Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Memoir book reviews

  • Review: Scary Close by Don Miller

    I’ve been remiss in posting reviews. Here is one originally published in the March 2015 Woman Alive book club.

    078521318XReading the latest offering from a familiar writer can feel a bit like catching up with an old friend. In the Woman Alive book club in late 2006 we discussed Blue Like Jazz (review posted here), Don Miller’s breakout hit that was turned into a movie. In Scary Close Don continues to share his emotions and thoughts openly, as if inviting the reader over to dinner and a long chat.

    He recounts his move to marriage, a long journey as he used to be a serial dater; one who would obsess over winning a girlfriend and then, once he caught her, he’d lose interest, break her heart, and move on to the next. He’s been open about his “father wounds,” stemming from his dad leaving his family when Don was a young boy; surely some of this fear of commitment had roots in those early traumas.

    Scary Close shows flashes of insight and brilliance; I love his strong images, such as how he describes his new-girlfriend-later-wife, “She’d no sooner end a relationship than she’d cut down an old-growth tree. In the heat of that argument I realized I was only a sapling in the forest of this woman’s life… If I was going to win her heart, I’d have to plant myself in the forest and slowly grow the rings that earn loyalty…” (pp. 4-5).

    But I tried to ascertain what unsettled me, and after a while I realized that it feels as if Don’s Christian faith has been shoved to a corner. He speaks of working through deep issues such as identity, the need to perform and impress, trust and intimacy, by looking to psychology for the answers. Now I’m not wanting to discredit psychology; of course the Lord works through the social sciences to aid and bring healing. But it feels like these manmade systems have taken precedence in shaping who he is. Even Don saying that he’s not been to church in five years made me take pause; has his journey of questioning moved him away from the God of answers, the God who wants his all?

    Of course we as readers aren’t really invited to dinner with a writer; we don’t know what’s going on in their heart and mind, so my conjectures are just that – unproven propositions. I’d be happy to be wrong.

    Read it for the evocative language and probing questions about intimacy and relationships, but read it asking for what’s not said as much as what is.

    Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy by Don Miller (Thomas Nelson, ISBN 978-0785213185)

     

  • Review – Journey Into God’s Heart

    My version of Throwback Thursday is the very first book I featured in the Woman Alive book club, in July 2006! Back then I even wrote out discussion questions for each book – a labor of love. 

    Jennifer Rees Larcombe is a beloved figure in the Christian world. The daughter of well-known evangelists, she came to fame in the 1980s when she was dramatically healed following eight years confined to a wheelchair. She has told her story previously in several volumes, but this book brings the pieces together over her sixty years and is a deeper exploration of her journey into God’s heart.

    isbn9780340861578-detailJennifer’s life has not been easy, but it has been rich and glorifying to God. In just her early years, for example, she struggled with dyslexia, self-image problems and an eating disorder. After bearing her six children she had her years in a wheelchair and then the dramatic healing. And in her later years she has experienced tragedy and betrayal. But through it all she has never given up on God, nor lost her sense of humour. She may have cried out to him in gut-wrenching pain and endured periods of silence, but he has been her lifeline. In witnessing this real and gritty relationship, my faith was built up.

    Her book has so many topics to discuss – forgiveness, healing, the charismatic movement, intimacy with God, the power of prayer, being versus doing, spiritual warfare, self-hatred and self-acceptance, living in God’s presence and so on.

    Discussion Questions

    Here are some questions to get you thinking, responding and engaging:

    • What were your favourite parts of the book? Which episodes stand out most in your memory? How did you relate to Jennifer as you were reading? What have you taken away from her life story?
    • Early in her life, Jennifer made several vows. Positively, she vowed to know God intimately and journey deep into his heart (p. 10), but negatively, she vowed never to get angry (p. 33) and always to be ‘very very good’ (p. 47). How did these vows shape her life? How and when did she become conscious of them? What did she do to break the negative vows?
    • The journey into God’s heart for Jennifer has been filled not only with moments of joy and peace but also with times of pain, hurt and loneliness. In fact, she says in the first chapter (p. 12) that if she had known how hard the journey would be, she’s not sure she would have dared to make the vow. But she realizes that when our hearts are open by grief and loss we are most able to receive God’s love. Have you found this to be true? When have you felt closest to God?
    • Jen’s journey has also involved a lot of forgiveness – from Miss Mitchell to her parents to Tony. Some of her most painful memories were buried but were still affecting her daily life. Were you surprised that Jen needed to ask Miss Mitchell for forgiveness? And what do you think about her ‘stages of forgiveness’ (see pp. 58ff)? Does it make you think of old grudges you’re bearing or people you need to forgive?
    • After Jen’s amazing healing she faced many changes (see p. 204). Which ones were unexpected? Which ones were good, but hard? What losses did she face in becoming able-bodied?
    • A recurring theme in Jennifer’s book is the battle between her ‘Mary’ and ‘Martha’ sides – keeping a balance between being and doing (see for example pp. 116, 177 and 228). Discuss how she has coped with this tension over the years, and when and why one side dominated over the other. Is this a struggle you share?
    • At key turning points in Jennifer’s life she has sensed that the Lord has set before her some kind of choice (see pp. 140, 185 and 244). In each instance how did she react? What does the offering of these choices say about the character of God?
    • In chapter 10 Jennifer describes the heartbreaking collapse of her thirty-year marriage. Instead of making conjectures about what happened, recount how the Lord has become her husband and how her intimacy with him has deepened.

    jen_largeMy View

    I loved this book, and was deeply moved at so many points while reading it. Jen was brave to chronicle the hard bits in her life story as well as the glorious ones, for so often we can relate more closely to the times in the valleys than the mountaintop experiences. As with the other readers, I too struggled with the breakup of her marriage and wished it could have turned out differently. To be honest, I was angry on her behalf. But it was wonderful to see how God has used this painful experience in her life, drawing her closer to his heart.

    So good is this book that I’ll keep my underlined copy and in a few years read it again – not something I can say for all of the books I come across in my publishing work. Jen, we send our love and say thank you for your honesty!

    Journey Into God’s Heart by Jennifer Rees Larcombe (Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 0340861576)

  • Review – sensitive memoir on mothering

    In my years of running the Woman Alive book club, I’ve shied away from books on mothers, knowing that it can be a painful subject. But (writing to women here) whether or not we are mothers, we are all daughters (and yes, I know that too can be wrought with pain); not least, we’re daughters of the King. And this Father loves us mind-blowingly and unendingly.

    Motherhood CoverSo this spring in the book club I highlighted a sensitively written memoir that doesn’t fit the usual book on mothering – those “how to be the perfect mother in five easy steps” kind of books. Rather this story traces the author’s healing from the negative vows she made as a young woman when members of her fundamentalist church told her that the only reason for being a woman was to procreate. To be a mother. She, bereft of a mother, vowed never to become one.

    But she married and slowly, slowly, the love of her man and her God softened her heart and opened her up to life. Three children later, she shares the journey from her childhood home in South Africa to their posting in Ukraine and finally to the Midwest and East Coast of America, where they landed as a family.

    Lisa-Jo weaves her memories of growing up in the stark beauty of South Africa with the experiences of raising feisty boys and then a girl who helped her reconcile her feelings about being a daughter, and a mother. She writes as a citizen of the world; this is not an insular or American-centred book. So much of it is thought-provoking and moving. For instance, I loved learning about her prayer project with her mother-in-law about how to parent a child with a strong temper. She writes of her mother-in-law: “She reminded me that children are born of the Spirit as much as their parents’ DNA, and perhaps that’s where we should focus” (p.124).

    Does mothering make you want to celebrate? Leave you with unresolved feelings? Whatever your reaction, we can ask the Lord to set us in a place of life and fruitfulness while praying for those mothers close to us, whether by geography or heartstrings.

  • Review – memoirs that chronicle the passions of life

    A good book transports us to another land. Although I love fiction, I’m increasingly moved by the power of narrative nonfiction, especially biography. Through the eyes of another, we experience lands far away, without ever leaving our homes. In so doing, we learn about political and social events that may have passed us by. For instance, Chai Ling’s Heart for Freedom opened to me China around the time of Tiananmen Square.

    0849947561So I offer you a review of two real-life accounts that will enlarge your borders. One that moved me profoundly is Where the Wind Leads, a gripping narrative of a Chinese family living in Vietnam who were forced to leave their business and their home to escape communist oppression. They commissioned an old boat and sought refuge with nearly 300 others, but neighboring countries squawked under the weight of so-called compassion fatigue. The refugees ended up imprisoned on a beach in Malaysia, forced to march from one part of the beach to another, until they were deposited into derelict fishing boats, taken to the middle of the ocean, and left to die.

    The author is Vinh Chung, one of the family’s sons, who recounts the many miracles that eventually brought the family to safety and a new home in Arkansas. He’s a sensitive narrator who explains Asian customs and traditions while detailing his family’s coming to faith in the Creator God, as revealed through Jesus. Through his story he shows the value of family, community, elders, education, perseverance, hope and faith. He also reveals the ugly side of discrimination and racism. One to read, ponder and pass to friends and family.

    9780745956039The other book is Greg Valerio’s Making Trouble, how he fought out of poverty and meaninglessness while creating the first line of fairly traded jewellery in the UK. His story of exposing corruption reveals the dark side of capitalism, when profits are prized more than people or the environment. It’s a David-and-Goliath story of one who couldn’t close his mouth against the wrongs he witnessed – not only the oppression of the workers, but the rape of the land. His model of creating a pure line of jewellery – with completely traceable gold and diamonds – shows how one man with perseverance and vision can effect change.

    The book recounts an important movement for social change, but the narrative slowly lost my attention through the discussions of the unions, trade shows and politics.

    Are you reading memoir? If so, which one, and why?

    Where the Wind Leads: A Refugee Family’s Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption, Vinh Chung (Thomas Nelson, ISBN 978-0849947561)

    Making Trouble: Fighting for Fair Trade Jewellery, Greg Valerio (Lion, ISBN 978-0745956033)

     

  • Review – memoir of life in Afghanistan

    408143_1_ftcI came across this gripping memoir through a review in the Woman Alive Book Club, and was grateful for the recommendation. In the Land of the Blue Burqas tells the stories of an American woman who spent five years in Afghanistan, working for an NGO with the goal of helping Afghan women. She recounts her experiences in a winsome manner; when reading I felt like she was sharing the stories over a cup of tea – even though she used a pseudonym to protect herself and her friends. I could sense her love and respect for the Afghan people she met.

    What struck me most was the hidden world of Afghanistan, namely the world of women. They live behind walls, closed in. In public they walk silently, not making eye contact with men. Nor would any man enter another family’s aouli (family compound) unannounced. If he visited, he would be served in an outer courtyard by a young girl or boy; the woman would have been given time to hide inside. But women move freely from one aouli to another, joining in with the lives of their women neighbours and forming a deep sense of community. The author experienced this strong friendship as she sipped their tea and ate the nuts and treats offered.

    Kate McCord found out that for women, the worst day of their life was when they married. Brides would be young – twelve or thirteen – and the marriages arranged. As one woman said, “My husband is a good man; he only hit me a little at first when we married.” But men said their best day was when they marred their first wife (many have more than one). The author learned more about women in Afghanistan than many men knew.

    I also appreciated how strongly she held to her Christian beliefs, sharing them graciously without forcing them on anyone. She learned the local language and sought to find out about Islam. When issues of faith came up, which was nearly every encounter, she sought a creative way of putting things, often by telling a Bible story that would lead to an unexpected ending. It would blow away the hearer’s preconceptions – if they allowed.

    When the security in her town disintegrated, she was forced to leave. She left her home, fruit trees, dog and the friends she had grown to love. But the stories of these beautiful people she will have as a gift forever.

    Jump into the rickshaw and enter this fascinating world.

    In the Land of the Blue Burqas, Kate McCord (Moody, ISBN 978-0802408143)

  • Review of a quirky memoir

    A year or so ago I read nearly twenty books for a feature article in the Christian publishing trade magazine. That’s a lot of reading, even for a self-confessed bibliophile such as me. In the midst of all those words, the ones that stood out to me were those in Dallas and the Spitfire, the story of an unlikely friendship. Why? Because the author’s unique voice came through so clearly. His writing style is easy and engaging, and his footnotes are a fun place where he lets rip with wisecracks and asides. More importantly, the content is encouraging and thought provoking. For me the only negative was the shameless copying of the typeface/artwork of the similar hit book of a few years ago, Same Kind of Different as Me (although I tried to read that book and didn’t get very far, whereas I lapped up this one).

    dallasSFThe main author here is Ted Kluck, a freelance writer in his mid-thirties who lives in Michigan in the States and inhabits a Christian Reformed subculture. He meets Dallas, a young guy in his early twenties who has experienced more of life than many have who are twice his age. But not all of what he’s lived through has brought life. His father introduced him to drinking at the tender age of eight, and he lost his virginity at ten. He became a hardened drug addict, living a precarious life on the edge, fuelled by the desire and need to fund his habit. His actions led him to jail, and then eventually into a Bible-based rehab program. It was here when he first met Dallas.

    Their friendship is that of father to son, mentor to mentoree, friend to friend. Men seem to communicate best shoulder to shoulder, so their shared project of restoring an old European car gives them the excuse to hang out and do life together. Ted helps Dallas in his first year as a Christian as he navigates the strange waters of a fundamentalist Bible college, survives heartbreak over a romantic relationship, and manages to stay clean and off of drugs. Dallas in turn helps Ted, a neophyte when it comes to car restoration, to bring life to the old British Spitfire. And more than just car repair, he brings joy, hope, and the reminder through his changed life that our God is really able to do more than we could ask or imagine.

    A great read. My eyes admittedly glazed over at all the car descriptions and a few of Ted’s sideabout ramblings, but overall the story of the two’s friendship made for compelling and even compulsive reading.

    Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, An Ex-Con and an Unlikely Friendship, Ted Kluck and Dallas Jahncke (Bethany, ISBN 978-0764209611)

  • Review of a stunning memoir

    The Long Awakening

    9781441243041

    Imagine waking up after 47 days in a coma, not realizing that the summer had passed or that you’d had a baby. This is what happened to Lindsey O’Connor, a mother of four who gave birth to her fifth baby – a planned later-in-life pregnancy – then suddenly crashed and nearly bled out, her brain deprived of life-giving oxygen. Her doctors induced a coma to allow her brain time and space to heal, but the extent of damage she suffered had no one knew. The Long Awakening is the gripping and moving story of her slow emergence out of the space between life and death as she hovered just below the surface, longing to connect but unable to do so.

    But a miracle occurred, and though her family thought one tortuous night that she would die, she slowly came back to life. But she, asleep, missed the miracle. The thousands who prayed; the hundreds who brought around meals and cared for children and lent support: they witnessed it. But she, its focus, felt outside. Yet she knew her awakening was inexplicable and miraculous, so how could she even voice these feelings?

    And who was she now, having been so deconditioned that she couldn’t even stand up on her tip toes or breathe on her own? How could she care for her children? Love her husband? Bond with her baby, whose first bath and first feeds she missed? Who was she in terms of her career? As she mused, “I used to be a writer… Now I cannot even read. Those days are over, I thought, and lay thinking of who’d I been, wondering who I was now.”

    The road to recovery has been slow and long, but Lindsey has determined to “play the hand we’re dealt.” She writes lyrically, raising profound issues of identity, family and community, faith, mother/child bonding, and end-of-life medical ethics. Using her training in crafting journalistic narrative, she weaves together the pieces of those 47 days in the coma and the 107 days in hospital. I only wish she would have been more forthcoming with her faith; strikingly absent is the present of Jesus (but not God), although she calls herself “one who loves God fiercely.” Perhaps being a mainstream journalist in America made her reticent to enter the fray of faith-related discussions, which Stateside can turn tribal.

    One to read and ponder, especially in a book-club setting, for the issues the book raises are manifold. A reminder to us all to treasure the moments we’re given.

    (published by Revell, ISBN 978-0800723170)

  • Book reviews – Waking Up in Heaven and Kisses from Katie

    I love reading Christian biographies; they remind me that God can do amazing things in and through his people. Here are two books that chronicle two remarkable women, which I came across in my publishing work with Authentic Media (we secured the Commonwealth rights for them). The first is a story of someone who dies and spends time in heaven. When I first heard that yet another heaven book had appeared, I was skeptical. But I started reading Waking Up in Heaven and was gripped, for Crystal’s life has been filled with drama even without the otherworldly journey.

    9781780781136As a young child Crystal suffered repeated sexual abuse, and could never feel clean – she got baptized four times as a teenager in her quest to slough off the old self. She got pregnant at seventeen and had the baby, but at nineteen had an abortion. Married at twenty but divorced after six months when she found out he was a drug addict. But when at last she found a really good guy to marry, and her life seemed sorted, she fell into a deep depression. Why? She didn’t feel worthy of her husband and his love (rooted out of the feelings of shame and self-hatred that she had endured all her life). And that’s when she died for nine minutes and experienced a life-changing transformation in heaven… You’ll have to read it to find out more!

    I should mention another heaven book: Dr. Mary Neal’s To Heaven and Back. She’s an orthopedic surgeon, and her prose is not chatty like Crystal’s, but her scientific medical stance makes for a compelling read.

    9781780780894Another life-changing journey is that of Katie Davis. In her year before going to university, she went on a shortterm mission trip to Uganda. She fell in love with the people and the place, and knew that God was calling her to return there. But how would her family and her boyfriend react? At first she left the comfortable surroundings of her home in America for a year to immerse herself in Uganda; the plan was then to return to her life – her family, her boyfriend, her studies. But as the time drew to a close, she knew she had to stay. And she had to begin a family made up of one parent and otherwise destitute orphans.

    In the years since, Katie has settled in Uganda and is in the process of adopting thirteen girls. A crazy path in the eyes of the world has been her following the call of Jesus. Radical obedience and the sharing and receiving God’s love.

    What stories of God’s transforming love are you reading?

     

    Publishing info: Waking Up in Heaven, Crystal McVea and Alex Tresniowski (Authentic, ISBN 9781780781136) and Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis and Ben Clark (Authentic, ISBN 9781780780894)