BOOK REVIEW: A good book with a story-telling flaw …

“I Don’t Wait Anymore” (written by Grace Thornton, published by Zondervan) is a good book.

The subtitle of this slick hardback — “Letting Go of Expectations and Grasping God’s Adventure for You” — is a perfect description of the content you’ll likely be challenged and inspired by when reading it.

Thornton lines the pages of this book with golden nuggets of wisdom that comes from growing through letting go of deeply-rooted expectations for her life and learning how to embrace the real life God has in store for her. The publisher describes Thornton’s story like this:

“… She had dreams, plans, and ideas for what life should look like. For one, she thought she’d be married. She thought she’d have kids. She thought God would bring her the life she’d been waiting for because she knew He was good and she tried to be obedient. But that’s not what happened. Not at all.”

So many people could easily relate to the experience of life just not turning out like they expected or wanted; the insights Thornton shares of her facing unfulfilled dreams and expectations are thought-provoking and stirring learning opportunities for the rest of us wrestling with similar experiences.

The book itself is designed to encourage personal exploration of your own thoughts as you read through it. It’s a stiff hardback with thick, glossy pages and each chapter concludes with a single question for self-reflection and space to write in your responses. The writer wants you to get something out of this book, and the lessons she shares from both her own life and from the Bible should provide opportunity for any reader to learn and be challenged.

Like I said, it’s a good book … but with a story-telling flaw.

First, even though I have just read this book cover-to-cover, I still don’t have an accurate idea of who Grace Thornton is. Oddly enough, this book does not contain a page or paragraph anywhere introducing us to the author. Not a single blurb! This omission leaves the reader wondering, “Who in the world is Grace Thornton?!”

The main flaw in Thornton’s story-telling is that she uses such small slices of her personal story to tell a larger story that the overall story-telling is choppy. We’re led to some great nuggets of wisdom through these snippets of her story, but there’s such editing as to the telling of her story it doesn’t all come together. The experience the reader is left with is one of feeling as though the author picked just portions of her story, which means there are gaps. Obviously, when writing your story, you don’t include every single detail, but you can also not share enough for a story to be a whole.

The writing quality is excellent, but you’re almost left feeling the writer cared so much about the silky-smooth ease of reading that the wholeness of her story suffered.

This book has good writing, an interesting story many readers can relate to, and valuable insights we can apply to our own lives, it’s just lacking in details in the telling of its story.

But don’t let that stop you from buying it and reading it.

It really is a good book!

Scotty

I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”