What do you think?
Rate this book
The Quest for Forgiveness
Brianna Bays had been abandoned at a Kuwaiti orphanage by a family she couldn’t remember: adopted by a family she couldn’t understand; and is enjoying celebrity she couldn’t have imagined. Soaring overnight into a world of stardom, her fame and money held the answers to her questions. It’s a story filled with lies and deceit along a path that leads to forgiveness and redemption. She realizes the consequences of a lie she told as a teenaged girl and the affects it had on her family. Her search is in her songs; her redemption is in her honesty.
304 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2011
4 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
About the author
J.L. Rothdiener
6 booksJohn L. Rothdiener's home is nestled in the Missouri Ozarks, in the town of Bolivar. The author has had a lifelong passion for writing. Over the years, he has written many short stories and newspaper articles. Forgiveness is his third novel and the first in his Quest series. His ideas have been conceived in dreams, which he firmly believes are inspired by God. Each novel pierces the soul, often encouraging the reader through difficulties and trials they are facing in their own lives. Each person holds that spark of hope for a better place...a better life...and a better tomorrow. Rothdiener desires for his books to help the reader in a quest, searching for life's answers.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 15, 2013
Holy cow. Where to begin?
I don't like every book I read, but it has been a LONG time since I have read anything as overtly amateur as this. It's like renting a movie and ending up with an awkward youth group drama team sketch they put on YouTube.
I read portions of this aloud to my younger siblings. At one point, the 13-year-old said, "Wow, they sure use the word 'felt' a lot." Indeed they did, Micah. Indeed they did. Because apparently the only way to communicate characters' emotions is through sentences like, "They felt sad." "She felt guilty." "He felt overjoyed." "Show, don't tell" is a mantra this author could have and should have paid attention to.
This book falls into all the worst pitfalls of bad Christian fiction:
1) Portraying all the Christians as perfect and all the non-Christians as malicious, smug, and out to get everyone.
2) Weird Christianese lingo from someone who would never, ever use it. ("I was still sexually pure" instead of "I was a virgin"? From a girl who left religion when she was 11 or 12 and lived on the streets? Really?)
3) A horribly forced conversion scene.
4) LOTS OF SERMONS. And I mean LOTS OF THEM. First, everyone is preaching AT the main character, and then once she finds Jesus, she preaches at everybody else.
5) A disgustingly obvious lack of research into how the world works. "The world" in this book meaning primarily the law, the music industry, mental illness, diplomacy in the Middle East, and other religions.
Fortunately, that fifth one does make for some hilarious scenes. As the author clearly has no idea how a court of law works, there are some really entertaining moments. I laughed super hard when the judge accused the jury of basing their judgment on "emotions, not facts" when the evidence was ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. It all turned out to be ultimately incorrect or faked, yes, but the jury had no way of knowing that. But because the judge was a Christian, she had special magical insight and was, therefore, making her judgment based on actual facts. The facts of magic knowledge.
Oh, and I laughed out loud when I discovered that the President of the United States apparently used his political clout to help an American pop star transport the corpse of a Muslim woman from her burial ground to the U.S. against the Muslim family's will.
Oh, and I couldn't stop giggling at the scene when the pop star waltzed with a single bodyguard into a home in Iraq, populated with people she KNOWS have been planning to kill her, insults their god, their culture, and their country, hits them in the face, and then waltzes back out with absolutely no consequences.
Every single page in this book is ridiculous. The main character is the most Mary Suest of all Mary Sues. (Supernatural singing voice AND dancing talent AND songwriting ability AND beauty AND an expert at languages AND out of nowhere she has a black belt in karate AND...) The writing is amateur at best and laughably awful at worst. The plot is contrived, doesn't hold together, and makes kind of disturbingly gleeful assumptions that if you're not a Christian, your life will just completely fall apart, HA! And I don't mean "you will always feel a nagging sense there's something more" falling apart. I mean "you will go anorexic and crazy" falling apart. I mean "you will die of a drug overdose in a hotel while no one in your family will ever know where you were" falling apart.
This book is so, so, so, so terrible. One star is too much for it. At least I was able to snark at it enough to make it all the way through so I could feel justified in writing this review.
(Oh, and final thought. You should know that if you've set up an entire book telling us about how important music is to your main character, it is NOT A HAPPY ENDING when you finish the book with "and then she had kids and she never sang or performed again." That's not the ultimate goal. She LOVED her job, you made it really, really clear that she loved her job. And then you casually mention that IT'S ALL GONE FOREVER. The heck? I could swear she wasn't just sitting around singing as a casual hobby while waiting for a nice strong man to come along and give her babies.)
I don't like every book I read, but it has been a LONG time since I have read anything as overtly amateur as this. It's like renting a movie and ending up with an awkward youth group drama team sketch they put on YouTube.
I read portions of this aloud to my younger siblings. At one point, the 13-year-old said, "Wow, they sure use the word 'felt' a lot." Indeed they did, Micah. Indeed they did. Because apparently the only way to communicate characters' emotions is through sentences like, "They felt sad." "She felt guilty." "He felt overjoyed." "Show, don't tell" is a mantra this author could have and should have paid attention to.
This book falls into all the worst pitfalls of bad Christian fiction:
1) Portraying all the Christians as perfect and all the non-Christians as malicious, smug, and out to get everyone.
2) Weird Christianese lingo from someone who would never, ever use it. ("I was still sexually pure" instead of "I was a virgin"? From a girl who left religion when she was 11 or 12 and lived on the streets? Really?)
3) A horribly forced conversion scene.
4) LOTS OF SERMONS. And I mean LOTS OF THEM. First, everyone is preaching AT the main character, and then once she finds Jesus, she preaches at everybody else.
5) A disgustingly obvious lack of research into how the world works. "The world" in this book meaning primarily the law, the music industry, mental illness, diplomacy in the Middle East, and other religions.
Fortunately, that fifth one does make for some hilarious scenes. As the author clearly has no idea how a court of law works, there are some really entertaining moments. I laughed super hard when the judge accused the jury of basing their judgment on "emotions, not facts" when the evidence was ABSOLUTELY CLEAR. It all turned out to be ultimately incorrect or faked, yes, but the jury had no way of knowing that. But because the judge was a Christian, she had special magical insight and was, therefore, making her judgment based on actual facts. The facts of magic knowledge.
Oh, and I laughed out loud when I discovered that the President of the United States apparently used his political clout to help an American pop star transport the corpse of a Muslim woman from her burial ground to the U.S. against the Muslim family's will.
Oh, and I couldn't stop giggling at the scene when the pop star waltzed with a single bodyguard into a home in Iraq, populated with people she KNOWS have been planning to kill her, insults their god, their culture, and their country, hits them in the face, and then waltzes back out with absolutely no consequences.
Every single page in this book is ridiculous. The main character is the most Mary Suest of all Mary Sues. (Supernatural singing voice AND dancing talent AND songwriting ability AND beauty AND an expert at languages AND out of nowhere she has a black belt in karate AND...) The writing is amateur at best and laughably awful at worst. The plot is contrived, doesn't hold together, and makes kind of disturbingly gleeful assumptions that if you're not a Christian, your life will just completely fall apart, HA! And I don't mean "you will always feel a nagging sense there's something more" falling apart. I mean "you will go anorexic and crazy" falling apart. I mean "you will die of a drug overdose in a hotel while no one in your family will ever know where you were" falling apart.
This book is so, so, so, so terrible. One star is too much for it. At least I was able to snark at it enough to make it all the way through so I could feel justified in writing this review.
(Oh, and final thought. You should know that if you've set up an entire book telling us about how important music is to your main character, it is NOT A HAPPY ENDING when you finish the book with "and then she had kids and she never sang or performed again." That's not the ultimate goal. She LOVED her job, you made it really, really clear that she loved her job. And then you casually mention that IT'S ALL GONE FOREVER. The heck? I could swear she wasn't just sitting around singing as a casual hobby while waiting for a nice strong man to come along and give her babies.)
May 31, 2017
A Prodigal story
This story is intertwined with love, lies, sadness, joy, forgiveness, redemption, and so much more!
Janna tells a lie at age 11, and the consequences are destructive to so many people. She thinks by lying, she can get away from a step-mother who doesn't like her. What happens is a fathers love trying to protect his daughter from danger and he ends up going to prison and lives are changed.
Janna runs away and after a few years and a turn of events, God brings Sonya into Janna's life and things change for Janna overnight. She becomes Brianna Bays, a singer, actress, and songwriter. On her path of success, her past catches up to her, and she finally accepts God and forgiveness.
When she searches for the truth, is the truth too hard to handle?
I loved this story!!
This story is intertwined with love, lies, sadness, joy, forgiveness, redemption, and so much more!
Janna tells a lie at age 11, and the consequences are destructive to so many people. She thinks by lying, she can get away from a step-mother who doesn't like her. What happens is a fathers love trying to protect his daughter from danger and he ends up going to prison and lives are changed.
Janna runs away and after a few years and a turn of events, God brings Sonya into Janna's life and things change for Janna overnight. She becomes Brianna Bays, a singer, actress, and songwriter. On her path of success, her past catches up to her, and she finally accepts God and forgiveness.
When she searches for the truth, is the truth too hard to handle?
I loved this story!!
July 24, 2013
I think this book would have been better if the main character was the most likeable character from the start. I understand that the point of a book on forgiveness is for the main character to do something terrible, then have to go on a journey for forgiveness, but by the time I got to the end of the book I was simply relieved for the plight of the OTHER main characters in the book, and not for Jana. She was so unlikeable that my sympathies for her were stripped away after her father was falsely accused of a crime and never recovered.
Also, I think this book could have better if Rothdiener had been more realistic with the story and characters. Too many generalizations were made, too many things "clicked" perfectly, etc. etc. for it to be a very believable book. Despite the real world setting, the reader is always painfully aware that they are reading a fictional creation.
As a musician, I appreciated a book about music. I think the author did a good job portraying some of the emotion that musicians feel when they are playing/singing/performing and how music can help one to focus, calm one's nerves, or affect one's moods.
I gave this book a three-star rating because, despite its failures, it is a much better book than many books I've been forced to read in my life. I highly value "clean reading" and good, moral messages.
Also, I think this book could have better if Rothdiener had been more realistic with the story and characters. Too many generalizations were made, too many things "clicked" perfectly, etc. etc. for it to be a very believable book. Despite the real world setting, the reader is always painfully aware that they are reading a fictional creation.
As a musician, I appreciated a book about music. I think the author did a good job portraying some of the emotion that musicians feel when they are playing/singing/performing and how music can help one to focus, calm one's nerves, or affect one's moods.
I gave this book a three-star rating because, despite its failures, it is a much better book than many books I've been forced to read in my life. I highly value "clean reading" and good, moral messages.
March 16, 2013
This was an awesome book of forgiveness and healing of past hurts. It was wonderfully written. I so enjoy a book that makes you laugh, cry and feel like you are a part of the people that you are reading about. Only thing I didn't like was the very last chapter but even then it didn't stop me from giving it 5 stars.
April 1, 2013
This book is amazing...had me laughing, crying, wondering....I could not put the book down. The book wove through many years of time - good, bad - ugly....It was an incredible story - I have suggested to several people to read this book.
December 29, 2012
Would like to see this made into movie. Beautiful story of forgiveness and salvation.
June 26, 2014
What an intriguing story!! The twists and turns, and the deep-hearted issues, kept me interested to the end.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews