Month: August 2022

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The Last Way Home, by Liz Johnson, 2022, Revell (Baker Publishing Group)

A Hockey Player Returns Home

The Last Way Home
The Last Way Home

The Last Way Home tells the story of Eli Ross, an NHL hockey player who returns home to Prince Edward Island after more than a decade away.

It’s complicated. Why had he never returned, even for a visit, before now? I don’t want to spoil it for readers by giving away reasons.

Will his brothers and mother accept him? He doesn’t expect them to, but he has nowhere else to go.

And then there’s Violet Donaghy, a young lady who, he finds, his family has taken under wing as a family member. She’s cold to him, and extremely secretive. Which he can’t blame her for. After all, he’s not telling anyone his own secrets either.

No sooner does he arrive home, than a disaster occurs, and he decides to prove his integrity by pitching in to help. Helping Violet is like trying to help a snarling cat. But he ignores the snarling and persists. You’ll have to read it to see how that goes.

Plot and Writing Style

The plot seems to fit into a Prodigal Son trope. Both Eli and Violet carry a lot of angst resulting from years of hidden guilty feelings.

Despite his unrelenting efforts, Eli seems to be stuck on a train headed for doom. Will he be able to ditch it in the end?

The story is compelling, but it took me reading on a ways before I began to really like it. Revell asked me for an honest review, so here you have it. To be honest, I’m wondering whether authors these days are trying so hard to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’, or to stay in a ‘deep point of view’, that the reader is left feeling a bit boggled at times. For example, instead of simply saying that a character felt anxious, we read that her stomach hit the floor. The first time this happened in the book, it took me a while to figure out whether it was literal or a figure of speech. And that was just the start. Both main characters really had problems with their stomachs dropping, hitting the ground, sinking or twisting.

The Last Way Home causes one to rethink secrets along with Eli and Violet. Is divulging them the best thing to do? Or could it cause more harm than good?

Learn more about the author and her books at LizJohnsonBooks.com.

Read other reviews of The Last Way Home on Goodreads by clicking here.

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Broken but Loved

Broken but Loved

Broken but loved, this ornament is a gift from my son 💙. It represents his love to me. But alas, the tail broke off some time ago. I glued it back on, but later it broke off again. Then it sat in a drawer for several years, until yesterday I got it out and glued it back together again. You can see where it broke, but I put it back out where it can remind me daily of my son who I love.

We are all like this ornamental bird, broken but loved. God our Father and Creator loved each one of us from the beginning. No one is perfect. We’re all broken. But he sent Jesus to redeem us and restore us to himself.

Romans 3:23-24 (The Amplified Bible) says: Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives, all are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is provided in Christ Jesus.

I’m so glad God loves me that much. In spite of my foibles, big mistakes, stupidity, brokenness and shame, he loves me. Jesus has redeemed us, and by faith in him we are restored to a right standing with God.

I wish I could undo the stupid things I’ve done, but I can’t. Yet God loves me anyway. And you too. Broken but loved.

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What the World🌎 Needs Now…

Is Love, Sweet Love

Remember that song 🎵? Today as I read my Bible I was reminded of God’s love, which He has continually blessed us with throughout history. We just need to open our eyes and see it. God opened the eyes of the apostle Paul, who spread the gospel of God’s love to the world.

I [Paul] stand here testifying to small and great alike, asserting nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses declared would come to pass; that the Christ, the Anointed One, must suffer; and that He, by being the first to rise from the dead, would declare and show light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. Acts 26:22-23 (The Amplified Bible)

Paul was making his defense before King Agrippa and the prominent citizens of Damascus. He had been falsely accused by Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus, and wanted to kill Paul.

Paul himself had previously persecuted Christians, until Jesus spoke to him personally one day out of a blinding light.

Jesus appointed him as a witness to both Jews and Gentiles “to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may thus receive forgiveness and release from their sins and a place and portion among those who are consecrated and purified by faith in me.” (verse 18)

The Gospel of God’s Love Keeps Spreading

Paul had been given the astounding privilege of spreading the amazing message of the gospel to the world. Those who tried to kill him only helped further the gospel by giving Paul the opportunity to testify before Roman authorities and prominent people.

This same gospel message still reverberates around the world 🌎–a message we all personally need–to be forgiven and accepted and loved by God. Jesus made it possible–praise God! He turns sinners into saints by making us right with Him. Who wouldn’t want that?

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a complicated kindness, by Miriam Toews, 2004, Vintage Canada (Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto)

A Teenager in a Mennonite Community

a complicated kindness
a complicated kindness

This kindness is definitely complicated! Miriam Toews, in first person narrative, describes the life of a teenage girl in a Canadian Mennonite community.

Please don’t assume all Canadian Mennonite communities are like this one. It’s not at all the same as the small prairie town that my mother grew up in, which is largely composed of Mennonites.

A Bit of History

The Mennonites are a people group with an interesting history. Basically, they are followers of Menno Simons, who, in 1536 broke away from the Catholic church during the Protestant Reformation. He lived in Friesland, an area around the border of Holland and Germany. The Mennonites later migrated to Russia (now Ukraine), and later escaped as refugees to Canada and other parts of North and South America.

Canada has many Mennonite communities, and churches. The different communities have evolved in various ways–some are very strict in resisting change, while others embrace change just like any other Christian group.

The Mouth is a Power-hungry Cultish Leader

a complicated kindness depicts a small prairie community dominated by one cultish leader of their one Mennonite church. This man, who the main character Nomi Nickel calls The Mouth, controls the people of the town. At least so it appears.

The book reads like a diary written by Nomi. We learn from it that although The Mouth manages to control much of what goes on, he cannot control people’s hearts and minds. Rather than this cultish control creating a peaceful community isolated from the rest of the world, it rips apart families and hearts and lives.

I noticed years ago that deception is most effective when mixed with truth. That’s how people get caught up in cults. Lured in by truth and goodness, they find themselves entrapped by power-hungry leaders. The Mouth is this kind of a leader. Please know that not all Mennonite groups or churches have this type of leaders. Menno Simons did not start a cult.

Underneath it all Lies a Complicated Kindness

Nomi, as a teen, realizes and resents the trap she lives in. Her dream is to escape to New York. However, as her teen years progress through the depressing gradual loss of everything meaningful to her, she also realizes the undercurrent of a complicated kindness that also exists here. Maybe she’ll stay after all.

Click on this link to connect to reviews and discussion on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13374.A_Complicated_Kindness?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=kU3AHS20aR&rank=1