Genre: Romance, life
Series: Daughters of Boston
Number in series: 1st
My rating on a 1-10 scale: 9 high
Type: Fiction
Number of pages: 477
Time period: early 1900s
Publisher and price: Revell, $14.99
My overall opinion: Wow. What a book. I had to sit and take a few deep breaths to get my thoughts in order for this review! :) First of all, it was really cool to have a Charity in a book as a main character. She actually stars in the next book (review coming soon), but she was pretty important in this one too. Albeit she wasn’t a likable character here…but her name made up for it (my name is uncommon…finding someone who shares it is awesome). There were SO many intricacies in here that it was mind-boggling in a still understandable way. Faith, the main heroine, is absolutely lovely. And I love their parents, Patrick and Marcy. There were a couple passages in here that I especially identified with – for example, Patrick (the father) once says “Charity, your mother and I love you very much…and it’s because we love you that we are so strict regarding, well, certain things.” (pg 36) I’m pretty sure that’s a direct quote from my parents, name and all! Faith and I are alike in some ways – we both bottle a lot of stuff up and don’t confide easily or quickly in hardly anyone. I love having a heroine I can identify with. All in all, this was a great book, well-written – I love Julie Lessman! It is certainly passionate, more-so than much Christian fiction, so keep that in mind if you decide to read it. Other than that, all I can say is that it was amazing and very good!
10 comments:
Only a couple of weeks ago I read the first half of this book and skimmed the last half. Honestly, I didn't like it at all! Lessman's writing style is really great. Her character development and dialogue are both good. But the actual story drove me nuts. I didn't think the "passion" was "pure" either.
Love love love Julie's writing! Check out Julie's blog and read about her take on passion. It is excellent and very Christ-centered. Love all of her books and think they have great messages for all of us. Especially since not everyone comes from the same background and all of us need redeeming which is the main theme running through all of her stories. Great review Charity!
Oh, Charity, love, Love, LOVE this review, you sweet thing -- thank you SO much for even bothering to read it in the first place, my friend. Let me know all the places you post this, and I will enter you in my contest, okay?
Hugs!!
Julie
Hey, Jennifer, thank you for your gracious comment about my writing style -- I really appreciate that, especially in light of the fact that you didn't care for the actual book.
I will be the first to admit that my books are NOT for everyone, and I know that. As Julie Graves beautifully pointed out in the comment above, "not everyone comes from the same background and all of us need redeeming."
I tend to be a CDQ -- caffeinated drama queen -- so I like a lot of drama and angst in my books, which does drive some people crazy, I know.
But as far as the passion goes, my tagline is "passion with a purpose," which means I write this way with a specific purpose in mind. And rather than go into that in detail here, I hope you don't mind if I give you a link to a post I wrote that explains exactly why I write the way that I do. If you're interested, I hope you read it so you can see where my heart is and where I am coming from as a redeemed "wild child of the 70s" before I came to Christ.
God bless you for your honesty, and please don't ever change -- we need more honest people in this world, even if what they have to say isn't always what we want to hear. :)
Hugs,
Julie
Whoops ... here's the link I meant to attach. See what happens when you get old??!! :)
LIFE ON THE EDGE
HUGS,
Julie
Mmm ... let's try that again, and if the hyperlink doesn't work, then just copy and paste the following link, okay?
LIFE ON THE EDGE
http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2009/05/life-on-edge.html
Hugs,
Julie
Great review Charity! I just finished rereading this book-I absolutely love it and all the rest of the O'Conner books!
I love finding books with characters that have the same name as me! I've found a few with my actual name Abigail but I don't think I've read one with Abbi spelled the way I do!
Julie Lessman, you are so sweet. I read your post and understand better where you are coming from. I definitely see Christian fiction/romance lacking "realness," if that's even a word. A Passion Most Pure is realistic, and I do like how it shows real emotions and thought processes. (Instead of the everyone's life is perfect and no one struggles with anything type of story.) Thank you for your comment and your understanding!
Julie G. and Abbi H ... I failed to thank you both before for your incredible support -- I SO appreciate you and I covet your prayers.
Jenn, thank you SO much for even taking the time to read my Seeker post -- honestly, if all the people who didn't like my book were as gracious and kind as you, I would be a happy author. Unfortunately, they're not, which is why I appreciate YOUR comments all the more. I hope I can win you over one day, at least with my two "sweetest" books, which are A Light in the Window" (although that's the prequel love story of Marcy and Patrick O'Connor, and it's a love triangle), so maybe the best one for you to read is my newest, Dare to Love Again, which almost has NO kisses in it -- an oddity in itself for one of my novels! ;) But the rest are more like APMP, so you probably want to steer clear. ;) BUT ... if you do read ALITW or DTLA and actually like them, DO let me know, and I will give you extra points in my contest just because I was able to change your mind. ;)
But if not, I'm glad we can still be friends. :)
Hugs!!
Julie
AHHHHHHHH I LOVE Julie's books!!!!! A Passion Most Pure has to be my favorite, but any book written by Julie I HAVE to read!!!! Yes her books are more passionate, but I love how they show the importance of waiting for marriage. And Faith? She's AWESOME!!! But so real in the struggles she went through with Collin!!!
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