Eat Pray Love

Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

I admit it. Like the rest of humanity, I became interested in this book once I found out it was going to become a movie. I haven't actually seen the movie and am not sure whether I ever intend to do so, but I did enjoy the book.

This book chronicles Elizabeth's journey as she takes a Sabbath year to rediscover herself. Having finished a rather nasty divorce and unsure what she wants or needs in life, she chooses to spend four months each in three different countries: Italy, India, and Indonesia. She wants to experience how people in these cultures handle pleasure, devotion, and balance, respectively.

I will admit that I enjoyed Gilbert's story. She has a very easy voice to follow and her writing style is both entertaining and thought-provoking, a combination that I admire greatly. I did not approach this book with the same level of eagerness I show to novels or more suspenseful books; this book easily became the one I brought with me to work in hopes of reading a few pages during my lunch break. Nevertheless, it was easy enough to follow the story that way.

To my former students who are reading this post: approach this book with caution. Gilbert never claims to be a believer, and she has some interesting opinions about the big questions in life. I support her right to have her own opinions and even to publish them, but please do not believe everything that you see in print must be true. Read the book, enjoy the lessons she learned, but remember to approach everything through a filter of Scripture.

The Riddle

Croggon, Alison. The Riddle. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2004.

This sequel to The Naming is also absolutely excellent. I don't generally enjoy super-thick novels with multiple sequels, mainly because the stories often sound so very similar to each other that it's like reading the same book with a slightly different setting. This series, however, is much more Tolkein-esque and plotted and planned to be true sequel. I enjoyed this book all the way to the end and am excited to start the next book and continue following Maerad's journey to find the split song. If you haven't read The Naming yet, start with that one, but then read this book as well.

Triumph

Jessop, Carolyn. Triumph: Life After the Cult. New York: Random House, 2010.

Carolyn Jessop grew up in the FLDS (Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints) cult, a subset of the Mormon faith that still practices polygamy. When her oldest daughter was fourteen and about to be forced into a marriage with a much older man, Carolyn chose to flee the cult. Not only did she escape the cult, but she also rescued her children and gained sole custody of them. The story of her flight from the FLDS is chronicled in her book Escape.

Triumph tells the next chapter of the story. Acting on a phone tip, the police in Texas raided a large FLDS compound and removed over four hundred children on the grounds that these children had been abused. Jessop was involved in helping the relief workers to understand the FLDS mindset as well as petitioning that these children not be returned to life in the cult.

I did enjoy this book, but not as much, I think, as I would have enjoyed Escape. Tales of court battles and television interviews are not so interesting to me as what actually happened with the children when they were yanked from the only life they had ever known. I was also interested in learning more about Jessop's own children and how they handled the transition to what most of us would call a "normal" life.

In any case, this book was interesting. It is definitely worth checking out of the library.

The Naming

Croggon, Alison. The Naming. Cambridge: Candlewick Press, 2005.

Maerad has only known the life of a slave. When she was very young, her father was murdered, her brother was kidnapped, and she and her mother were sold as slaves. Later, when her mother dies, Maerad feels completely alone.

Cadvan is a Bard whose chance meeting with Maerad will change her life forever. She is destined for far greater things than her life of servitude. But is she brave enough to face the dangers that her future holds?

I really, really liked this story. The descriptions and details are wonderful, I enjoyed the plot and the characters, and I was easily lost inside this story as I read "just one more chapter" to find out what happened next. I especially enjoyed the fact that this Tolkien-esque tale was only the first in a series of four books, so I am now able to read the second book and continue with Maerad's adventures. This one is definitely worth it, folks.

The Wrong Way Home

Deikman, Arthur. The Wrong Way Home: Uncovering Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society. Beacon Press, 1994.

It is entirely possible for perfectly intelligent, well-meaning people to be sucked into cults unawares, and it is very, very difficult for those same people to escape and nearly impossible to escape unharmed. This book explores the patterns of cult behavior we can see in American society and how and why well-intentioned people can be deluded by what the cult promises. I found this book to be rather dry and clinical, but an interesting read nonetheless.