Book Review: This I Know: Sarah's Confession by Reba Ponder Weiss

Goooooooooooooood evening, folks! I know, rather depressing day to be called good. But I have a new blog post for you all today... This is going to be a review of Reba Ponder Weiss's book called "This I Know: Sarah's Confession"  but first before I begin, I would of course like to pay some homage to the tragedy that befell our shores today, that of Newtown Connecticut.  It's truly a tragic event, and I hope that we can all remember that in the aftermath of this terrible thing. Above all, parents lost their children, and beautiful children lost their lives, and honestly that's what our main focus should be at this point, not anything else.  Now I'll get off my soapbox and step up on another one, for my very first review in this blog!

Now as for This I Know.. The first thing I'd probably like to mention is that it has it's good and bad points, just like any book.  I will be painfully honest, not mincing words, but at the same time, hopefully i can illustrate some of the positive elements to the book as well.     Let me just say that this book is very much a religious themed one. It begins rather innocuously, but very quickly takes you upon a very dark and twisty path that ends in apocalyptic form.  The ending of the book was what i shall call "disturbing" and typically I don't like disturbing books, I'll be honest. I'm a fan of the neat and tidy all-bows-tied in a knot bit.  But it was a thought provoking book.  However, the biggest beef i have with this book is that the author obviously did not hire a professional editor. The writing was in very many places, frankly, pretty choppy and repetitive. I found myself paying attention more to the choppiness of the dialogue and movement of the characters while I was reading....  I think this story could have EXCELLED with a certain audience, IF it had been properly copy and content edited. In the beginning, through the end a lot of times, there were commas where i felt there shouldn't be, and no commas where I felt there should be, and often quotes were placed opposite where they should be for instance, "blahblahblah  "he said.   instead of "blahblahblah," he said.  In the book, the quotation marks were facing the wrong direction as well when the above instances occurred. There were quite a few typos and inconsistencies in terms of ways things were spelled (frantically versus franticly).  I think much much closer attention could have been paid.  There were highlights in terms of the stirring descriptions of some of the processes, things that happened. It was overall inconsistent, sometimes the writing would be great, and I would read through it like I should for a normal book, but other times I found myself playing the "critic" editing as i went, rather than enjoying the story which was sad.

Theme wise, I think this book had very strong opinions and strong perspectives from a Christian point of view, and while I am personally a Baptist in faith, I am also a very liberal, free spirited one, and pushiness in faith don't normally sit well with me. This book obviously had a very strong message, which became much more obvious towards the end.. I think this book might be suited for a church group to read together to discuss the deeper meanings and perspectives that the characters had, perhaps even the symbolism behind some of the characters, notably Suzanne, Lash, Clyde, Sarah, etc so forth, in relating to the Bible and what it teaches.

There were a lot of deeper messages and honestly some very creepy, disturbing parts involving the roles and power shifts and ultimately what happens in the cave...  When I started reading it after the group went into the cave, I was thinking "ugh this is going to turn into the Donner Party type of thing" and yes, it did, but I give the writer great compliments on how she handled it, it was very very tastefully done, but still just disturbing enough for the story line as it stood.

I just realized that I've rambled on about the story and technical things, but haven't detailed the story in brief...  Basically, the story starts with the idyllic planning of a large family for a wedding and quickly descends into a maelstrom of natural disasters akin to Hurricane Sandy and that like.. I found that part pretty disturbing as well because i thought it went rather too in depth, given the recent storm, but i realize this book was probably written much longer ago than that... But still, it just felt a bit overdone, perhaps.  Anyway, Clyde, the ex-husband of the mother of the groom was there, and for a long time he's been viewed as the "kook" in the family, as he claimed to hear the voice of God.  Everyone understandably thinks he's nuts. That is, until the storm comes rolling in, and it becomes quite obvious that they need to take cover, and quickly. And Clyde comes to the rescue, having a cave all preapred for the group and gives some very compelling arguments as to why they should join him. Eventually, they do, and they get there, and there's some very good writing in the scenes up until they enter the cave, including a stampede of animals and some fast thinking on one of the main men's part (a truck rearending the entrance for purpose of getting food out of the truck).  Things begin to eventually turn sour as the group devises a constitution of sorts, according to Clyde's voices, which everything he's said, has come true so far...  they pick leaders, so on and so forth... It really becomes very involved...  but ultimately, things take a turn for the worse...... Whether they get out or not, is for you to find out.    I will say though, while the story was a good one, the writing wasn't that great in places, and the typos really should have been fixed... If the author decides to rerelease, I'd encourage she hire a professional editor, and that would make the book that much WORLDS better.  If you enjoy religious and apocalyptic, dark stories about family and deeper messages about good and evil, you'll like this.  I honestly still can't decide if I liked it... I liked it enough to where I'll recommend it, provided you prepare yourself.. I know I wasn't, but I still enjoyed it, with the distractions of periods of poor writing and typos, but it was overall decently told.  

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments :) :)