No Graven Image

By Elisabeth Elliot (Harper & Row, 1966)

Genre: Non-Fiction

Pages: 244

Via: Amazon

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” (Emphasis added.)

– C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Margaret Sparhawk is a young, idealistic American missionary in this compelling Christian fiction by former missionary and best-selling author Elisabeth Elliot. Margaret travels to Ecuador to reach the Quichua Indians of the Andes Mountains. At first, she feels displaced. But per Matthew 28:19-20, Margaret (“Margarita”) is certain she belongs there. “I am under orders” she says to herself.

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Greater Love – Unbroken Bones Book 1

By Alana C. Marks

Genre: Christian fiction

Pages (print): 336

Via: Author request

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book for honest review.

Let’s just cut to the chase here, shall we? This book was a big disappointment. As in, Ugh! We had high hopes for Unbroken Bones. Overwritten, overlong and overdone, this book was a big disappointment.

To wit:

The story is told through the eyes of its three main characters: Natasha Cunningham, John, and Matthias the angel.

Natasha is a high school student interested in paleontology. Her mom Valerie could give the Polar Ice Caps a run for its money in the familial warmth department. Natasha finds a map in her grandmother’s Bible. With it, Natasha begins to unravel a family secret that holds the key to a major mystery.

John is Natasha’s project partner. He dislikes his competitive classmate and would rather ignore her. John has a prickly, irascible exterior to hide abuse from his alcoholic father. John is interning at the Natural History Museum. His supervisor is George. Who’s kind of a jerk. To put it charitably.

John and Natasha cross paths early on. Not so with Matthias.

Matthias is an angel whose alleged mission is to guard, protect and defend fallen humans. Think Clarence Oddbody, A.S. II. Only younger. We’re more than halfway through the book before Matthias does much of anything besides gawk and wonder and “Golly gee.” Think Gomer Pyle. It takes way too long for him to intersect with the kids. By then, we’ve lost interest.

There’s also Dr. Vanessa Cunningham, Natasha’s beloved grandmother. Grandma was a devout Christian and highly esteemed beloved scientist/researcher. A friend and colleague of Natasha’s scientist mentor, Dr. Betsy, Dr. Cunningham was killed in a tragic car accident.

Or was it? An accident, that is. Like, what exactly was Dr. Cunningham working on? What did she discover? Did it get her killed? How? Why? Who? And what’s going on at Kennington Park?

There’s also “Old Ben.” Not a person. In case you’re wondering. Double chocolate mint ice cream. And a foot race between the Creator and Abner. Dreams. And… twins?

We loved the emphasis on education and staying in school a la John’s high school graduation in chapter 17. We did not love the pacing, which is right out of Slugville. The story itself could benefit from a case of Slim Fast.

So while the story is imaginative and creative and the writing is good, it just didn’t keep our interest. It’s hamstrung by uneven pacing and brittle characterizations. Like John’s dad, Kevin. We get it that Kevin is an abusive alcoholic. No need to beat us over the head with it – to the point of a caricatured cartoon. And the bones thing? It doesn’t really put in an appearance until chapter 21. Whether or not readers will stick around that long is open to question

Additionally, some readers may find the text preachy in places. That may be a turn-off. Like Pastor Anderson’s sermon in chapter 9. And the curious exegesis of the Old Testament story of Rahab. (Kimber: Guess what, Buttercup? Some of us can find the books of Joshua and Hebrews unaided. Oh yeah.)

There’s also the odd word choice/typo that pops up occasionally. Example: “… the idea that she might actually become his stepmother always drudged up feelings of anger within him” (p. 70). Or “Her mother had been too upset with her come” (p.166.)

We had to take a break from reading this book. It’s slow out of the gate. The first nine or ten chapters feel “boggy.” Like the author tried to cram in every conceivable detail under the sun in less than 100 pages.

Came back to it later, hoping it’d get better. Leaner. More mature. It picks up, yes. But not enough to rise to the level of “captivating.”

So again, we had high hopes for this book. It has This Present Darkness-ish potential with Matthias. (Kimber: We like, Totally Love-ify Frank Peretti!). But this character gets lost in the weeds.

Our biggest beef with this book? It just tries too hard. It can’t seem to decide what it wants to be: Fiction, social commentary, or homily? So it falls short in all three. Another problem is basic structure and mixed POVs. For instance, Natasha and John are third person. Matthias is first person. The inconsistency is jarring and doesn’t really work.

Bottom line: We could not force ourselves to finish this book. Frankly, we shouldn’t have to. We bailed out about page 230. (Kimber: That’s considerably more pages than most books get. In case you’re wondering, Cupcake.) So we won’t be rating this book. We will, however, be reaching for the Advil.