2019 is turning into the year of odd reads.
This past week, I was working on organizing my library. It was a massive job, and I think a good post for another time once I get the mess of pictures of the process organized.
In my cleaning out, I came across a lot of books I kept from my childhood. Not my beloved Babysitter Club books - those I gave to my younger sister when she was little. But other ones, ones that made it through the last few moves, those ones I went through and, bittersweetly, said goodbye too.
I also got a little distracted in my sorting and skimmed through a couple books. One, though, I actually read.
That is the subject of today's book review.
Janette Oke is a Canadian inspirational author, which is I suppose the technical term for writers of Christian fiction. Love Comes Softly was her first book, and, like many others, it takes place in a pioneer time, focusing on a female protagonist. In this case, Marty.
Martha, or Marty, is left a young widow when her husband died as soon as they arrived at their new land "out west". On the day of his funeral, Clark Davis proposes that she marries him. It is a pragmatic arrangement; she is alone and unable to go back home to her family, and unable to stay on her own without her husband. He is also a widower, left alone with his young daughter. He only wants a mother for young Missy. Without much choice, she agrees, and throws herself into her new role of "Mama". She struggles, but is determined to do right by Clark, who is a kind, strong, patient man, and the little girl she comes to love. Pregnant from her first husband, when Marty gives birth, her new son further cements her role in this new family. But Clark promised her that he would pay for her fare back home if she was unhappy, and if she took the kids with her. The question of whether she should stay or go starts to creep up on her as time passes.
It's a sweet story, if contrived. But then again, it is geared at YA Christian readers. The details regarding pioneering life are interesting, though romanticized, of course, but that is to be expected in a book like this.
The idea of the story is evident in the title; sometimes love wallops you over the head. That is the butterflies-in-your-stomach feeling, the flushed cheeks, the overwhelming feelings. Other times, it comes softly, quietly, until you are in the middle of love before you realized you had ever begun.
That's the premise of the story, and I like that idea. There is a series of films based on the series of books, so if you enjoy that, check them out. I personally haven't seen them, so can't speak to them.
I really liked Janette Oke in my young days. It's lost its charm for me, now, but if you like really wholesome, happy-ending type stories, maybe this is something that might speak to you.
At any rate, it was nice to read something I enjoyed as a child, and bittersweet to put it aside. I've simply outgrown it; I'm a different person than I was when I drank up those stories. But it helped develop my love of historical fiction, and ingrained into me a "homesteading" set of values, of hard work equaling reward. But other things just don't mean things to me anymore, and I look for more complicated, realistic stories. But I hope it brings someone else as many fond smiles as it once brought me.
Revisiting it, now, was just okay. Bittersweet, but okay.
Have you ever revisited an old book that you once enjoyed, but outgrew? What was your experience with it?
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