many perspectives presented

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

this story was so beautifully tragic. it follows a young college student, who was raped one night and ended up pregnant. she was raised christian, went to a christian college, engaged to a soon-to-be pastor, and had her own heart for God. all of that went into test at this major life event.

it’s definitely a tough read. it deals with numerous difficult topics and lotttssss of controversy. this book talks extensively on the topic of abortion, including the pro-life movement, the christian view, and the politics behind it all.
a lot of it was hard for even me to swallow. there was one portion where it was thing after thing after thing as far as the politics of abortion is concerned.

but as a traditional Rivers’ novel, the story ends with hope. with all the hardship, difficulties, heartbreak, and despair in this novel, it is met with redemption, love, forgiveness, and new beginnings.

content:

-as the premise of the book states, and girl is raped and impregnated. (nothing is described, simply stated that the event occurred) this book talks *heavily* on abortion, sexual assault, and mildly on sex in general. most everyone wants/expects Dynah to get an abortion, but she just doesn’t know

-i believe there was only one instance of language (d*mn)

happy reading!

~ky

I knew this would have me in tears.
I read the book years ago and decided to re-read it for my book club. I was so captivated by the story, good thing I could not remember how it ends. Am surprised that this was actually written in the late 90s, the themes in the book are so relevant for our day and time today.

For me who is living in a country where abortion is illegal, this is not something that is in the public discussion. But am sure if people have the means they are able to get the procedure.
I love how the writer deals with the emotional and mental tolly that abortion has on a person and family. One has to live with the "what ifs"

I also liked the discussions on the value of life and how tragedies affect families and can even break them apart.

As the book shows, when faced with so much brokenness only God can piece us back together again, and he does indeed bring Beauty from ashes.

WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Confession time: I chose this book as a 'hate read' (you know a book that sounds so terrible that you just HAVE to read it to see if it's as bad as it sounds? Yeah...). And honestly, some aspects of the books surprised me by how NOT terrible they were. But there were several parts that made me want to throw it against the wall (and if I hadn't been reading it on my kindle, I probably would have. Multiple times). So yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this book. Here we go.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a Christian and I have read and enjoyed a few of Francine Rivers' books, namely, the Mark of the Lion series and Redeeming Love. I've read many many books by Christian authors in the past, and Francine Rivers is one of the authors that I do like for the most part. I commend Rivers for trying to tackle a subject that is obviously dear to her heart, but I feel like this book ultimately failed (HARD) for me. To be fair, I'll start with:

The Good (and/or The Not Terrible)

1. Again, this is a tough and very loaded subject. I am begrudgingly impressed that this book exists at all, and I'm sure that Rivers has gotten a lot of flak for it.

2. As much as this book annoys me, I have to admit that it was pretty darn readable. I finished it in less than two days.

3. Despite the fact that the majority of main characters in this book are Christian (or claim to be), they are flawed in a very believable way instead of being super perfect.

4. The relationship that builds between Joe and Dynah is nice.

5. I liked that this book expressed how people can talk a big game about their morals, but the true test of what you believe occurs when you're thrown into a terrible situation. Ethan, the 'perfect Christian guy' becomes a massive victim blaming jerk who can't deal with the fact that his fiancee has been 'defiled' (seriously, I wanted to punch this guy in the throat so many times), Dynah's good, moral parents have so much baggage that is brought to the surface by this event, and Dynah has to reconcile her previous views of God with the horrible things that are happening to her. Seriously, bravo, Rivers.

But for all the good, I am still giving this book one star, and I would give it zero if I could. And so:

The Bad (aka Things that Made Me Want to Light Every Copy of This Book on Fire)

1. It's sooooooo preachy...sooooooooooooooooooo preachy.

2. You expect me to believe that every single person that Dynah knew besides her grandmother and Joe was THIS gung ho to try and make Dynah HAVE an abortion? REALLY? Not ONE OTHER Christian she knew was going to try and convince her not to have an abortion? REEEEEEEEEEALLY????

3. Holy cow, has EVERY WOMAN in this universe had an abortion? Two generations in the same family and then the third generation considering it seriously enough to actually go to an abortion clinic? Seriously? I get what Rivers was trying to do but it was all just way too convenient for me.

4. The victim blaming in this book is off the charts. Does victim blaming happen in the real world? Yes, and it makes me equally as angry. Added onto that is the extra layer that exists in a lot of Christian purity culture that any woman who has sex before marriage is dirty, defiled, impure, and broken. This mentality is disgusting and sadly happens all the time in the real world. I'm not saying that it's bad that Christians believe premarital sex is a sin, but mentally throwing women (and especially, oh, I don't know, RAPE VICTIMS) in the metaphorical garbage is just vile, and Jesus would not have done it (see: the fact that he hung out with ACTUAL PROSTITUTES and treated them with compassion and love) Is this mentality throughout the entire book believable? Definitely yes, unfortunately. but it makes me SO ANGRY regardless.

5. This book had so many one-off comments that made me want to flip ALL the tables. I returned my digital copy to the library so I can't give exact quotes, but here are the worst offenders that I can remember (and trust me, there were many more):
-While fighting with Hannah (Dynah's mom), Doug (Dynah's dad) is freaking out about the rape and yells that the rapist might have AIDS! Or he might be BLACK!!! I seriously had to put the book down for a minute after this. Yes, the rapist was despicable. All rapists are. But WHY WOULD IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF THE RAPIST WAS BLACK? Racist, Rivers. Disgustingly racist. Shame on you.
-When Dynah runs away from home to gather her thoughts, there is a brief period when she is living in a hotel and cannot find a job. She contemplates applying for benefits, but remembers that her father (again! Prince of a guy, Dynah's dad) has often ranted about people 'leeching off the government' so she decides she doesn't want to do that. There is no shame in needing public assistance and to shame people who DO need it is extremely gross. And, reality check Dynah, if you are unemployed, single, and pregnant, you are EXACTLY the kind of person the system exists to help. It's your choice if you don't want to apply for it, but don't dump on all the people who use it.
-The waitress that worked at the diner before Dynah got the job there (Susan, I think? I don't remember her name) mentions that she calls one of her Asian coworkers 'Ho-Chi-Minh' (I believe-it was something similar if not that exact nickname) and that he hates that nickname. Here's a tip, maybe don't call someone a nickname that they don't like, especially if that nickname is directly tied to the other person's race. Again, that's racist.

6. I do not like how this book addressed the topic of rape. I suspect that Rivers chose to make her protagonist a rape victim so she wouldn't have to deal with the touchy topic of consensual premarital sex among Christians, and also the fact that Dynah got pregnant from rape pulls the whole abortion debate into a gray area for a lot of people. However, the rape seems to get shoved pretty far into the background as soon as Dynah finds out she's pregnant. Then it's 'should I or should I not get an abortion' for the rest of the book. I don't want to diminish how difficult it must be to decide whether or not to get an abortion. That has to be one of the most difficult decisions for any woman to make. But aside from the men in Dynah's life repeating over and over that they want to beat the rapist to death and everyone contemplating what a 'monster' the baby will be because her father is a rapist (which seriously, gross), the book just seems to mostly drop the rape aspect of it. I also take issue with the fact that the rapist was the stereotypical 'stranger in the shadows' (which I know does happen, but much less often than the victim knowing their rapist), but I assume that Rivers didn't want to deal with fleshing out the character of a rapist and possibly dealing with Dynah taking him to court or anything like that. At its heart, this book is about abortion, not rape, but the fact that Rivers introduced rape as a plot point and just conveniently disposed of the rapist bugs me.

I know that a lot of people loved this book. If you loved it or were moved by it or it changed your life for the better, I will not discount your experience or say that you're wrong. You're entitled to your opinion and I am not going to fight anyone about whether this was a good or a bad book or extrapolate on the reasons I listed for disliking it. But personally, I hated this book. Capital 'H' HATED it. Would not recommend. To anyone. Ever.

Acabo de terminar este libro y la verdad yo sabia que todo lo relacionado al libro iba a ser pro-vida porque la autora es Cristiana pero lo que de verdad no me gusto es que haya ocupado argumentos relacionados al aborto que son falsos. Esto si esta mal porque estamos desinformando a las personas que están leyendo este libro con cosas que el aborto causa cáncer o infertilidad cuando hay fuentes veridicas que nos informan que esto no es cierto. Yo se de que pueden haber bastantes opiniones sobre el aborto a favor o en contra pero lo que no hay que hacer nunca es decir información falsa sobre esta.

Aparte de esto, no me gusto el cliché y esto es algo que vi en bastantes reviews de que la mamá de la prota y la abuela de la prota tuvieron un aborto. También que personas relacionadas a la protagonista hayan tenido uno y yo sentí con esto como un choque. Me hubiera gustado que la autora hubiera tomado otra ruta en la historia. Que se hubiera centrado más en el hecho en que la prota se superara más mentalmente y fisicamente porque paso por una situación traumatica y no tanto en solo estar en contra del aborto porque lo sentí repetitivo y forzado.

Otra cosa a tomar en cuenta es que al empezar a leer el libro era bien fácil determinar como iba a terminar este y el epilogo no me gusto porque estuvo algo confuso. Hubiera preferido ver como estaba nuestra protagonista con su vida y no ese final confuso que al final no sabemos quienes son esas personas porque no dicen ni nombres o algo relacionado a estos.

Hubieron muchas más cosas que no me gustaron de este libro pero me voy a tomar más tiempo escribiendo y esto se va a poner largo

I read this for a book club and I have to pat myself on the back that I actually made it through the entire thing.

It's bad. So very, very bad. It's bad in every way a book can be: the plot is full of holes and is so predictable, the interactions and dialogue are one dimensional and lack any of the qualities of real human interaction, the writing flow is stuttered, it is poorly researched, and it is literally the most judgmental thing I've ever read. And her characters... they are like paper doll people with no depth or real personality. And she apparently did zero actual research when crafting her settings. The first half of the book takes place at a college. At one point, her main character goes to talk to her professor. The name of said professor? "Professor Provost." Professor. Provost. I wish I were joking. Alas, I am not. (If you don't get why this is mind-numbingly dense: Professor is an academic role at a university. Provost is also an academic role at a university. It's like naming her character "Doctor Nurse.").

The subject of the book is abortion and let me be transparent. I'm pro-choice but respect diverse opinions on this issue. People are entitled to feel however they feel about sensitive and personal topics like abortion. But, and this leads me to the absolute worst part of this book, when you start trying to use misinformation or out and out lies to push people to your side, you've moved from having a heartfelt opinion to being intentionally manipulative and deceitful. And that is what this book is. There are many, many examples of factual inaccuracies in this book with which she tries to leverage the readers towards her pro-life perspective. But I will only rip apart two of them for the sake of time.

1) She references "Post-Abortion Syndrome" as a condition women who have had an abortion often suffer, which supposedly ravages them with guilt. If you have no awareness of psychology, it sounds plausibly like a real condition. Except it's not. It's not an actual syndrome. It isn't in the DSM. It isn't diagnosed by actual mental health professionals. And despite her claims, that isn't because of some "medical bias" that causes people not to research this issue. It's because it HAS been researched extensively and there isn't evidence it really exists. Some women experience trauma tied to their abortion experiences and that is real. But that does not seem to be most women who have an abortion. There is no evidence that abortions themselves are significantly associated with a measurable and specific mental health condition or a deterioration of mental health. And there certainly isn't evidence of any causal relationship between abortions and the development of Post-Abortion Syndrome specifically (if you know anything about causation, you know in part why her claim is so bananas). This syndrome isn't real. And if you don't want to believe me, here's a quote from an American Psychologist journal article on this very issue:

"The most rigorous studies indicated that within the United States, the relative risk of mental health problems among adult women who have a single, legal, first-trimester abortion of an unwanted pregnancy is no greater than the risk among women who deliver an unwanted pregnancy. Evidence did not support the claim that observed associations between abortion and mental health problems are caused by abortion per se as opposed to other preexisting and co-occurring risk factors. Most adult women who terminate a pregnancy do not experience mental health problems. Some women do, however. It is important that women’s varied experiences of abortion be recognized, validated, and understood." (Major et al. 2009)

2) She also discusses abortion "causing breast cancer" in the later sections of the book. Shocking, no? What's a scarier boogie man than abortion? Cancer. And she claims (via dialogue from one of her characters) that of course we Americans wouldn't have heard of this, because the scientists that research this can't get their research funded or findings published. Except... Guess what?? Again, this HAS been researched extensively. In fact, there was a study done about 10 years ago with 83,000 participants (if you know anything about research, that is a huge sample) and they found no association between intentional abortion and breast cancer (it's from the Lancet in 2004). There are some studies that find an association between multiple miscarriages and breast cancer (although most research is pretty skeptical of this as well). In this literature, miscarriage is often referred to as spontaneous abortion, so maybe she just skimmed studies and didn't understand what she was reading. But given some of the other nonsense included in the book, I'm going to guess that no, she didn't in fact bother to do any real research.

This book is basically the LifeNews website turned into a novel. It's just as barren of fact and clearly biased, and the writing is even worse in quality. It is literally the worst book I have ever read in my life.

But hey, I finished it. Somehow.

In this world you will find that there are so many evils that is practice and you wonder what God is doing about it. for instance abortion is a sin many people will tolerate in their life without asking themselves if God thinks its ok. Many takes it that its not wrong because many do it and that is the only way to justify their action. This book brings out what God thinks of sins like Abortion and al that is wrong of it. What we can do to break from sins that has entangle us and our family members .How ca we stop from giving in to the pressure of family like the heroine did in the story. She did not give in to the family pressure. Can we also learn form her in our many different situation. we may not have the same situation like she did but we can learn from this book how to overcome sins like abortion from our lives.

It was seriously hard to read this book. I'm prolife, yes even in the instance of rape, and personally don't agree with birth control either. But seriously, this book wasn't a story, it was a prolife, anyone who thinks abortion is ok is an evil person, pamphlet. The woman who runs the abortion clinic? Well she's a crap parent with a drunk daughter who of course was on birth control.... And how many people in one story can have an abortion that ruinned their lives and gave them cancer???? Drivel...... This book could have been so awesome if the author told a story instead of pushed an agenda.

This is the first book I've read by Rivers, and understand that some are better done than this, some are poorly done. Please note that I didn't read any reviews, only the blurb, so had no idea this book was about such a controversial topic and how much this book was focused on it--had I known, I'd have avoided it.

Although this book has a very high average rating, reviews are all over the place, even from Christians. Some of the complaints are just, but some are questionable. For example, one of my GR friends of colour has given this book 5 stars whereas one white reader claims this book is racist. The latter reviewer completely ignores a scene where racism is called out. The protagonist's father did make a racist comment, but given that he was being ignorant and mean about all of this I'd say that was highlighting his hypocrisy and ignorance, not because Rivers is racist.

This book is very controversial because it deals with abortion; this topic is highly polarizing, and I'm not giving my views on it because I keep my political thoughts offline. What resonated with me was that people were pressuring Dynah to abort rather than letting her take the time to make her own decision--and I mean her "Christian" fiancé, her father and at least one other man. There is a lot of good writing in here, but there are times when Rivers veers away from strong novel writing, particularly later on. I loved the fact that it showed us hypocritical "Christians," but for those not familiar with non-Catholic pro-life stances, not all say it's wrong 100 percent of the time. The hypocrisy comes more from some whose religion is more about show, and for me it has nothing to do with that they were pressuring her to abort after being raped, it was about why they were doing so. They lacked empathy and compassion for Dynah.

There are a few characters I thought conveniently too flawed--it would have been far better if the director of the abortion clinic were a fully developed person who had ethical reasons for being pro-abortion and not just a money-grubber, although it's true that it's a big revenue generator and that there probably are some in it for the money. People are rarely so "black and white" when it comes to opinions.

Anyone who thinks that this represents all Christians or Christian stances, that's ludicrous, since there is an enormous range between the ultra liberal and ultra conservative "Christian" churches.

I do wish that Rivers had done a bit more fact checking. I will excuse one study she mentioned, because it hadn't yet been checked--all scientific studies need to be confirmed by separate ones. She got me looking things up, such as the volatile arguments both sides have over postabortion syndrome vs PASS. One secular psychologist I read didn't understand that there are licensed Christian counsellors who help women overcome feelings of guilt, etc. I couldn't find anything about the supreme court ruling that women seeking abortion didn't have to have their questions answered in depth.

The epilogue was idiotic.

This book is AMAZING and well worth the read. It really speaks to God's mercy and the power of accepting his forgiveness. My only warning would be to any one that has been touched personally by abortion. I suggest reading the author's note in the back first before reading the book so that his/her mind and heart is guarded with God's promises before beginning what could be an emotional journey.

I enjoyed this book, even though, it was very difficult to get through at times. So many difficult topics brought to the forefront. It would be difficult for me to recommend this book for just anyone. One would need to know what it’s about before reading in my opinion.

I have to say, I wasn't obsessing over this book. It was a quick read and did keep me sitting at the couch for several hours straight, on a number of nights. Nonetheless, the word choice in the conversations bothered me at times, one particular one I can't get over is when a wife says to her husband (of some 9 years roughly- not newlyweds here, and IN BED- no place for putting on airs), "Sorry I awakened you." I talk strange and get teased for it, but even I don't apologize for "awakening" someone. Rivers at times felt very preachy as well, which to some degree was endearing when it was the 4 older women gathered together, but in other places (like between Joe and Dyna) it just seemed awkward.



SPOILER:
Also, the ending bothered me greatly. All book we looked for somethign to develop with Dynah and Joe, and then it gets less than two pages? God just says, 'He's the one' and then SHE kisses HIM and asks HIM to marry her??? how upsetting. I just didn't feel it did it justice. In Rivers' defense, I can see why she did it, it demonstrated Dynah's transformation from a flopping young woman who thought her fiance WAS God, to a strong woman rooted in a personal relationship with Him. But still...did SHE have to propose? :/

APPLAUSE:
I did love the book for the issue it dealt with, and the gentle way it did so. I found myself very drawn in and caring about Dynah, not just her final choice (though I REALLY cared about that too). I hope this book really does bring healing to our generation, our mothers' and our grandmothers.