He presents C.S. Lewis’s famous trilemma— Lunatic, Liar, or Lord— and consequently talks about if the Bible is historically reliable. (The book Taking God at His Word or Surviving Religion 101 talks specifically about why we can believe the Bible is true, reliable, and inerrant.)
- He provides corroborating evidence from non-Christian authors, geography, and archaeology, and addresses several objections to this trilemma.
- There is a large section that discusses the resurrection.
- Does God exist?
- Here is discussion on mathematics, language, and the origins of life/the universe.
- What is the god-of-the gaps approach?
- I recently read Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t that’s a bit more academic but has a large portion dedicated to the origins of the universe, and how things like math, art, and music point us to a Creator.
- Is there objective moral truth?
- He challenges that even those who claim to be moral relativists don’t actually live like they are when it comes down to it.
- Is truth good? Why should we seek it?
- Why would a good God allow evil?
- What’s the deal with evolution?
- I recently read A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution that would be a great addition to this section.
- Why wouldn’t God just forgive everybody?
- Are all people morally corrupt?
- How does Christianity compare to other religions?
- Isn’t Christianity just a religion for hateful bigots?
It is a very comprehensive book that covers a lot of material, but what I found most important was his presentation of the gospel.
It’s said, ‘If you can think your way into Christianity, you can think yourself out of it.’
Although it’s important and helpful to show evidence for the reasonableness and truthfulness of Christianity, salvation is not a matter of intellectual change but of heart change.
What Shenvi reminds us of is that the biggest obstacle we have to overcome to put our faith in Christ is not whether we believe God exists, whether Jesus rose from the dead, or why evil pervades the world. The biggest hurdle for us is our sin.
He details the depravity of humanity over all of time and we can’t ignore that humanity’s capacity for evil is staggering. He argues (and I can attest to it from personal experience) that we know it’s innate in us when we see how children behave. We don’t have to teach them to hit, bite, steal, and be selfish. It comes naturally. We don’t want to admit it, but the only thing keeping us from being the worst of the worst, is God’s grace. That’s a humbling thought.
“Each of us needs to come to terms with his or her own corruption and moral failure.”
And we don’t want to do that. We’re perfectly fine with comparing ourselves to ‘actual’ bad people and claiming moral high ground. We’re pretty decent people… after all, we’ve never killed anyone.
But that’s not true self-reflection. Shenvi provides a pretty convicting exercise. Would you be willing to have your thoughts broadcast to the public for a day, all your urges, desires, emotions, and judgments? No? Hm… our thoughts exhibit a good deal of our sinfulness don’t they?
“Communist regimes meant to bring equality and dignity to the poor collapsed into totalitarianism, poverty, and corruption. The attainment of money and fame has led celebrity after celebrity into isolation, despair, and even suicide. The material prosperity of the American dream has done nothing to fill our inner emptiness, so we numb ourselves with alcohol, drugs, sex, and entertainment to hide from reality. When we take an honest look at our own hearts, the misery we have inflicted on ourselves and others, and the state of our world, the Christian explanation becomes not only plausible but unavoidable: something is deeply, radically wrong with us.”
What was monumental for Shenvi coming to faith was the realization that Christianity uniquely explained the condition he found himself in when no other religion did.
“the gospel presents us with two truths all of us must face as human beings: that we are all moral failures and that we all need a Savior. Of all the major world religions, only Christianity insists that we are radically morally corrupt people who are consequently alienated from a perfectly good God. And only Christianity insists that what we primarily need is not moral improvement but rescue. If these claims about the human condition turn out to be true, then they are compelling evidence for the truth of Christianity, which is unique in its assessment of the human condition.”
It is telling that only Christianity tells us we can’t fix ourselves. And we don’t really like that. We like to have control of our lives. We want to see the what it will take to get what we want and be able to check off all the boxes. We strive for self-sufficiency.
But what we view as ‘freedom’ and ‘achievement’ in self-sufficiency is actually bondage to a path of destruction. We will never be enough on our own. We need a Rescuer.
“We are all sin addicts… Moral debits and credits are irrelevant to our condition because all the credit in the world can’t cleanse our hearts… In the same way, we certainly need forgiveness, but we need more than just forgiveness. We also need transformation. We need someone to rescue us out of bondage, to break our chains, and to lead us into freedom…
When we realize that our sin is poisoning us, poisoning our relationship to others, and poisoning our relationship to God, we don’t merely want it forgiven; we want it healed… Jesus offers us a redemption that not only saves us from wrath but also restores us.”
That is the gospel message. We are sinful. We need a Savior. Jesus came and lived the perfect life we never could, died the death our sins deserved, and defeated death, the consequence for our sins. We now have the opportunity to be saved and redeemed. A free gift to anyone who comes to Christ. Not because we do enough or are good enough, but because he loves us and wants us to worship him.
“On the one hand, Christianity has what is perhaps the most radically pessimistic view of humanity of any religion or worldview… On the other hand, Christianity has a radically optimistic view of God’s grace. Although we are all equally fallen, we are all equally redeemable.”
And that is why people become Christians. The apologetics matter, but the gospel is what speaks to the depths of our hearts. It speaks to our inner struggles and longings in a way that nothing else does.
[I would like to take a quick moment to commend Shenvi for using the ‘on the one hand… on the other hand’ literary device appropriately. Eighth grade English in real life!]
I recommend this book to everyone.
It speaks to really important questions and does a great job of defending the faith.
But know that just reading this book will not magically transform your life unless you are truly willing to recognize your sin and your need of a Savior.
God is not out to change minds, he is out to change hearts.
Shenvi answers the question ‘Why Believe?’ but only you can make the decision whether or not you will.
This is a good book to open your mind to things you may have held staunch opinions (or no opinions) on before, but the book that will radically change your life is the actual Bible. It is God’s words and if you seek him, you will find him.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Further Reading:
I’ve read several books on apologetics, some more academic than others, some focused on certain topics. Click HERE for the link on my original blog post to all my other reviews for apologetics books.
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Why should you believe Christianity?
Maybe you think it’s foolish. Maybe you’ve encountered questions you don’t have answers for and it’s caused you to doubt everything you’ve been told. Maybe you’ve been hurt by someone who was or claimed to be a Christian. Maybe you’re deterred by all religions. Maybe you just really don’t care. Maybe you do believe but you don’t really know why.
I don’t know where you’re at right now, but asking ‘Why Believe?’ is a good place to be. Because there are many reasons to believe and if you’re willing to ask the question, I firmly believe God will show up for you.
Like the quote above states, if Christianity is false, you have nothing to lose, but if Christianity is true, then this is a matter of life and death, as dramatic as it sounds, that is what is ultimately at stake. And either way, you have a choice to make.
This is a really good book for those who question the truthfulness or goodness of Christianity or outright object to it. It’s also for people who are Christians but are finding themselves wondering if it makes sense anymore.
Neil Shenvi (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) has worked as a research scientist at Yale University and Duke University and has published over thirty peer-reviewed papers. I’ve seen him quoted in a lot of books I’ve read and have since wanted to read something he has written. (You can check out his website HERE.)
He came to faith during his years of higher education. He says of that time:
“I had always assumed that Christianity could not possibly be accepted by thoughtful, intelligent people, at least not by people as thoughtful and intelligent as me. Surely, Christianity was for well-meaning and sometimes not-so-well-meaning people with substandard educations and a streak of intellectual fear bordering on dishonesty.”
He had his own journey through asking hard questions, researching, and figuring out how Christianity can stand up to rigorous scrutiny. This book comes from that process as a way to show that to be a Christian is not to be irrational.
He addresses all the most common topics, questions, and objections, framing both sides of the arguments in a fair and balanced way. He is quick to acknowledge where arguments are taken too far or when we come to a place of mystery.
His writing style and use of logic, tables, and analogies make this a very understandable apologetics book and will be one of my top recommendations now for that topic. It can be read straight through or used as a reference, just reading the chapters that talk about particular questions you may have.
[It’s similar to Tim Keller’s The Reason for God or Rebecca McLaughlin’s < ahref="http://www.shelfreflection.com/confrontingchristianity">Confronting Christianity.]
Some of the questions he addresses are:
- Isn’t it better for humanity to avoid conflict about religious truth claims in order to keep the peace?
- Are all religions true?
- What’s the deal with Jesus?
- He presents C.S. Lewis’s famous trilemma— Lunatic, Liar, or Lord— and consequently talks about if the Bible is historically reliable. (The book Taking God at His Word or Surviving Religion 101 talks specifically about why we can believe the Bible is true, reliable, and inerrant.)
- He provides corroborating evidence from non-Christian authors, geography, and archaeology, and addresses several objections to this trilemma.
- There is a large section that discusses the resurrection.
- Does God exist?
- Here is discussion on mathematics, language, and the origins of life/the universe.
- What is the god-of-the gaps approach?
- I recently read Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t that’s a bit more academic but has a large portion dedicated to the origins of the universe, and how things like math, art, and music point us to a Creator.
- Is there objective moral truth?
- He challenges that even those who claim to be moral relativists don’t actually live like they are when it comes down to it.
- Is truth good? Why should we seek it?
- Why would a good God allow evil?
- What’s the deal with evolution?
- I recently read A Biblical Case Against Theistic Evolution that would be a great addition to this section.
- Why wouldn’t God just forgive everybody?
- Are all people morally corrupt?
- How does Christianity compare to other religions?
- Isn’t Christianity just a religion for hateful bigots?
It is a very comprehensive book that covers a lot of material, but what I found most important was his presentation of the gospel.
It’s said, ‘If you can think your way into Christianity, you can think yourself out of it.’
Although it’s important and helpful to show evidence for the reasonableness and truthfulness of Christianity, salvation is not a matter of intellectual change but of heart change.
What Shenvi reminds us of is that the biggest obstacle we have to overcome to put our faith in Christ is not whether we believe God exists, whether Jesus rose from the dead, or why evil pervades the world. The biggest hurdle for us is our sin.
He details the depravity of humanity over all of time and we can’t ignore that humanity’s capacity for evil is staggering. He argues (and I can attest to it from personal experience) that we know it’s innate in us when we see how children behave. We don’t have to teach them to hit, bite, steal, and be selfish. It comes naturally. We don’t want to admit it, but the only thing keeping us from being the worst of the worst, is God’s grace. That’s a humbling thought.
“Each of us needs to come to terms with his or her own corruption and moral failure.”
And we don’t want to do that. We’re perfectly fine with comparing ourselves to ‘actual’ bad people and claiming moral high ground. We’re pretty decent people… after all, we’ve never killed anyone.
But that’s not true self-reflection. Shenvi provides a pretty convicting exercise. Would you be willing to have your thoughts broadcast to the public for a day, all your urges, desires, emotions, and judgments? No? Hm… our thoughts exhibit a good deal of our sinfulness don’t they?
“Communist regimes meant to bring equality and dignity to the poor collapsed into totalitarianism, poverty, and corruption. The attainment of money and fame has led celebrity after celebrity into isolation, despair, and even suicide. The material prosperity of the American dream has done nothing to fill our inner emptiness, so we numb ourselves with alcohol, drugs, sex, and entertainment to hide from reality. When we take an honest look at our own hearts, the misery we have inflicted on ourselves and others, and the state of our world, the Christian explanation becomes not only plausible but unavoidable: something is deeply, radically wrong with us.”
What was monumental for Shenvi coming to faith was the realization that Christianity uniquely explained the condition he found himself in when no other religion did.
“the gospel presents us with two truths all of us must face as human beings: that we are all moral failures and that we all need a Savior. Of all the major world religions, only Christianity insists that we are radically morally corrupt people who are consequently alienated from a perfectly good God. And only Christianity insists that what we primarily need is not moral improvement but rescue. If these claims about the human condition turn out to be true, then they are compelling evidence for the truth of Christianity, which is unique in its assessment of the human condition.”
It is telling that only Christianity tells us we can’t fix ourselves. And we don’t really like that. We like to have control of our lives. We want to see the what it will take to get what we want and be able to check off all the boxes. We strive for self-sufficiency.
But what we view as ‘freedom’ and ‘achievement’ in self-sufficiency is actually bondage to a path of destruction. We will never be enough on our own. We need a Rescuer.
“We are all sin addicts… Moral debits and credits are irrelevant to our condition because all the credit in the world can’t cleanse our hearts… In the same way, we certainly need forgiveness, but we need more than just forgiveness. We also need transformation. We need someone to rescue us out of bondage, to break our chains, and to lead us into freedom…
When we realize that our sin is poisoning us, poisoning our relationship to others, and poisoning our relationship to God, we don’t merely want it forgiven; we want it healed… Jesus offers us a redemption that not only saves us from wrath but also restores us.”
That is the gospel message. We are sinful. We need a Savior. Jesus came and lived the perfect life we never could, died the death our sins deserved, and defeated death, the consequence for our sins. We now have the opportunity to be saved and redeemed. A free gift to anyone who comes to Christ. Not because we do enough or are good enough, but because he loves us and wants us to worship him.
“On the one hand, Christianity has what is perhaps the most radically pessimistic view of humanity of any religion or worldview… On the other hand, Christianity has a radically optimistic view of God’s grace. Although we are all equally fallen, we are all equally redeemable.”
And that is why people become Christians. The apologetics matter, but the gospel is what speaks to the depths of our hearts. It speaks to our inner struggles and longings in a way that nothing else does.
[I would like to take a quick moment to commend Shenvi for using the ‘on the one hand… on the other hand’ literary device appropriately. Eighth grade English in real life!]
I recommend this book to everyone.
It speaks to really important questions and does a great job of defending the faith.
But know that just reading this book will not magically transform your life unless you are truly willing to recognize your sin and your need of a Savior.
God is not out to change minds, he is out to change hearts.
Shenvi answers the question ‘Why Believe?’ but only you can make the decision whether or not you will.
This is a good book to open your mind to things you may have held staunch opinions (or no opinions) on before, but the book that will radically change your life is the actual Bible. It is God’s words and if you seek him, you will find him.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Further Reading:
I’ve read several books on apologetics, some more academic than others, some focused on certain topics. Click HERE for the link on my original blog post to all my other reviews for apologetics books.
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“I became more than just a comic book character— I became a part of an idea that everyone deserves to see themselves as superheroes, as the leads of their own stories.”
“This book tells the story of an immigrant dream that is shared by tens of millions of families… who continue to fight every day for their happy ending."
I needed a book written by or about immigrants for my local library’s reading challenge. When I saw Simu Liu wrote a book, I knew I was going to read it. And I would recommend.
Every superhero has an origin story, right?
Simu Liu is Marvel’s Shang-Chi, kung-fu master.
Liu was also in a lesser known Canadian show called Kim’s Convenience (which is on Netflix and should definitely be watched).
This book is the story of how he went from living with his grandparents in China to finding himself in arguably the largest cinematic universe in existence.
I didn’t know his parents were immigrants. It was really interesting to hear about his upbringing and how he got to where he is today.
To be honest, I was hoping for a bit more information and behind the scenes tales of the aforementioned movie/show but unfortunately there wasn’t a place for that.
He begins his story by giving the background of his parents’ upbringing and education in China and their early life together. At this point I’m not really surprised by the things China’s government does to its people, but it’s hard to hear nonetheless.
I was surprised however, by Liu’s comment about Mao Zedong:
“While Mao Zedong’s portrayal in the West is oftentimes that of an unsympathetic dictator, he continues to be revered in China as a great (if flawed) leader who uplifted a nation and brought its people to global prominence.”
This is quite the sentence. Oftentimes? Unsympathetic dictator? Flawed? I would say the majority of the time he’s portrayed as a cruel and evil dictator who was very morally flawed.
Wikipedia informs:
"The government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labor, and mass executions.”
He was responsible for more deaths than Hitler or Stalin.
Is he publicly revered in China? Yes. When I was in Beijing I saw for myself the long lines for his mausoleum. Is he privately revered? I don’t know. Maybe. But I would guess there are repercussions for anyone speaking out against him or any other leader of China. Sure he helped China become a superpower, but at what cost?
Can we really talk about Mao with a mere disclaimer of ‘he had his faults’? Seems a bit minimizing to me, Simu Liu, but whatevs.
I will say, though, to Simu’s point, that people often view the people of China in light of their leaders, which is unfair. I don’t like China’s government, past or present, but that doesn’t mean their people are all representative of what their government stands for. That’s not how it works in the US either.
That’s part of what went wrong with the Covid virus. People taking out the failures of China’s government and certain institutions out on anyone who was Chinese as if they were responsible for it.
Anyway. Moving on.
This memoir is basically two part: the volatile relationship he had with his parents and the struggles he had as an Asian American.
As to the parental animosity— his parents left him in China to live with grandparents when he was just a baby so they could get jobs in Canada and prepare to bring him over to them. But this immediately created a rift because although they were his parents, he didn’t know them as such for his early years.
Add to that their extreme pressure on him to achieve at the things they wanted him to. Their control and discipline exacerbated the rift.
“I was a walking poster child for model-minority Asian excellence.”
He says this of his mom:
“My mother was, by her own admission, 90 percent good and 10 percent bad. What happened in that 10 percent, though, would leave deep emotional scars that couldn’t be reconciled by the other 90.”
The animosity continued into his adulthood, especially when he got fired from his first accounting job and expressed interest in wanting to act instead of doing a ‘boring office job.’
He indicates that he is in a better place with his parents now, but he didn’t really detail that process for us. Which I found to be a little weird. He spent so much time telling us about all the bad things but then doesn’t bother to tell us when things get better? It doesn’t leave the reader with a good feeling about his parents because most of what we’ve heard up to the end was pretty negative.
"From the rubble of my parents’ broken dream, a new one would be built- one that was not fueled by their definition of success, but by mine.”
This book was an easy read. Turns out Liu’s character Jung, on Kim’s Convenience, is pretty on par with his actual person: doing the bare minimum to get by at work but being a smooth talker, love of the NBA, girls, and video games, estranged from parents. His voice in his writing is very similar too.
I loved all the 90s references. *NSYNC, Nokia phones with snake on them, Full House, etc. He was speaking my language.
I also found his transparency entertaining. I mean not many people admit in writing that they pooped their pants.
Although he’s currently a superhero (which was actually a childhood dream of his) and can krump (this can be a verb right?) with the best of them, he has his nerdy side. He is a numbers guy, has Star Wars memorized, is a Griffyndor, and made his own boy band (LX4) which he acknowledges he took way too seriously.
[Sidenote A: he even wrote his own short film called Crimson Defender vs The Slightly Racist Family in which he played a superhero called the Crimson Defender.]
[Sidenote B: He revealed that J.K. Rowling named her only Chinese character, Cho Chang, which is two last names… in Korean. Whoops!]
[Sidenote C: Because I don’t know where else to put this— this book is somewhat reminiscent of Jenna Fischer’s book The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide because of his tidbits on all the things he tried to get on screen that’s somewhat of a guidebook]
One last thing I found entertaining. He tried to be an accountant but realized it was not for him. He is the opposite personality of the stereotypical accountant.
All three of my siblings are accountants and I was the ‘artist’ of the family. So I felt it deep in my soul when he made fun of his coworker for bragging:
“I’ve tracked every fifteen minutes of my life over the last six years.”
I’m with Simu on this one. I like a good spreadsheet, but there are limits to the excitement this should bring.
My brother is the spreadsheet king and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the coworker Simu was talking about. He even asks his wife for receipts after grabbing a snack at the gas station. Accountants are so fun. (Love you, siblings! But I’m guessing none of you will read this review because it’s not billable and you have spreadsheets to attend to. Okay, I’m done.)
As to his struggle as an Asian American, I found it really interesting to hear his story and the pressures he felt.
He was life of the party. Though partly because, as an Asian American, he was trying to find his place. He often did not feel like he belonged or was accepted. I think that’s natural. Anyone who goes to a new place where they are the minority of any trait, characteristic, or personality, will feel out of place.
As humans, a sense of belonging is a core need. It’s sad when people are excluded because they are different.
However, it did turn me off a bit when he started saying things like:
“Every time I scrolled through my phone, I’d see countless instances of Asian people being pushed to the ground, or punched, or stabbed, or shot.”
He also commented about an all Asian cast on a particular show and appreciating that they cared about diversity. (I tried to find the actual quote but didn’t with the time I had) I’d have to check the definition of diverse, but I believe a diverse cast would have a variety of races.
I care to hear people’s personal stories, but towards the end he started sounding a lot like a megaphone for the media and it became too politically driven. There is definitely a history of racism against Chinese immigrants in America and racism during the Covid pandemic because of the virus’ origins.
But it stopped being about his experiences and started being a billboard for universal Asian hate, something he acknowledges he is passionate about bringing awareness to. I guess I can’t fault him for talking about his passions, but I do feel the general conversations surrounding race have been hijacked at times and often seem to make divisions greater rather than unifying.
America has its faults (like Mao… right?) and areas for improvement, but is there a better country to live in? Is there a better place to achieve your dreams? Simu Liu shows us that even as an immigrant with obstacles to overcome, America provided a place to pursue his dreams, let alone achieve them. Something China is not known to do.
We can do better, sure, but it’s too often minimized how great of a country we actually live in. Is there anywhere more diverse? Anywhere with greater freedoms? That's why there are so many immigrants! It's a good place to come.
Anyway, that’s not a very big portion of the book and I would definitely still recommend it. It was just a small piece of his writing that bugged me because of the cultural context and message I hear allll the time.
Final comments:
It was an easy, funny, and entertaining read and you should read it. (And then watch his show)
There’s just something about these celebrity memoirs that draws me in. What is so fascinating to us about celebrities? I think we all are intrigued to see how people become famous. Every story is different.
That’s what I love about memoirs. We get a peek into someone else’s life that is so different than our own.
There were, however, with this book, a couple missing pieces I already mentioned.
I guess he’s just going to have to write another book to give us the goods on Kim’s Convenience and Shang-Chi!
Okay see you.
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“This book tells the story of an immigrant dream that is shared by tens of millions of families… who continue to fight every day for their happy ending."
I needed a book written by or about immigrants for my local library’s reading challenge. When I saw Simu Liu wrote a book, I knew I was going to read it. And I would recommend.
Every superhero has an origin story, right?
Simu Liu is Marvel’s Shang-Chi, kung-fu master.
Liu was also in a lesser known Canadian show called Kim’s Convenience (which is on Netflix and should definitely be watched).
This book is the story of how he went from living with his grandparents in China to finding himself in arguably the largest cinematic universe in existence.
I didn’t know his parents were immigrants. It was really interesting to hear about his upbringing and how he got to where he is today.
To be honest, I was hoping for a bit more information and behind the scenes tales of the aforementioned movie/show but unfortunately there wasn’t a place for that.
He begins his story by giving the background of his parents’ upbringing and education in China and their early life together. At this point I’m not really surprised by the things China’s government does to its people, but it’s hard to hear nonetheless.
I was surprised however, by Liu’s comment about Mao Zedong:
“While Mao Zedong’s portrayal in the West is oftentimes that of an unsympathetic dictator, he continues to be revered in China as a great (if flawed) leader who uplifted a nation and brought its people to global prominence.”
This is quite the sentence. Oftentimes? Unsympathetic dictator? Flawed? I would say the majority of the time he’s portrayed as a cruel and evil dictator who was very morally flawed.
Wikipedia informs:
"The government was responsible for vast numbers of deaths with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labor, and mass executions.”
He was responsible for more deaths than Hitler or Stalin.
Is he publicly revered in China? Yes. When I was in Beijing I saw for myself the long lines for his mausoleum. Is he privately revered? I don’t know. Maybe. But I would guess there are repercussions for anyone speaking out against him or any other leader of China. Sure he helped China become a superpower, but at what cost?
Can we really talk about Mao with a mere disclaimer of ‘he had his faults’? Seems a bit minimizing to me, Simu Liu, but whatevs.
I will say, though, to Simu’s point, that people often view the people of China in light of their leaders, which is unfair. I don’t like China’s government, past or present, but that doesn’t mean their people are all representative of what their government stands for. That’s not how it works in the US either.
That’s part of what went wrong with the Covid virus. People taking out the failures of China’s government and certain institutions out on anyone who was Chinese as if they were responsible for it.
Anyway. Moving on.
This memoir is basically two part: the volatile relationship he had with his parents and the struggles he had as an Asian American.
As to the parental animosity— his parents left him in China to live with grandparents when he was just a baby so they could get jobs in Canada and prepare to bring him over to them. But this immediately created a rift because although they were his parents, he didn’t know them as such for his early years.
Add to that their extreme pressure on him to achieve at the things they wanted him to. Their control and discipline exacerbated the rift.
“I was a walking poster child for model-minority Asian excellence.”
He says this of his mom:
“My mother was, by her own admission, 90 percent good and 10 percent bad. What happened in that 10 percent, though, would leave deep emotional scars that couldn’t be reconciled by the other 90.”
The animosity continued into his adulthood, especially when he got fired from his first accounting job and expressed interest in wanting to act instead of doing a ‘boring office job.’
He indicates that he is in a better place with his parents now, but he didn’t really detail that process for us. Which I found to be a little weird. He spent so much time telling us about all the bad things but then doesn’t bother to tell us when things get better? It doesn’t leave the reader with a good feeling about his parents because most of what we’ve heard up to the end was pretty negative.
"From the rubble of my parents’ broken dream, a new one would be built- one that was not fueled by their definition of success, but by mine.”
This book was an easy read. Turns out Liu’s character Jung, on Kim’s Convenience, is pretty on par with his actual person: doing the bare minimum to get by at work but being a smooth talker, love of the NBA, girls, and video games, estranged from parents. His voice in his writing is very similar too.
I loved all the 90s references. *NSYNC, Nokia phones with snake on them, Full House, etc. He was speaking my language.
I also found his transparency entertaining. I mean not many people admit in writing that they pooped their pants.
Although he’s currently a superhero (which was actually a childhood dream of his) and can krump (this can be a verb right?) with the best of them, he has his nerdy side. He is a numbers guy, has Star Wars memorized, is a Griffyndor, and made his own boy band (LX4) which he acknowledges he took way too seriously.
[Sidenote A: he even wrote his own short film called Crimson Defender vs The Slightly Racist Family in which he played a superhero called the Crimson Defender.]
[Sidenote B: He revealed that J.K. Rowling named her only Chinese character, Cho Chang, which is two last names… in Korean. Whoops!]
[Sidenote C: Because I don’t know where else to put this— this book is somewhat reminiscent of Jenna Fischer’s book The Actor’s Life: A Survival Guide because of his tidbits on all the things he tried to get on screen that’s somewhat of a guidebook]
One last thing I found entertaining. He tried to be an accountant but realized it was not for him. He is the opposite personality of the stereotypical accountant.
All three of my siblings are accountants and I was the ‘artist’ of the family. So I felt it deep in my soul when he made fun of his coworker for bragging:
“I’ve tracked every fifteen minutes of my life over the last six years.”
I’m with Simu on this one. I like a good spreadsheet, but there are limits to the excitement this should bring.
My brother is the spreadsheet king and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the coworker Simu was talking about. He even asks his wife for receipts after grabbing a snack at the gas station. Accountants are so fun. (Love you, siblings! But I’m guessing none of you will read this review because it’s not billable and you have spreadsheets to attend to. Okay, I’m done.)
As to his struggle as an Asian American, I found it really interesting to hear his story and the pressures he felt.
He was life of the party. Though partly because, as an Asian American, he was trying to find his place. He often did not feel like he belonged or was accepted. I think that’s natural. Anyone who goes to a new place where they are the minority of any trait, characteristic, or personality, will feel out of place.
As humans, a sense of belonging is a core need. It’s sad when people are excluded because they are different.
However, it did turn me off a bit when he started saying things like:
“Every time I scrolled through my phone, I’d see countless instances of Asian people being pushed to the ground, or punched, or stabbed, or shot.”
He also commented about an all Asian cast on a particular show and appreciating that they cared about diversity. (I tried to find the actual quote but didn’t with the time I had) I’d have to check the definition of diverse, but I believe a diverse cast would have a variety of races.
I care to hear people’s personal stories, but towards the end he started sounding a lot like a megaphone for the media and it became too politically driven. There is definitely a history of racism against Chinese immigrants in America and racism during the Covid pandemic because of the virus’ origins.
But it stopped being about his experiences and started being a billboard for universal Asian hate, something he acknowledges he is passionate about bringing awareness to. I guess I can’t fault him for talking about his passions, but I do feel the general conversations surrounding race have been hijacked at times and often seem to make divisions greater rather than unifying.
America has its faults (like Mao… right?) and areas for improvement, but is there a better country to live in? Is there a better place to achieve your dreams? Simu Liu shows us that even as an immigrant with obstacles to overcome, America provided a place to pursue his dreams, let alone achieve them. Something China is not known to do.
We can do better, sure, but it’s too often minimized how great of a country we actually live in. Is there anywhere more diverse? Anywhere with greater freedoms? That's why there are so many immigrants! It's a good place to come.
Anyway, that’s not a very big portion of the book and I would definitely still recommend it. It was just a small piece of his writing that bugged me because of the cultural context and message I hear allll the time.
Final comments:
It was an easy, funny, and entertaining read and you should read it. (And then watch his show)
There’s just something about these celebrity memoirs that draws me in. What is so fascinating to us about celebrities? I think we all are intrigued to see how people become famous. Every story is different.
That’s what I love about memoirs. We get a peek into someone else’s life that is so different than our own.
There were, however, with this book, a couple missing pieces I already mentioned.
I guess he’s just going to have to write another book to give us the goods on Kim’s Convenience and Shang-Chi!
Okay see you.
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“Life is all around you. The more you know about it, the more you can shape it to your will. Pick your target, learn everything you can about it, and then go in for the kill.”
“That’s the thing about obedience. it feels safe. But it’s only safe it the person has your best interest at heart.”
I’ve read four of McKenzie’s books now. They do have some language (this one had 29 f-words and 18 s-words), but I keep reading them when they come out so she must be doing something right.
This one had good suspense and I liked that the main character was smart.
There are some #MeToo and anti-patriarchy elements in this book so if you don’t like that, you might want to skip this one.
Brief Summary
Nicole is partner in a law firm and has just received a warning that if she doesn’t bill more hours she may lose her partnership.
It was perfect timing, then, to receive an exclusive invite to a special retreat in Colorado for corporate women who are tired of having to work so much harder to get the pay, promotions, and recognition that men seem to get so easily. This was a networking club to help put women in prominent places.
“Women helping women succeed the way men have for centuries.”
Nicole adds the super cheap cost of $5000 to her work expense report, ignores her husband’s suspicions that it’s a cult and joins this retreat. No internet. No phone. Just a harmless networking event with polar plunges, long hikes in the middle of nowhere, and promises to stay loyal to the group and help each other whenever someone asks.
Also, don’t ask questions.
“To be like men in the world. Not to question how or why we get things, because they never do.”
These women actually are in top tier jobs and have a lot of connections. What could be wrong with this?
Nicole soon finds out when she does the group a favor and takes on a court case they’re (all) involved with. The questions keep accumulating and when she’s forced to help dispose of a body, she wants out.
But that might be harder than she thinks…
The Panthera Leo
The group is called Panthera Leo and its symbol is the female lion:
“The female lion. Because she’s the one that gets things done in the pride. Without women, the men wouldn’t eat, they wouldn’t have the ‘lion’s share’ to take. That’s true for humankind too, but often unacknowledged, even today. ‘The woman behind the man,’ sure. But she’s supposed to be nice and polite. She’s not supposed to be primal. Gentle, not vicious. Only men are allowed those attributes.”
The nationwide group is broken into smaller prides of 5 women. The prides don’t interact with each other.
They are told really harmless sounding things like:
“Influence is everything.”
“You should trust your pride. Instincts can lead us astray.”
“focus more on yourself, to find the things that can make you happy.”
“Sticking together is what protects you. Don’t get separated from the Pride because otherwise, you might end up with your neck snapped.”
I was expecting the more common type of cult in this book but this was a corporate cult. You weren’t entirely cut off from your loved ones, but there was a certain type of hold on these women that trapped them in this group.
I thought this deviation was very compelling.
It’s kind of an interesting thing to think about if you’re a conspiracy theorist. It’s easy to speculate that people in top positions owe others some favors or had some help getting there. What if all these people are part of some sort of corporate cult?!
Honestly, it probably wouldn’t take much to convince me of that these days. I think I’m becoming more susceptible to conspiracy theories. Please don’t take advantage of me.
The Patriarchy
It does seem like a lot of books written in the last couple years with strong female leads go down the road of anti-men, the patriarchy, blah blah. I’m not a believer of that. And some books go too far and I find them nauseating to read. (Ahem, Two Nights in Lisbon)
I’m just going to throw this in because asking questions is a good thing. If everything is the patriarchy, do the stats actually reflect that when considering equal things?
Thomas Sowell, in his book Discrimination and Disparities, reveals that, for example, when looking at salaries of faculty members at universities:
“Male faculty members in general had higher incomes than female faculty members in general. But among similarly qualified faculty, women who never married earned higher incomes than men who never married.”
Just because we may see less women than men as CEOs does not mean there is discrimination or inequality. Equal outcomes is not the measure of equality. A lot of women do get married and prefer to work less hours. When we compare the right things we find out that maybe there isn’t actually inequality at all.
This is not to discredit all of the #MeToo power/control instances where men took advantage of women as a prerequisite to work-related things. That is a for sure a problem and for sure needs to stop.
I’m merely proposing that the whole ‘patriarchy’ thing may be a bit blown out of proportion.
Also, it is not lost on me how women who promote the patriarchy-cause often seem to promote that women need to be more like men. I don’t know what they mean by that, but it’s a little insulting to women if, in order for women to be ‘better’ we have to be ‘more like men.’
Shouldn’t we be proud to be women? Men and women ARE different. They look different, they’re built different, they think different, they process different. Ask any neurologist. But different does not mean superior to either gender.
I get that there are conversations to be had about gender differences and what is right and wrong, but I’m just tired of the world constantly telling me I’m generally disadvantaged because I’m a woman and I need to try to be like men, but not just like men, superior to men.
In Please Join Us, the Panthera Leo leaders make some strong statements:
“Putting men in charge of women’s companies is one of our specialties. Diversity this and diversity that and sensitivity training and you know what’s changed? Exactly nothing, that’s what. If you have a vagina then you’re handicapped. God forbid if you have a kid or show an emotion at work.”
“That’s part of what we’re about. Creating an environment where you don’t have to think like a woman. You don’t have to query why you got something or whether you deserve it. You can just be a man about it.”
I don’t necessarily think McKenzie wrote Nicole as someone who would go that far. After all, she is married to a man whom she loves and respects. They are both intelligent lawyers, who, though they had their struggles, remain committed to each other and respect each other’s voice and work.
I like that Nicole likes to ask questions. She is regularly scolded by the Pride for asking questions but she is not cowed by them. She is smart enough to recognize when something is off and secure enough to protest.
Here’s one of her wisdoms when the group is promoting changing their lives:
“I think that sometimes people change just for change’s sake. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s easy to think that the grass is greener on the other side, but it isn’t always better, just different.”
Conclusion
If the swearing isn’t too much for you, I would recommend this book. I think I liked it better than a couple of her other ones. I talked a lot about the patriarchy stuff, but I didn’t feel like the entire book was a megaphone for modern feminists. It was largely relegated to the Panthera Leo and Nicole was largely resisting them.
The plot was driven by Nicole learning more about them and investigating why her life was falling apart because of them and how to overcome it.
It was a smart thriller and I appreciate that. I get tired of the insecure, easily controlled, unreliable female protagonist with attachment issues. Nicole was definitely not that.
It’s a quick and intense read, and though I said in a different review that I might not read any of hers anymore, I might have to take it back… I’m probably going to read the next one…
Oh wait, one more thing… the last page. WHAT?! I’m genuinely confused. And whenever I try to figure it out, I’m overwhelmed and I give up. Feel free to share your theories with me in the comments. But those will probably be spoilers, so other people should avoid reading them. Kthanks.
One last side note: If you are interested in the whole cult thing and how language is used to manipulate people, I would highly recommend Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. It’s a great and entertaining read that will help you be able to see red flags in seemingly innocent (but prevalent) tactics people use to convince you to ‘join them.’
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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“That’s the thing about obedience. it feels safe. But it’s only safe it the person has your best interest at heart.”
I’ve read four of McKenzie’s books now. They do have some language (this one had 29 f-words and 18 s-words), but I keep reading them when they come out so she must be doing something right.
This one had good suspense and I liked that the main character was smart.
There are some #MeToo and anti-patriarchy elements in this book so if you don’t like that, you might want to skip this one.
Brief Summary
Nicole is partner in a law firm and has just received a warning that if she doesn’t bill more hours she may lose her partnership.
It was perfect timing, then, to receive an exclusive invite to a special retreat in Colorado for corporate women who are tired of having to work so much harder to get the pay, promotions, and recognition that men seem to get so easily. This was a networking club to help put women in prominent places.
“Women helping women succeed the way men have for centuries.”
Nicole adds the super cheap cost of $5000 to her work expense report, ignores her husband’s suspicions that it’s a cult and joins this retreat. No internet. No phone. Just a harmless networking event with polar plunges, long hikes in the middle of nowhere, and promises to stay loyal to the group and help each other whenever someone asks.
Also, don’t ask questions.
“To be like men in the world. Not to question how or why we get things, because they never do.”
These women actually are in top tier jobs and have a lot of connections. What could be wrong with this?
Nicole soon finds out when she does the group a favor and takes on a court case they’re (all) involved with. The questions keep accumulating and when she’s forced to help dispose of a body, she wants out.
But that might be harder than she thinks…
The Panthera Leo
The group is called Panthera Leo and its symbol is the female lion:
“The female lion. Because she’s the one that gets things done in the pride. Without women, the men wouldn’t eat, they wouldn’t have the ‘lion’s share’ to take. That’s true for humankind too, but often unacknowledged, even today. ‘The woman behind the man,’ sure. But she’s supposed to be nice and polite. She’s not supposed to be primal. Gentle, not vicious. Only men are allowed those attributes.”
The nationwide group is broken into smaller prides of 5 women. The prides don’t interact with each other.
They are told really harmless sounding things like:
“Influence is everything.”
“You should trust your pride. Instincts can lead us astray.”
“focus more on yourself, to find the things that can make you happy.”
“Sticking together is what protects you. Don’t get separated from the Pride because otherwise, you might end up with your neck snapped.”
I was expecting the more common type of cult in this book but this was a corporate cult. You weren’t entirely cut off from your loved ones, but there was a certain type of hold on these women that trapped them in this group.
I thought this deviation was very compelling.
It’s kind of an interesting thing to think about if you’re a conspiracy theorist. It’s easy to speculate that people in top positions owe others some favors or had some help getting there. What if all these people are part of some sort of corporate cult?!
Honestly, it probably wouldn’t take much to convince me of that these days. I think I’m becoming more susceptible to conspiracy theories. Please don’t take advantage of me.
The Patriarchy
It does seem like a lot of books written in the last couple years with strong female leads go down the road of anti-men, the patriarchy, blah blah. I’m not a believer of that. And some books go too far and I find them nauseating to read. (Ahem, Two Nights in Lisbon)
I’m just going to throw this in because asking questions is a good thing. If everything is the patriarchy, do the stats actually reflect that when considering equal things?
Thomas Sowell, in his book Discrimination and Disparities, reveals that, for example, when looking at salaries of faculty members at universities:
“Male faculty members in general had higher incomes than female faculty members in general. But among similarly qualified faculty, women who never married earned higher incomes than men who never married.”
Just because we may see less women than men as CEOs does not mean there is discrimination or inequality. Equal outcomes is not the measure of equality. A lot of women do get married and prefer to work less hours. When we compare the right things we find out that maybe there isn’t actually inequality at all.
This is not to discredit all of the #MeToo power/control instances where men took advantage of women as a prerequisite to work-related things. That is a for sure a problem and for sure needs to stop.
I’m merely proposing that the whole ‘patriarchy’ thing may be a bit blown out of proportion.
Also, it is not lost on me how women who promote the patriarchy-cause often seem to promote that women need to be more like men. I don’t know what they mean by that, but it’s a little insulting to women if, in order for women to be ‘better’ we have to be ‘more like men.’
Shouldn’t we be proud to be women? Men and women ARE different. They look different, they’re built different, they think different, they process different. Ask any neurologist. But different does not mean superior to either gender.
I get that there are conversations to be had about gender differences and what is right and wrong, but I’m just tired of the world constantly telling me I’m generally disadvantaged because I’m a woman and I need to try to be like men, but not just like men, superior to men.
In Please Join Us, the Panthera Leo leaders make some strong statements:
“Putting men in charge of women’s companies is one of our specialties. Diversity this and diversity that and sensitivity training and you know what’s changed? Exactly nothing, that’s what. If you have a vagina then you’re handicapped. God forbid if you have a kid or show an emotion at work.”
“That’s part of what we’re about. Creating an environment where you don’t have to think like a woman. You don’t have to query why you got something or whether you deserve it. You can just be a man about it.”
I don’t necessarily think McKenzie wrote Nicole as someone who would go that far. After all, she is married to a man whom she loves and respects. They are both intelligent lawyers, who, though they had their struggles, remain committed to each other and respect each other’s voice and work.
I like that Nicole likes to ask questions. She is regularly scolded by the Pride for asking questions but she is not cowed by them. She is smart enough to recognize when something is off and secure enough to protest.
Here’s one of her wisdoms when the group is promoting changing their lives:
“I think that sometimes people change just for change’s sake. And that’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s easy to think that the grass is greener on the other side, but it isn’t always better, just different.”
Conclusion
If the swearing isn’t too much for you, I would recommend this book. I think I liked it better than a couple of her other ones. I talked a lot about the patriarchy stuff, but I didn’t feel like the entire book was a megaphone for modern feminists. It was largely relegated to the Panthera Leo and Nicole was largely resisting them.
The plot was driven by Nicole learning more about them and investigating why her life was falling apart because of them and how to overcome it.
It was a smart thriller and I appreciate that. I get tired of the insecure, easily controlled, unreliable female protagonist with attachment issues. Nicole was definitely not that.
It’s a quick and intense read, and though I said in a different review that I might not read any of hers anymore, I might have to take it back… I’m probably going to read the next one…
Oh wait, one more thing… the last page. WHAT?! I’m genuinely confused. And whenever I try to figure it out, I’m overwhelmed and I give up. Feel free to share your theories with me in the comments. But those will probably be spoilers, so other people should avoid reading them. Kthanks.
One last side note: If you are interested in the whole cult thing and how language is used to manipulate people, I would highly recommend Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. It’s a great and entertaining read that will help you be able to see red flags in seemingly innocent (but prevalent) tactics people use to convince you to ‘join them.’
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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[This was on my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2022]
"There’s only one thing sneakier than criminals."
"What’s that?"
"Teenage girls."
From a multiple homicide in a Blockbuster store on New Year’s Eve in 1999, to another multiple homicide in an ice cream shop present day, this book is a complex thrill ride!
Each murder scene left one teenage girl alive, a lone survivor.
FBI Agent Sarah Keller, reminiscent of Robert Dugoni’s strong female lead, Traci Crosswhite, is tasked with determining whether the 1999 alleged murderer who disappeared after getting off on a technicality is back or if this is a copycat.
Our cast of main characters also includes:
- Ella: the now-grown survivor from 1999 turned therapist who is still fighting her demons (and would not be a therapist I’d send my daughter to…); she still holds an important piece of the puzzle from 1999
- Jesse: the survivor from the ice cream shop crime scene who becomes a suspect; her research abilities are impeccable and her past is a little murky
- Chris: his brother was the alleged murderer who disappeared; Chris believes him to be innocent and suspects he’s been traveling the world and lawyer Chris is determined to find him
With two similar crime scenes years apart there are a lot of leads and people to chase down. The plot is complex and the suspense is high. I read this book pretty quickly.
The plot is really intriguing and brings some nostalgia from the 90s- Be Kind Rewind! And the title is perfect!
I have four beefs with this book.
First, there is quite a bit of swearing (29 f-words, 25 s-words) and some promiscuous behavior on the part of our struggling therapist. Plus your typical strip club investigation scene.
Second, Agent Keller is 8 and 1/2 months pregnant with twins. I was pregnant with twins for 30 weeks (they were born premature) but I can tell you from personal experience that even at 30 weeks I would not have been doing most of the things Keller was doing. Also, I was told they wouldn’t let me go past 38 weeks with twins so Keller would have been mere days from delivering. In one scene she ducks under a closing garage door. Nope. Not without a major grunting noise at the very least. No running. No fast movements of any kind. Standing, sitting, and walking would all be highly uncomfortable. And definitely wouldn’t have been putting herself in such dangerous situations.
Third, Y2K is mentioned in the book summary on Goodreads but is completely irrelevant to the entire book. Seems odd that the author intentionally set the scene on that particular and significant night without incorporating it at all. Unless I missed something?
Fourth, they keep calling them a mass killing, but mass killings are 4 or more deaths. I looked it up.
But the first is more significant to my opinion than the other three. The Y2K and mass murder things are nitpicky. And I can usually suspend some reality for the sake of a story. Plus seeing her strength in the workplace but also her motherly side and her relationship with her husband made her a really likable character.
I didn’t like Ella. Chris and Jesse were alright.
At 12% into the book I predicted the main part of the plot but that didn’t take away from the story. I didn’t have any real proof til the end. I just had my suspicions and have read a lot of these kinds of books.
Would I recommend you read this book? If you like suspense novels and don’t mind swearing then yeah I think you’ll definitely like this! If swearing bothers you like it did me, I’m not sure if this is worth reading.
It was a really compelling plot and well-written story, but I’m not sure I’ll read more of Finlay’s books primarily for the swearing.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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"There’s only one thing sneakier than criminals."
"What’s that?"
"Teenage girls."
From a multiple homicide in a Blockbuster store on New Year’s Eve in 1999, to another multiple homicide in an ice cream shop present day, this book is a complex thrill ride!
Each murder scene left one teenage girl alive, a lone survivor.
FBI Agent Sarah Keller, reminiscent of Robert Dugoni’s strong female lead, Traci Crosswhite, is tasked with determining whether the 1999 alleged murderer who disappeared after getting off on a technicality is back or if this is a copycat.
Our cast of main characters also includes:
- Ella: the now-grown survivor from 1999 turned therapist who is still fighting her demons (and would not be a therapist I’d send my daughter to…); she still holds an important piece of the puzzle from 1999
- Jesse: the survivor from the ice cream shop crime scene who becomes a suspect; her research abilities are impeccable and her past is a little murky
- Chris: his brother was the alleged murderer who disappeared; Chris believes him to be innocent and suspects he’s been traveling the world and lawyer Chris is determined to find him
With two similar crime scenes years apart there are a lot of leads and people to chase down. The plot is complex and the suspense is high. I read this book pretty quickly.
The plot is really intriguing and brings some nostalgia from the 90s- Be Kind Rewind! And the title is perfect!
I have four beefs with this book.
First, there is quite a bit of swearing (29 f-words, 25 s-words) and some promiscuous behavior on the part of our struggling therapist. Plus your typical strip club investigation scene.
Second, Agent Keller is 8 and 1/2 months pregnant with twins. I was pregnant with twins for 30 weeks (they were born premature) but I can tell you from personal experience that even at 30 weeks I would not have been doing most of the things Keller was doing. Also, I was told they wouldn’t let me go past 38 weeks with twins so Keller would have been mere days from delivering. In one scene she ducks under a closing garage door. Nope. Not without a major grunting noise at the very least. No running. No fast movements of any kind. Standing, sitting, and walking would all be highly uncomfortable. And definitely wouldn’t have been putting herself in such dangerous situations.
Third, Y2K is mentioned in the book summary on Goodreads but is completely irrelevant to the entire book. Seems odd that the author intentionally set the scene on that particular and significant night without incorporating it at all. Unless I missed something?
Fourth, they keep calling them a mass killing, but mass killings are 4 or more deaths. I looked it up.
But the first is more significant to my opinion than the other three. The Y2K and mass murder things are nitpicky. And I can usually suspend some reality for the sake of a story. Plus seeing her strength in the workplace but also her motherly side and her relationship with her husband made her a really likable character.
I didn’t like Ella. Chris and Jesse were alright.
At 12% into the book I predicted the main part of the plot but that didn’t take away from the story. I didn’t have any real proof til the end. I just had my suspicions and have read a lot of these kinds of books.
Would I recommend you read this book? If you like suspense novels and don’t mind swearing then yeah I think you’ll definitely like this! If swearing bothers you like it did me, I’m not sure if this is worth reading.
It was a really compelling plot and well-written story, but I’m not sure I’ll read more of Finlay’s books primarily for the swearing.
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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“It made me wonder: To what lengths would she go to fill the void? And what was it she was looking for?”
“Desperate people do desperate things. Not always on purpose. But sometimes.”
I read Samantha Bailey’s debut book Woman on the Edge and really liked it!
This is her second book and it was also pretty good!
Like Woman on the Edge, this book alternates chapters between our two main characters: Sarah in the present and Holly in the past.
Holly is the daughter of a rich pharmaceutical entrepreneur. Having never known her mother who died in childbirth, Holly feels immense pressure to please her dad who partly blames her for her mother’s death. She will do anything for his approval, which as of late means doing ‘whatever it takes’ to convince rich men to invest in her dad’s empire.
When she starts babysitting for Sarah’s son, Jacob, she sees a family she could be part of. Sarah is like the mom she always wanted.
But as we read Sarah’s chapters in the present we know something has gone awry. They have moved to get away from Holly. Sarah had viewed Holly as a daughter, until something happened to change all of that.
Now Sarah is living in fear, anxiety, and paranoia, feeling like Holly has followed them. Someone is watching her.
“Holly— young, beautiful, her whole life an exciting blank slate. But then I stopped trusting her. And in the end, I wanted only to protect what was mine.”
Like Woman on the Edge's title, this book is also aptly named-- ‘Watch Out for Her.’
This statement could be taken two ways- ‘Watch out for what that person will do because she is dangerous’ or ‘Watch out for her, keep an eye on the ones you love.’
Both are relevant to this book.
What really happened with Holly? Is Sarah really in danger or is her paranoia in her head?
Comment number one to be made about this book is that I’m a little tired of the ‘anxious, neurotic, and paranoid woman/mom trope.’ I feel like I’ve read so many books where the women are portrayed that way. I get that it creates mystery and deception on what is really happening, like an unreliable narrator thing, but it would be nice to see normal moms who care about their kids but function in a healthy and sane way.
Comment number two is the content in this book. I don’t remember if her debut had a lot of swearing, but this one did have 23 f-words and 11 s-words, and some sexual content that isn’t explicit but is several places in the book as these are the kinds of things Holly has felt obligated to do to earn her father’s approval.
Comment number three is the trigger of one of My Reading Quirks. Someone’s hair is described as smelling like strawberries. Big no-no.
Comment number four is that I did end up figuring out part of the ending but Bailey did a good job making me second-guess myself.
Comment number five is this book creates a discussion around what happens when people are defined by their family. What are the pros and cons? How does this shape behavior, identity, and future relationships? How can you avoid defining yourself and being defined by your family? If you plan to do this as a book club read, would be interesting to discuss! Another good book club discussion could be about each of the three main character’s addictions and how it influenced their families and the story.
It was a suspenseful read and just like her first book, I read this one fast. Without remembering everything about the first book, I think I may have liked that one better than this, but it’s hard to say.
In general, I would recommend this one!
This book releases April 26, 2022!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
“Desperate people do desperate things. Not always on purpose. But sometimes.”
I read Samantha Bailey’s debut book Woman on the Edge and really liked it!
This is her second book and it was also pretty good!
Like Woman on the Edge, this book alternates chapters between our two main characters: Sarah in the present and Holly in the past.
Holly is the daughter of a rich pharmaceutical entrepreneur. Having never known her mother who died in childbirth, Holly feels immense pressure to please her dad who partly blames her for her mother’s death. She will do anything for his approval, which as of late means doing ‘whatever it takes’ to convince rich men to invest in her dad’s empire.
When she starts babysitting for Sarah’s son, Jacob, she sees a family she could be part of. Sarah is like the mom she always wanted.
But as we read Sarah’s chapters in the present we know something has gone awry. They have moved to get away from Holly. Sarah had viewed Holly as a daughter, until something happened to change all of that.
Now Sarah is living in fear, anxiety, and paranoia, feeling like Holly has followed them. Someone is watching her.
“Holly— young, beautiful, her whole life an exciting blank slate. But then I stopped trusting her. And in the end, I wanted only to protect what was mine.”
Like Woman on the Edge's title, this book is also aptly named-- ‘Watch Out for Her.’
This statement could be taken two ways- ‘Watch out for what that person will do because she is dangerous’ or ‘Watch out for her, keep an eye on the ones you love.’
Both are relevant to this book.
What really happened with Holly? Is Sarah really in danger or is her paranoia in her head?
Comment number one to be made about this book is that I’m a little tired of the ‘anxious, neurotic, and paranoid woman/mom trope.’ I feel like I’ve read so many books where the women are portrayed that way. I get that it creates mystery and deception on what is really happening, like an unreliable narrator thing, but it would be nice to see normal moms who care about their kids but function in a healthy and sane way.
Comment number two is the content in this book. I don’t remember if her debut had a lot of swearing, but this one did have 23 f-words and 11 s-words, and some sexual content that isn’t explicit but is several places in the book as these are the kinds of things Holly has felt obligated to do to earn her father’s approval.
Comment number three is the trigger of one of My Reading Quirks. Someone’s hair is described as smelling like strawberries. Big no-no.
Comment number four is that I did end up figuring out part of the ending but Bailey did a good job making me second-guess myself.
Comment number five is this book creates a discussion around what happens when people are defined by their family. What are the pros and cons? How does this shape behavior, identity, and future relationships? How can you avoid defining yourself and being defined by your family? If you plan to do this as a book club read, would be interesting to discuss! Another good book club discussion could be about each of the three main character’s addictions and how it influenced their families and the story.
It was a suspenseful read and just like her first book, I read this one fast. Without remembering everything about the first book, I think I may have liked that one better than this, but it’s hard to say.
In general, I would recommend this one!
This book releases April 26, 2022!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
[This was on my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2022]
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you” — Catch 22, Joseph Heller
“What do I have against sleep?”
”You’re afraid of what you do in your sleep.”
“I can’t help but wonder what I’ve forgotten… I’m in danger. I feel it in my bones.”
You guys.
I read this book in two days.
It is quite a bit different than her book The Night Swim.
The formatting, the content, the flow is all different.
Instead of a controversial and heartbreaking mystery with some #MeToo triggers like The Night Swim, Stay Awake is an intense thriller with no political commentary.
And it’s so good!
Some have commented on the plausibility of the plot, but most books don’t seek to say ‘This is what happens when…’ they pose the question ‘What if?’
Stay Awake’s what if is this: What if someone experienced a traumatic event that created insomnia and paranoia and whenever she went to sleep she wakes up and forgets everything that happened since the traumatic event? And what if she’s either dangerous or in danger?
Based entirely on the preview of the CBS show Blindspot (because I never actually watched it) this book is like that.
Liv wakes up on a park bench and doesn’t know where she is going or why she is there. And she has written notes all over her hands that say things like:
STAY AWAKE
DON’T SLEEP
TRUST NO ONE
DON’T TALK TO THE POLICE, EVER!
Oh, and there’s a bloody knife in her pocket.
The last thing she remembers was a summer day two years ago when she answers a phone call from her office desk. It’s now two years later, she can’t find her best friend or her boyfriend, and someone else is living in her apartment.
Soon she becomes the suspect in a murder.
How can she clear her name if she can’t remember anything recent and she can’t trust anyone?
“I don’t know how I became an interloper in my own life.”
This book is fast-paced and intense. I loved it! It’s just the kind of thriller I was looking for.
We have alternating chapters.
The chapters in the present all take place in one day- the day the murdered man was discovered. Liv is scrambling to unravel what is going on and Detective Darcy Halliday and her partner are investigating the murder and tracking Liv down.
The chapters in the past are the days leading up to Liv’s traumatic experience and what caused all of this to begin with.
I did have part of it figured out, but not all of it.
If you like thrillers, I would definitely recommend this one! It’s fairly clean, not much language (only 3 f-words, 4 s-words) or gruesome details, and it reads fast.
My only qualm with the book is that after I finished it and sat with it awhile, I realized they didn’t really explain the entire ‘why’ behind the murders. Maybe I was turning pages so fast that I missed it, but I wish they would have fleshed out the motive a little bit more.
But my only thoughts while reading the book were—what is going on?! I need to keep reading!
So yeah. It comes out in August, and you should read it.
A few other random thoughts and surprises:
- The detectives kept calling the murdered guy ‘the stiff’ and I thought that was weird. I’ve watched/read a lot of cop-type books/shows and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term.
- The killer wrote the words ‘Wake Up!’ on the window in blood, but backwards so that it could be read from outside and they made this big deal about it being a hard thing to do or they were trying to read it from inside and said it was nonsense. But let’s be real… It’s really not that hard to read or write Wake Up! backwards. I have no problem with her dissociative amnesia fugue, but let’s be realistic about the words!
- They talked about not being able to extract DNA from hairs left at the scene because they were rootless. I hadn’t realized the hair had to have roots. So I googled it, and it TURNS OUT we’ve had a breakthrough in technology and some guy actually figured out a way to get DNA from a rootless hair but it’s expensive so probably won’t happen much. But cool news.
- I LOVED how Liv’s character hated performance art! I was an art major and when we started learning modern art history and performance art it was the worst. She says, “I’ve never been to a performance art event that didn’t make me want to barf. Maybe I’m cynical, or maybe I’ve seen too much in my life, but I find these sorts of things fatuous and self-indulgent.” And I would like to give her a high five!
- This was also a fun fact Goldin included: Agatha Christie went missing in 1926 and had her own ‘memory loss’ event! People thought she disappeared for several days and couldn’t find her. Turns out she had checked into a spa under the name of her husband’s mistress and going about life. Someone at the spa recognized her. She didn’t remember any of it! Google it, it’s pretty interesting considering this book!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you” — Catch 22, Joseph Heller
“What do I have against sleep?”
”You’re afraid of what you do in your sleep.”
“I can’t help but wonder what I’ve forgotten… I’m in danger. I feel it in my bones.”
You guys.
I read this book in two days.
It is quite a bit different than her book The Night Swim.
The formatting, the content, the flow is all different.
Instead of a controversial and heartbreaking mystery with some #MeToo triggers like The Night Swim, Stay Awake is an intense thriller with no political commentary.
And it’s so good!
Some have commented on the plausibility of the plot, but most books don’t seek to say ‘This is what happens when…’ they pose the question ‘What if?’
Stay Awake’s what if is this: What if someone experienced a traumatic event that created insomnia and paranoia and whenever she went to sleep she wakes up and forgets everything that happened since the traumatic event? And what if she’s either dangerous or in danger?
Based entirely on the preview of the CBS show Blindspot (because I never actually watched it) this book is like that.
Liv wakes up on a park bench and doesn’t know where she is going or why she is there. And she has written notes all over her hands that say things like:
STAY AWAKE
DON’T SLEEP
TRUST NO ONE
DON’T TALK TO THE POLICE, EVER!
Oh, and there’s a bloody knife in her pocket.
The last thing she remembers was a summer day two years ago when she answers a phone call from her office desk. It’s now two years later, she can’t find her best friend or her boyfriend, and someone else is living in her apartment.
Soon she becomes the suspect in a murder.
How can she clear her name if she can’t remember anything recent and she can’t trust anyone?
“I don’t know how I became an interloper in my own life.”
This book is fast-paced and intense. I loved it! It’s just the kind of thriller I was looking for.
We have alternating chapters.
The chapters in the present all take place in one day- the day the murdered man was discovered. Liv is scrambling to unravel what is going on and Detective Darcy Halliday and her partner are investigating the murder and tracking Liv down.
The chapters in the past are the days leading up to Liv’s traumatic experience and what caused all of this to begin with.
I did have part of it figured out, but not all of it.
If you like thrillers, I would definitely recommend this one! It’s fairly clean, not much language (only 3 f-words, 4 s-words) or gruesome details, and it reads fast.
My only qualm with the book is that after I finished it and sat with it awhile, I realized they didn’t really explain the entire ‘why’ behind the murders. Maybe I was turning pages so fast that I missed it, but I wish they would have fleshed out the motive a little bit more.
But my only thoughts while reading the book were—what is going on?! I need to keep reading!
So yeah. It comes out in August, and you should read it.
A few other random thoughts and surprises:
- The detectives kept calling the murdered guy ‘the stiff’ and I thought that was weird. I’ve watched/read a lot of cop-type books/shows and I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term.
- The killer wrote the words ‘Wake Up!’ on the window in blood, but backwards so that it could be read from outside and they made this big deal about it being a hard thing to do or they were trying to read it from inside and said it was nonsense. But let’s be real… It’s really not that hard to read or write Wake Up! backwards. I have no problem with her dissociative amnesia fugue, but let’s be realistic about the words!
- They talked about not being able to extract DNA from hairs left at the scene because they were rootless. I hadn’t realized the hair had to have roots. So I googled it, and it TURNS OUT we’ve had a breakthrough in technology and some guy actually figured out a way to get DNA from a rootless hair but it’s expensive so probably won’t happen much. But cool news.
- I LOVED how Liv’s character hated performance art! I was an art major and when we started learning modern art history and performance art it was the worst. She says, “I’ve never been to a performance art event that didn’t make me want to barf. Maybe I’m cynical, or maybe I’ve seen too much in my life, but I find these sorts of things fatuous and self-indulgent.” And I would like to give her a high five!
- This was also a fun fact Goldin included: Agatha Christie went missing in 1926 and had her own ‘memory loss’ event! People thought she disappeared for several days and couldn’t find her. Turns out she had checked into a spa under the name of her husband’s mistress and going about life. Someone at the spa recognized her. She didn’t remember any of it! Google it, it’s pretty interesting considering this book!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Follow for more reviews and book-related content!
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“I want the truth, Detective. Whatever that may be. Even if finding out what happened to my mother means losing my father.”
The next book in the Tracy Crosswhite series!
It was kind of a comfort to come back and read another book in this series. I’ve been reading a lot of popular books but have been disappointed with some of the content. I like that when I read a Dugoni book it’s generally pretty clean, not a lot of profanity or sexual content.
This was a typical police procedural thriller where the main character is investigating a case.
The previous book showed Crosswhite being demoted to the Cold Case Department. And that’s where she still is.
In What She Found, Crosswhite is approached by Anita Childress, asking her to look into her mother’s case.
Her autistic mother, Lisa, disappeared when Anita was two (25 years ago). She was a really good reporter who often investigated cases without disclosing any details to her boss at the newspaper. Her husband was suspected of killing her but there was not enough evidence to convict.
It became a cold case.
Would Lisa really walk away from her family?
Would they find her body buried somewhere?
What could have caused anyone to murder her?
When Crosswhite discovers the cases Lisa was working on at the time of her disappearance, she must decide if it’s worth it to drudge up old crimes that may involve corruption in her very own police department.
When it comes to reviewing books in a series there’s not a lot to comment on. It’s the ninth book in the series and if you’re reading this one, you’ve probably read other books and know what to expect.
If you’ve never read a book in this series, you should start at the beginning!
I will make a few comments of some of the things discussed.
First, it’s mentioned that the term ‘Asperger’s’ is no longer politically correct. Hans Aspberger was a paediatrician in Austria. Recent information has come to light indicating he worked with the Nazi’s euthanasia program, possibly for low functioning people. I had not heard this before.
I recently read a book, On the Spectrum, that was very enlightening to me to help me understand autistics and I would recommend it.
Second, taking place near Seattle and revolving around the police force, there is some commentary on the ‘defund the police’ initiatives, which is kind of interesting to think about it from the perspective of a police officer in terms of how they handle publicity of certain cases.
This was an interesting quote from the book:
“‘They won’t defund,’ Melton said. ‘They’ll talk a good game about things like sending social workers into domestic disputes, but not one of those social workers is going in without an officer, and as soon as everyone realizes that downtown Seattle is now a graveyard, the way it was in the 1980s, and homicides and gun violence are up, the pendulum will swing back the other direction. It always does. Money talks, and tourism is going to take a huge hit.’”
Defunding the police has always been a baffling topic to me. Probably because ‘defund’ is not a clear or helpful term for what they actually mean. But either way, something to think about.
Lastly, some random, less serious comments:
- “she noted the time in the lower right corner of her computer”…. she is not a Mac user!
- Is it harder to solve crimes in Seattle because of all the rain washing away evidence so quickly??
- “she wet paper towels and cleaned off her daughter’s hands and mouth”… this is a clear ‘this book was written by a man’ detail because there are these really handy things called wipes and are more convenient and effective thing to use to clean up your child. Unless other moms do this… I don’t know, but it grosses me out.
- Tracy’s husband, Dan, buys a gazebo from Costco because they were on sale and he saved $600. I am a recent convert to Costco and I understand this sentence deep in my soul.
- Tracy says one of the hardest things for prisoners to get used to is the constant noise. And I had never thought about that before. So if I needed another reason to try to avoid prison, I’ve got it. Phew.
In conclusion, I liked this book and I’m looking forward to the next one. Seems like Tracy is going to stay on cold cases for awhile so we’ll see what case she solves next!
[Profanity: 0 f-words, 22 s-words]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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The next book in the Tracy Crosswhite series!
It was kind of a comfort to come back and read another book in this series. I’ve been reading a lot of popular books but have been disappointed with some of the content. I like that when I read a Dugoni book it’s generally pretty clean, not a lot of profanity or sexual content.
This was a typical police procedural thriller where the main character is investigating a case.
The previous book showed Crosswhite being demoted to the Cold Case Department. And that’s where she still is.
In What She Found, Crosswhite is approached by Anita Childress, asking her to look into her mother’s case.
Her autistic mother, Lisa, disappeared when Anita was two (25 years ago). She was a really good reporter who often investigated cases without disclosing any details to her boss at the newspaper. Her husband was suspected of killing her but there was not enough evidence to convict.
It became a cold case.
Would Lisa really walk away from her family?
Would they find her body buried somewhere?
What could have caused anyone to murder her?
When Crosswhite discovers the cases Lisa was working on at the time of her disappearance, she must decide if it’s worth it to drudge up old crimes that may involve corruption in her very own police department.
When it comes to reviewing books in a series there’s not a lot to comment on. It’s the ninth book in the series and if you’re reading this one, you’ve probably read other books and know what to expect.
If you’ve never read a book in this series, you should start at the beginning!
I will make a few comments of some of the things discussed.
First, it’s mentioned that the term ‘Asperger’s’ is no longer politically correct. Hans Aspberger was a paediatrician in Austria. Recent information has come to light indicating he worked with the Nazi’s euthanasia program, possibly for low functioning people. I had not heard this before.
I recently read a book, On the Spectrum, that was very enlightening to me to help me understand autistics and I would recommend it.
Second, taking place near Seattle and revolving around the police force, there is some commentary on the ‘defund the police’ initiatives, which is kind of interesting to think about it from the perspective of a police officer in terms of how they handle publicity of certain cases.
This was an interesting quote from the book:
“‘They won’t defund,’ Melton said. ‘They’ll talk a good game about things like sending social workers into domestic disputes, but not one of those social workers is going in without an officer, and as soon as everyone realizes that downtown Seattle is now a graveyard, the way it was in the 1980s, and homicides and gun violence are up, the pendulum will swing back the other direction. It always does. Money talks, and tourism is going to take a huge hit.’”
Defunding the police has always been a baffling topic to me. Probably because ‘defund’ is not a clear or helpful term for what they actually mean. But either way, something to think about.
Lastly, some random, less serious comments:
- “she noted the time in the lower right corner of her computer”…. she is not a Mac user!
- Is it harder to solve crimes in Seattle because of all the rain washing away evidence so quickly??
- “she wet paper towels and cleaned off her daughter’s hands and mouth”… this is a clear ‘this book was written by a man’ detail because there are these really handy things called wipes and are more convenient and effective thing to use to clean up your child. Unless other moms do this… I don’t know, but it grosses me out.
- Tracy’s husband, Dan, buys a gazebo from Costco because they were on sale and he saved $600. I am a recent convert to Costco and I understand this sentence deep in my soul.
- Tracy says one of the hardest things for prisoners to get used to is the constant noise. And I had never thought about that before. So if I needed another reason to try to avoid prison, I’ve got it. Phew.
In conclusion, I liked this book and I’m looking forward to the next one. Seems like Tracy is going to stay on cold cases for awhile so we’ll see what case she solves next!
[Profanity: 0 f-words, 22 s-words]
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
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“You’d think that once you die, things can’t really get much worse, but oh no, you’d be wrong. That was when my nightmare began.”
This is a stand alone psychological thriller.
The subtitle for this book should be ‘I see dead people.’ Because Hallie, our protagonist, seems to have a hobby of witnessing murders.
There were a couple things that kept this book from being 5 stars, see below, but overall it was a pretty good read with an ending I surprisingly didn’t figure out.
Would recommend, from Las Vegas to Boston, it’s a wild ride!
Summary
Living with the repressed trauma of supposedly watching her schizophrenic mother kill herself, Hallie’s life has been peppered with bulimia and drugs. On July 4th, after losing her best friend, boyfriend, job, and apartment in one fell swoop the results of her reactive poor choices leaves her dead at a conference for doctors.
Until one doctor miraculously revives her.
But is it a miracle or a nightmare?
She begins remembering things and knowing things that she shouldn’t. Memories of a person dying. Someone else’s memories.
What’s happening to her? Is she turning into her mother?
“Paranoia. That was how it had started with my mother, too.”
That’s Part 1. Background context and Hallie dealing with the paranoia of what’s going on in her head and the suspicion that someone is after her.
Finally it coalesces into a need to escape Las Vegas. All roads lead to Boston.
Part 2.
This is where the action really starts. Part 1 is a bit slow, but now the pace picks up. Hallie is on a mission to figure out who these people are and what really happened in the memories popping into her head.
“No— somewhere, somehow, I had to believe in myself. I was not crazy. I was not inventing another world.”
Comments
First, trigger warning for sexual abuse, bulimia, self-harm, and suicide.
There are a couple scenes where Hallie purges and attempts to hurt or kill herself.
There are some f-words (11 f-words, 27 s-words) but they are more heavy in the first part than the rest of the book and almost all of them are in the context of Hallie’s angry outbursts at people.
There is also some sexual content. There is a painter who paints nude portraits. So there are some descriptions of the pictures and during the painting of the picture.
At first I didn’t think I was going to like this book. The first part was not my favorite, but it got better as it went along.
Although I didn’t like Hallie’s profanity, I did like her character (maybe not right away). She was highly intelligent and bold. She had a bit of a ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’ mentality throughout the book which made it more exciting. She wasn’t hiding behind her trauma and insecurity, she charged ahead to get answers. And yet, she wasn’t entirely reckless because she was smart.
If you are interested in the setting of the wealthy Newport families and mysterious deaths, definitely read An Extravagant Death by Charles Finch.
If you are interested in the idea of a person’s memories being in someone else’s head, check out Memory Lane by Sara Sheppard. Quite a few similarities.
If you like fast-paced thrillers, check out some of Brian Freeman’s other books!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest
This is a stand alone psychological thriller.
The subtitle for this book should be ‘I see dead people.’ Because Hallie, our protagonist, seems to have a hobby of witnessing murders.
There were a couple things that kept this book from being 5 stars, see below, but overall it was a pretty good read with an ending I surprisingly didn’t figure out.
Would recommend, from Las Vegas to Boston, it’s a wild ride!
Summary
Living with the repressed trauma of supposedly watching her schizophrenic mother kill herself, Hallie’s life has been peppered with bulimia and drugs. On July 4th, after losing her best friend, boyfriend, job, and apartment in one fell swoop the results of her reactive poor choices leaves her dead at a conference for doctors.
Until one doctor miraculously revives her.
But is it a miracle or a nightmare?
She begins remembering things and knowing things that she shouldn’t. Memories of a person dying. Someone else’s memories.
What’s happening to her? Is she turning into her mother?
“Paranoia. That was how it had started with my mother, too.”
That’s Part 1. Background context and Hallie dealing with the paranoia of what’s going on in her head and the suspicion that someone is after her.
Finally it coalesces into a need to escape Las Vegas. All roads lead to Boston.
Part 2.
This is where the action really starts. Part 1 is a bit slow, but now the pace picks up. Hallie is on a mission to figure out who these people are and what really happened in the memories popping into her head.
“No— somewhere, somehow, I had to believe in myself. I was not crazy. I was not inventing another world.”
Comments
First, trigger warning for sexual abuse, bulimia, self-harm, and suicide.
There are a couple scenes where Hallie purges and attempts to hurt or kill herself.
There are some f-words (11 f-words, 27 s-words) but they are more heavy in the first part than the rest of the book and almost all of them are in the context of Hallie’s angry outbursts at people.
There is also some sexual content. There is a painter who paints nude portraits. So there are some descriptions of the pictures and during the painting of the picture.
At first I didn’t think I was going to like this book. The first part was not my favorite, but it got better as it went along.
Although I didn’t like Hallie’s profanity, I did like her character (maybe not right away). She was highly intelligent and bold. She had a bit of a ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’ mentality throughout the book which made it more exciting. She wasn’t hiding behind her trauma and insecurity, she charged ahead to get answers. And yet, she wasn’t entirely reckless because she was smart.
If you are interested in the setting of the wealthy Newport families and mysterious deaths, definitely read An Extravagant Death by Charles Finch.
If you are interested in the idea of a person’s memories being in someone else’s head, check out Memory Lane by Sara Sheppard. Quite a few similarities.
If you like fast-paced thrillers, check out some of Brian Freeman’s other books!
**Received an ARC via NetGalley**
Book Review Blog | Facebook | Pinterest