Francine Rivers

I KNEW I would hate this book just from reading the summary and the fact that Francine Rivers wrote it, but I just had to read it. This has been on my TBR list for a few years now and I finally had to subject myself to this trainwreck because I freely admit that I am a rubbernecker.

I do not like Francine Rivers as an author because despite loving the historical research and details she puts in her novels (the Mark of the Lion series, for example. 1st-century Roman life is presented to the show more reader in amazing detail) she gets heavy-handed with the preaching. Not only that, but she also pushes toxic feminity (submitting to the man, submitting to the pastor, other male lead figures) and this causes the women in her books to make some really bone-headed decisions.

Like, for example, in this book, Dynah is raped, and then when she is taken to the hospital, she refuses estrogen therapy (this book was written in the 90's, so today it'd likely be referred to as Plan B) and refers to it as an abortifacient. Mind you, she'd been raped only a few hours earlier, and pregnancy does not occur until the fertilized egg is implanted into the uterine wall, so a woman does not actually become pregnant until about 5-15 days after sex. But the author is so staunch in her Christian/pro-life beliefs that plan B is the devil's work. This is one of the reasons I gave this book 1 star.

I'm thinking to myself, oh my god, Dynah, you fucking dumb cunt. If you'd just agreed to take the pills, then you wouldn't have had to deal with all the bullshit and grief that would happen eventually in the book.

Another thing that really bothered me was how near the beginning of the book, Dynah is thanking God for everything in her life, and then after the rape happens, she asks God if she did anyhing to deserve being raped. I mean that in itself is a normal line of reasoning for a religious person to ask after a traumatic event, but this kind of thing is one of the reasons I became an atheist.

If a god truly is a loving one, then he would not allow women to be raped, among other awful things that happen in the world. But in the mind of the author, everything happens for a reason, including the sexual assault of a woman, the unwanted pregnancy that follows, and all the sadness and psychlogical trauma involved.

The title itself pisses me off too. 'Atonement Child' somehow feels like the child was foisted onto Dynah as punishment. Punishment for what? Having the nerve to walk part of the way home (to the dorm) at night after work?

I'd love to see a novel where Francine Rivers just focuses on historical research and writing a good story instead of shoving her beliefs down readers' throats or trying to convince us that a god that allows awful things to happen "has a plan", because that is a theme/message I've read in all her other books that I've read. show less

By default nothing I say hasn't been said by the vast majority of people who review this book and get overshadowed by perfect five star ones who gloss over it.

Angel/Mara/Tirzah/Amanda/Mandy/Sarah. This is your first red flag. Our main character has her name constantly changed by her kidnapper who will become her husband.

I don't think that I even need to tell you how in any other story having your identity forcefully changed by your kidnapper is wrong and a form of gaslighting and abuse. Or show more were this a horror story, we'd immediately know to hate him as he's the villain. Well, I might have to elaborate on the names.

Angel is her name as she works in the strip clubs and whore houses, which she has done since she was a small child. The whole time it's in her POV it doesn't matter she's being called Angel/Mara/Tirzah/Amanda/Mandy/Sarah, because she is calling herself Angel the whole book and it's mostly her POV.

Mara means bitter and is an insult. It's her name until iirc Michael(kidnapper)'s brother Paul rapes her as payment for a ride to escape her kidnap. I believe she is Tirzah afterward on and off as a form of punishment. Then Angel ends up in a lot of bad situations and while laying delusional in a ditch Michael asks her to marry him and she says "why not?".

This leads to they're "married" and she is now Amanda. Or Mandy. Depends on what people call her. She's forced into feeling bad she cannot bare kids due to her pimp performing a surgery to sterilize her(don't worry, God "fixes" her, sorry to infertile people because yes, it's offensive as hell). So everyone can have kids but her and she's guilted and lead to believe she's less of a woman because she can't give Michael kids.

Rushing the rest... A young girl FRESHLY sixteen sounds like a better match for the adult Michael so Angel shoves them together and bails. She finds God and he names Angel Sarah and she returns home. Paul the rapist is bemoaning his pedophiliac urges and talking about how wrong it is and how young the child is and then Angel tells the child to force Paul to take what he wants. So you get Sarah and Michael together and a scene of a barely sixteen-year-old girl cornering a man naked as he screams about how sick he is and how wrong this is.

So the rapist gets with a child and we get God curing Angel of her infertility and a very wordy epilogue of how Sarah had a ton of kids just like the Sarah in the bible.

So much kidnap, coercion, rape, sex worker shaming, and pedophilia.

I'm not overtly religious and this all is a massive nope and red flag to not give this to kids or ever support this. But I suppose people somehow rationalize that stuff weirdly.

Tons of content warnings and trigger warnings to be had. Would not recommend it. show less

"When Sierra discovers her young ancestor's handcrafted quilt and reads her journal, she finds that their lives are very similar. By following her ancestor's example, she learns to surrender to God's sovereignty and unconditional love."

I should have taken the last sentence of that synopsis as a red flag, but when I had the chance to read this book after coming across it in a Little Free Library, I just couldn't pass it up because I love historical fiction, and regardless of whatever issues I show more have with the author's stories, her historical research and description are lovely.

I should have known. After reading Redeeming Love by the same author and being disappointed at the contrived, shoved-down-your-throat Christian message amidst people making shitty choices, I hoped this might be better. It was not. Apparently God just wants women to be doormats, because the husband walks all over his poor wife, uproots the family, cheats on her, etc etc etc, yet she's supposed to be in the wrong for being angry. God apparently just wants her to forgive everything he put her through. Turn the other cheek and all that shit.

GOD FUCKING DAMN THIS SHIT. HELL TO THE NO.

There are some situations and instances where sure, forgiveness can/should be asked for, and deserved/earned, but there are some situations where it is absolutely justified to be angry and withhold forgiveness, especially when the transgressor continues to make shitty choices. FGSFDS. show less

I have mixed feelings about this book. As far as historical fiction goes, the author did well in illustrating life in 19th-century America, in both the slums of the city, as well as out in the frontier. As a history buff, I love when an author researches her settings well, so that's why I gave this book an extra star.

This is not the first Francine Rivers book I've read (I read the Voice in the Wind trilogy) and I have to say that despite the research and historical details, I found the show more religious aspect to be just nauseating. I will admit, I am an atheist, but I CAN enjoy a Christian novel, as long as it's coherent and the religious aspect makes sense to people other than uber-Christians.

Yes, there's a reason I used the word uber. The religious aspect of this book came across as really preachy and cloying, which would be appealing to people very, very strong in the Christian faith (which is doubtless Francine River's target audience) but it lacks broader appeal because of the inconsistency of God.

God speaks clearly to Hosea, giving him commands regarding Angel. So Jehovah deems fit to speak directly to some people, but not others, who are even more in need of help (like all the other girls forced into prostitution and die from it) If Jehovah really exists, I find his help to be very inconsistent.

He is also silent at times when Hosea directly beseeches him for aid, and I was also frustrated with Angel's repeated attempts to run. It was one thing to want to get her earnings (I thought Hosea was an idiot to try to stop her from doing so, especially after all the gold he threw away on visiting her in the first place) but the other times were just sheer idiocy.

I would have enjoyed this book more if not for Angel's rank stubbornness, and Jehovah's finickiness in helping people who legit need help. I know this is not what Francine Rivers intended, but this book actually highlights some of the issues that non-Christians have with the Christian religion. show less