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Father, I Am Losing My Footing in This Place Beside the Sea
332 pages, Paperback
Published February 19, 2026
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25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 9, 2026
This book comes with an extreme trigger warning from me. Proceed with caution if you decide to read it.
I think that this book is not intended for somewhere between 95-99% of all people who read books. I’m not kidding. I don’t know that I could genuinely suggest it to someone in good conscience.
I am someone who finds meaning in and enjoys dark stories and themes, often finding them to be much more illuminating and engaging than the stuff from the other end of the spectrum. However, this book was dark in a way that tested my limits. What made it worse was that the darkness, while fiction, could have been seen as re-tellings of real world experiences. What an unpleasant experience to read awful sentences knowing that for someone, somewhere, that is reality.
Joshua Porter pulls no punches and asks his readers to stare evil full in the face alongside his MC as he contends with the darkness of the world, the existence of that darkness in his own heart, and the separation that this darkness causes between him and those closest to him in his work as a minister. As a minister myself, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the page. Anxiety filled my heart and mind even as I forced myself to put it down in order to go to sleep. I dreamed about it while I slept. After waking up, I picked it up as soon as I could and finished it. My anxiety climbed steadily, only to find its peak as I turned to the last page and discovered that there would be no way down.
It took me two sittings to finish it and I can already tell that it is “sticky”. I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.
Am I glad I read it? Yes. Did I enjoy it? I have no idea. Will I ever read it again? Maybe? But, there is a large part of me that hopes that I never feel the need to.
I think that this book is not intended for somewhere between 95-99% of all people who read books. I’m not kidding. I don’t know that I could genuinely suggest it to someone in good conscience.
I am someone who finds meaning in and enjoys dark stories and themes, often finding them to be much more illuminating and engaging than the stuff from the other end of the spectrum. However, this book was dark in a way that tested my limits. What made it worse was that the darkness, while fiction, could have been seen as re-tellings of real world experiences. What an unpleasant experience to read awful sentences knowing that for someone, somewhere, that is reality.
Joshua Porter pulls no punches and asks his readers to stare evil full in the face alongside his MC as he contends with the darkness of the world, the existence of that darkness in his own heart, and the separation that this darkness causes between him and those closest to him in his work as a minister. As a minister myself, I couldn’t tear my eyes from the page. Anxiety filled my heart and mind even as I forced myself to put it down in order to go to sleep. I dreamed about it while I slept. After waking up, I picked it up as soon as I could and finished it. My anxiety climbed steadily, only to find its peak as I turned to the last page and discovered that there would be no way down.
It took me two sittings to finish it and I can already tell that it is “sticky”. I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.
Am I glad I read it? Yes. Did I enjoy it? I have no idea. Will I ever read it again? Maybe? But, there is a large part of me that hopes that I never feel the need to.
March 10, 2026
Not for the faint of heart, Porter fearlessly brings the heat in this book, examining faith, fear, evil, the tension of bringing the Gospel to people whose acts you loathe, the tension of giving time to ministry v. family, and the resentment that can bring. There’s just so much going on in this short, punchy book.
March 12, 2026
Don’t read this is you’re in a bad mood and hate the world. I’m a showbread fan so I’m biased but it’s something I probably would have picked up anyway.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews