Recently a friend loaned me three of Francine Rivers’ novels: Redeeming Love, The Last Sin-Eater and The Scarlet Thread. I don’t normally read Christian fiction, but because The Last Sin-Eater was made into a movie with relatively decent reviews, I thought maybe I could give her a try. I like to read the book a movie is based on before I see the movie.
Despite this, however, I picked up Redeeming Love first. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the completely out-of-era romance novel cover. Maybe because it was paperback and the others were hardback. Who knows? I don’t like romance novels as a rule and I’m still unsure why I even cracked opened Redeeming Love, especially with a title like that, let alone continued reading.
The novel follows a young girl as she grows from small child to adult. Her father hated her before she was born and left her and her mother, her father’s mistress, to fend for themselves in a very unwelcoming society. That pain was carried throughout our heroine’s life, as she was sold into child prostitution and into her marriage. The basic story is an adaptation of the book of Hosea, so if you’ve read your Bible you know how it goes.
Francine Rivers is an excellent writer. Truly superb. I dislike romance novels and books that make you feel too much. I like novels where you can identify and relate, but you know it’s a story and you can shut the book and come back later. This isn’t to say I don’t like to read. I love to read, especially fiction, and have the home library to prove it. And I like the feeling of identification with a character, the wanting to have such and such quality or do this or that or go here or there, as described in a book. I like feeling at the end of book the desire to go on, the wish it hadn’t ended so soon. However, I don’t like the compulsion to talk to words on a page or real-life emotion over a fictional event. Much to my frustration I found myself constantly thinking about the story and unable to wait until I could pick the book back up and continue where I left off.
My heart broke for Sarah when she heard her father’s words and witnessed her mother plunging into depression. I wanted to vomit when she was sold at the age of eight. I felt unclean and dirty, bitterness as she worked her trade with boredom as a young woman. I wept for Michael, I clenched my fists for Paul, and felt sick again at the re-appearance of Duke. When the book ended I felt satisfied, glad even.
Even though it went at a rather fast pace, I never felt as though the story was rushed or that I was missing important bits and pieces. Nor did I feel overloaded with insignificant details. Francine Rivers knows her stuff and writes a well-crafted story.
I can’t decide if I want to read more of hers or not, given the emotional drain. I’m sure it will be well worth it if I do.
