☆2
This book is laughably bad but has- some charm?
Elizabeth Gail is a girl who lives in- some rural area and she's a foster kid. I enjoyed the depiction of foster kids and how they're bullied, it's important for kids to learn basic empathy and seeing a main character going through struggles because of their situations helps with that.
I'm just going to say this right now I had NO IDEA this was a Christian book. They mentioned God and I was like "huh.. ok" and then they hammered home the Christian book by mentioning God or Jesus over and over and over again.
Yes you can write good stories about God without the story centering around specifically God but this is NOT the way to do this.
Of course it couldn't be Christian media without a conversion and there are multiple honestly laughable conversions in this book. They had the chance to make some nice conversions that actually make sense but instead chose to depict not one but two characters completely changing their world view within MINUTES it's insane and just overall bad writing?
It's like the author didn't feel like putting time into some Apologetics for young kids so she just had the characters say "Jesus loves you" and thats all they need.
You think I'm exaggerating but no Elizabeth or other characters are like "but Jesus" and the converted character is like "understandable, I'm a Christian"
I laughed out loud at so many points in this book, honestly it felt like a parody except they were being serious.
Don't get me wrong there were some nice moments of Christianity where Elizabeth and her foster parents prayed with her and Elizabeth just enjoying her faith but everything else just felt like too much.
One character, Adam, spends the entire book being miserable and not believing in God while Elizabeth and her grandmother talk about God NONSTOP in front of him. He's not a Christian throughout 80% of the book and then deus ex machina Ben comes out of nowhere and is like "I need to talk to Adam" they have quote unquote; "a long conversation" and Adam comes out as a bland washed version of himself repeating lines you'd find painted on the walls of a chic Fila.
"Ben talked to me and now I've accepted christ as my savior" WHAT
HE ACTS LIKE HES NEVER HEARD OF JESUS BEFORE LIKE WHAT IS THIS??
If I wasn't a Christian and read this book, I'd continue to not be a Christian because as soon as a character with any kind of personality converts they lose all their personality.
The great thing about conversion story's is that everyone's is different, God reaches them in their own way. But with this everyone is just like "Jesus loves me? Woah that's novel time to change the worldview I've held for 10+ years"
It's just lazy
Besides the lazy Christian writing there's even more lazy writing, like, Grandma's dogs name is lapdog and the teddy bear that makes up the whole plot is just called teddy. You couldn't think of some names???
Also who invites people inside for bananas and milk??
And Bob dupont if you're trying to make someone feel like you're not a creep, NEVER SAY " Hey, you don't have to be afraid of me. I don't hurt little girls" (<- that's an exact quote)
I don't understand how this book ISNT a parody
☆2 ▪︎ 124 pg