Author: Karen Kingsbury
Series: Redemption Series (#1)
Publication: September 4th, 2009
Source: Local Library
Rating: 1/5 stars
Summary (From Goodreads):
When Kari Baxter Jacobs finds out that her husband is involved in an adulterous relationship and wants a divorce, she decides she will love him and remain faithful to her marriage at all costs. This book shows how God can redeem seemingly hopeless relationships, and it illustrates one of Gary Smalley's key messages: Love is a decision.
"Redemption" is the first book in the five-book Redemption series that Gary and Karen will write about the Baxter family-their fears and desires, their strengths and weaknesses, their losses and victories. Each book will explore key relationship themes as well as the larger theme of redemption, both in characters' spiritual lives and in their relationships. Each book includes study questions for individual and small-group use as well as a "teaser" chapter of the next book in the series.
My Thoughts:
Before I start off this review I just want to say I have nothing against Christian Fiction. I read the entire Love Comes Softly series and its companion series and loved them. They were Christian Fiction, but since I have finished the Canadian West Series a number of years ago I haven't touched Christian Fiction until Redemption. I want to apologize to anybody who enjoyed Redemption. I just couldn't get into it. Two of my friends recommend Redemption to me and I thought oh this one should be good since it kind of sounded like Janette Oke's books. I was thoroughly disappointed by this book if you can not tell by the low rating. Let's talk about the characters. Kari was the main character of the first novel. Her husband Tim Jacobs cheated on her. I like my female character to be strong, independent woman much like Kari's sister Ashley. Kari was none of those things. She was a woman who sits and waits and doesn't do anything to change her future. I just went through the whole book thinking how dumb Kari was. We live in the 21st century for crying out loud stand up for yourself. Then there was Tim I didn't like him from the start. Not only is he a cheating jerk. He is a cheating jerk who believes his wife will still be there when he is done having an affair with the other woman. Kari being a weak woman allows him to walk all over her. Then there was Ryan Taylor. I did like this character. I actually looked forward to the parts of the book where Ryan's character was in the book because he had a personality. Ryan was Kari's long lost love. The whole thing kind of made me sick. Kari is thirty years old she should have made up her mind that she was done with Ryan and Ryan shouldn't still be waiting around for Kari to want to be with him. It just felt like their were teenagers instead of adults. Besides the characters being a washout many aspects of this story were a washout also. The aspects of the story were aspects I have seen played out in so many novels that it was almost predictable and I hate when I predict the ending with books. I didn't really care about the characters so by the time some real action happened I was fed up with the book. I had to force myself to read this book and I hate when I have to do that. I skimmed probably the last 100 pages and skipped pages. Overall I didn't find a lot of positive things to say about this book because I did not enjoy it. I read an article just today about Bad Books happening to Good People and it explained exactly what I have been going through as I forced myself to finish Redemption.
Overall I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody. Both of my friends gave this book and this series such high praise and to tell you the truth I can't see the reason. It goes without saying I will not be continuing the Redemption series ever.
Rachael
I loved this book. I respect the character of Kari, she followed hed heart. She planned to stay married and forgive. Women actually have the strength to trust God in this.
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