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Darkness Overturned
Abuse and women have gone hand in hand from the beginning of recorded history. Darkness Overturned is a beautifully written, heart-stopping story about a young woman in modern times struggling to break free of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse, and the resulting ravages on her inner being. A spiritual odyssey, it is a story about kidnapping, murder, and too many marriages. Startlingly poignant, with a raw self-honesty, persistent courage, and child-like faith in God, it is a must-read for women who have survived abuse and are in the process of healing from it, or anyone who cares about or has someone in their life who is struggling to overcome personal trauma. Darkness Overturned is a hope-filled book that will challenge and inspire the reader. Reading this book may change your life. It may give you courage to move beyond the circumstances in which you feel you are trapped-and that is never easy.
212 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2007
226 people want to read
About the author
EsthersChild
4 books22 followersEsthersChild is an award-winning author who won an Angel Award in 1990 for her first book, Light Through the Dark Glass (Pacific Press Publishing Association). Republished under the title, Darkness Overturned (Wheatmark, Inc.), it’s her autobiography about kidnapping, murder, and too many marriages.
Born in the Pacific Northwest, EsthersChild has been writing stories and poems all her life. Her stories appeared in high school publications and her poetry was read at numerous celebrations. Her writing career has encompassed such varied assignments as scriptwriting part of the 1990 video series, ChildCrafting, for the television program, The Quiet Hour. Her story, Healing Art, found a spot in the February 1992 Reader's Digest Heroes For Today. She now claims Northern California as her home where she wrote a newspaper column, Sixty Something, for the St. Helena Star from 2008 - 2009.
Her book, It Takes A Cat, is a tribute to her beloved Calico, a rescued kitty. This colorful volume, filled with photos, is a collection of blogs written over a period of three years. Some pages are verbatim though most have been reworked for clarity and coherence. She says that writing a blog is a relaxed endeavor; writing a book calls for greater diligence. It's like the difference between a paper napkin and linen.
In her most recent book, Before the Bow Breaks, she shares her journey through the grief and loss of her daughter, an alcoholic. She says she wrote the book to give her daughter a chance to tell her story, to speak for herself. Who among us shall judge? Who among us can discern the legitimacy, the transparency, of a wounded heart bound with pain? Though Cassie succumbed to her afflictions, she continues to illuminate her mother's heart with her relentless courage.
Born in the Pacific Northwest, EsthersChild has been writing stories and poems all her life. Her stories appeared in high school publications and her poetry was read at numerous celebrations. Her writing career has encompassed such varied assignments as scriptwriting part of the 1990 video series, ChildCrafting, for the television program, The Quiet Hour. Her story, Healing Art, found a spot in the February 1992 Reader's Digest Heroes For Today. She now claims Northern California as her home where she wrote a newspaper column, Sixty Something, for the St. Helena Star from 2008 - 2009.
Her book, It Takes A Cat, is a tribute to her beloved Calico, a rescued kitty. This colorful volume, filled with photos, is a collection of blogs written over a period of three years. Some pages are verbatim though most have been reworked for clarity and coherence. She says that writing a blog is a relaxed endeavor; writing a book calls for greater diligence. It's like the difference between a paper napkin and linen.
In her most recent book, Before the Bow Breaks, she shares her journey through the grief and loss of her daughter, an alcoholic. She says she wrote the book to give her daughter a chance to tell her story, to speak for herself. Who among us shall judge? Who among us can discern the legitimacy, the transparency, of a wounded heart bound with pain? Though Cassie succumbed to her afflictions, she continues to illuminate her mother's heart with her relentless courage.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 8, 2017
I received a copy of this book through Goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
This book just wasn't for me. There is no doubt that EsthersChild (Patricia Struntz) had a very hard life and overcame so much. She is a very strong person and I am glad that her faith in God was able to help her in her battle with abuse and other struggles.
However, I do not particularly like her writing. It was very simplistic with not that much insight. The story was interesting enough, but the writing just did not do it justice. I did like some of the metaphors she used such as the pottery example, but the rest of the writing was sub par.
I also found the name changes annoying. It is common in memoirs to change people's names, however instead of using actual names, Struntz chose to use weird nicknames such as GirlChild, BoySon, and Youngest for her own children. I personally think that one's own children deserve better, more creative names in one's own book. But that's just my preference. And some of the other nicknames seem to write off the character completely such as Crony and Heavy.
The writing is also a bit ignorant. It is homophobic without even addressing the homophobia. There is no discussion about it or learning about actual gay people. This was disappointing to me. I was also disappointed by how Struntz addressed autism spectrum disorders. In the book, there is a character with autism (I think, she's kind of unclear about it and doesn't really go into many details). Instead of trying to understand autism and the person involved, Struntz just writes him off as "simple" and is done with it.
I actually think that my favorite part of the book was the epilogue, which was written 19 years after Struntz originally wrote the book. This section seemed predictably more mature, but I related to it much more than the rest of the book. The actual book comes off as ignorant, immature, and doesn't really look at other's perspectives in the story, which did not pull me in.
This book just wasn't for me. There is no doubt that EsthersChild (Patricia Struntz) had a very hard life and overcame so much. She is a very strong person and I am glad that her faith in God was able to help her in her battle with abuse and other struggles.
However, I do not particularly like her writing. It was very simplistic with not that much insight. The story was interesting enough, but the writing just did not do it justice. I did like some of the metaphors she used such as the pottery example, but the rest of the writing was sub par.
I also found the name changes annoying. It is common in memoirs to change people's names, however instead of using actual names, Struntz chose to use weird nicknames such as GirlChild, BoySon, and Youngest for her own children. I personally think that one's own children deserve better, more creative names in one's own book. But that's just my preference. And some of the other nicknames seem to write off the character completely such as Crony and Heavy.
The writing is also a bit ignorant. It is homophobic without even addressing the homophobia. There is no discussion about it or learning about actual gay people. This was disappointing to me. I was also disappointed by how Struntz addressed autism spectrum disorders. In the book, there is a character with autism (I think, she's kind of unclear about it and doesn't really go into many details). Instead of trying to understand autism and the person involved, Struntz just writes him off as "simple" and is done with it.
I actually think that my favorite part of the book was the epilogue, which was written 19 years after Struntz originally wrote the book. This section seemed predictably more mature, but I related to it much more than the rest of the book. The actual book comes off as ignorant, immature, and doesn't really look at other's perspectives in the story, which did not pull me in.
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December 31, 2016Deep, emotional journey; tears at your heart as you read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews