Review of Amanda's Story by Brian O'Grady

Brian O'Grady is the newest person to join The Story Plant's growing group of authors. If you have been reading my blog for some time, you are aware that I have been copyediting for The Story Plant for several months now and I have been thoroughly impressed by the quality of the writing coming from this group. These are authors to watch.

I was recently given the opportunity to review Brian's newest book, Amanda's Story. It is the prequel to his best-selling debut novel, Hybrid. I finished reading Amanda's Story in just slightly over one sitting and immediately put Hybrid on my "must read" list! Wow! It reminded me somewhat of one of the few Stephen King books I have read. (He's a great author; I am just not into horror stories.) I won't mention it here because it would give too much of the story away and I don't want to do that. You have to read it for yourself.

The story begins in Pakistan, heads to Honduras, back to a remote location in the U.S. and finally ends up in Colorado Springs, Colorado with a few other stops here and there. Along the way we meet several interesting characters including terrorists, Red Cross workers, detectives, and of course Amanda herself.

The first chapter more than hints at the coming disaster, which is apparently even more completely fleshed out in Hybrid. Believe you me, it makes quite an appearance here though. Anticipating some rather gruesome developments, I was already on edge. We meet Amanda in the next chapter and find a likable but grief-stricken woman. She lost her parents as a child and has recently lost her husband and two-year-old son in a plane crash. One can't help but empathize with her as she tries to navigate her newly empty world.

With help from her in-laws with whom she is very close as well as her aunt, she decides to take a job with the Red Cross and is immediately assigned to go to Honduras after a huge hurricane has devastated the area. This is where the action really ramps up and keeps you on the edge of your seat, ripping through the pages and reading as fast as possible. At this point it is pretty much impossible to put down.

I had several emotions while reading this novel, not all of which were pleasant. Since I have no intention of including any spoilers in my review, I am simply going to tell you how Amanda and her experiences affected me personally. As I watched her grow and change throughout the book, I found myself alternately feeling sorry for her, wanting to hug her, being afraid for her, being scared to death of her, seriously disliking her and finally pulling for her as she had to figure out how to deal with her demons.

After getting a little distance from the book today, I had to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that my visceral reaction to Amanda had a good deal to do with relating to her in a way that I didn't want to admit. If we are honest with ourselves, we all have dark emotions and feelings that we are mostly successful in hiding from others. I too have always been "the good girl," following the rules, doing what was expected of me regardless of how I felt about it. However now that I am in my fifties with the accompanying hormones, I am finding it much harder to keep my mouth shut when I am unhappy about something, to always go along with the status quo if I don't like it, to be the one to give in. I honestly think I liked myself much better before ... I was certainly more pleasant to be around for everyone else. Most of the time, I truly was okay with it too. Confrontation is hard and messy. I don't like hard and messy but I seem to walk right into it now.

What if I could always do what I wanted with impunity? What if there was nothing anyone else could do to stop me? No consequences? Isn't that what we think we want? To always have our own way? Hmmm, maybe not such a good thing after all! Read Amanda's Story and you will understand what I mean.

(I was given a copy of this book by The Story Plant in exchange for my honest review but was not required to give a positive review.)

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty~

I am thankful for my country, where it is still my privilege and right to worship my God openly. That means I have the responsibility to allow others to worship whomever they want to worship as well! That said, I am very concerned about where the country is headed, but I am not surprised. The Bible tells us in II Timothy 4:3 that "... a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear." The Bible is no longer accepted as truth if it doesn't conform to the social "political correctness" of the time. Whatever we don't like is just thrown out or simply disregarded as misinterpreted.
   It is hard for me to comprehend how much things have changed just in my lifetime. Some changes have been very good. I can't comprehend how in the past (and unfortunately some people even today) Christians could think that the color of someone's skin made a difference as to their place in society or in God's family. As our pastor said today, the ground under the cross is level. A person's race, sex or creed has nothing to do with his or her status with God. I wasn't brought up like that and was stunned when I ran across it as an adult. It doesn't make sense, Christian or not, and I am thankful our country has taken a stand on this issue. Racism from anyone is disgusting. However, as much as we strive to be a colorblind country, we haven't arrived yet.
   The church as a whole has made a lot of mistakes in the past, persecuting people for centuries because of this, that or the other. This was never Christ's example or teaching. He warned us not to judge. Just look at the passage in John, chapter 8, verses 3-11 where the Pharisees brought the woman, caught in the very act of adultery, before Jesus, demanding to know whether she should be stoned. Jesus didn't condemn her and made it obvious they couldn't condemn her either because they had sin in their lives too. One pastor I love and respect said he thought when Jesus wrote on the ground, he was writing the secret sins of the men who brought her to him. However, although Jesus loved her and accepted her, when all was said and done he told her to leave her life of sin. He didn't whitewash it and tell her it was okay.
   Nowadays, that isn't good enough. Sin isn't sin anymore... it is a personal choice. Not only is it a personal choice, we have to applaud those choices or else we are called intolerant. Some will tell you that this all boils down to religious freedom. In a way, I suppose that is correct and it is unfortunate. Our country was founded on personal religious freedom, but our laws were based on scripture. Of course we can't and shouldn't have a law to govern every action. The "cradle to grave" mentality has gone far enough already. But if we throw out the truths of the Bible, where else do we get a moral code to base our lives on? If we take away the foundation for our morality, if there is no black and white, it all comes down to "what I want." What's right for me is no business of yours, right? In a sense that is true but no society can hold together if its citizens don't for the most part adhere to a common morality that at its heart protects those who cannot protect themselves. Anyone who is honest with themselves knows that none of us comes from an altruistic mindset. Apart from God, we are all out to get what we want and at the expense of whomever or whatever gets in the way. If I get pregnant and it isn't convenient for my life at the time, our society tells me that I have the right to choose. Choose what? To kill my baby and throw it away. Science and medicine has come too far for anyone to continue to claim that an unborn child is simply a piece of tissue. We know better even if some don't want to admit it. We've all seen the pictures. We know~
   But that is where we have gone as a country and that is only one example. I find it frightening and it breaks my heart. It has been said that Christianity is one generation away from extinction and I see it more clearly now than ever. My father once told me that the older he became, the more he knew how far from God he was and I couldn't understand it at the time. He was a Godly, loving father to me. He was the one who demonstrated the truth of God to my life. However, I get it now. The older I get, the more I recognize my own sin and failures. The more I agonize over my failures as a mother and wonder how far reaching those failures will go. Just last week I spent hours on my bed, crying instead of sleeping. I can only pray that God will take my failures and use them as only He can to make something good.
   I am still thankful to have been born in the United States of America. I pray that President Obama seeks God as he makes decisions that will affect each and every one of us. I know in my heart that he is in that office because God wills it in His providence. And I pray that those of us who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will remember His example and show love and not condemnation to those who don't agree with us politically, philosophically and spiritually. "For God so loved the world ..." It doesn't say "For God so loved Christians ..." We aren't special and "better than." There are lots of good people out there with lots of ideas and ways of life with which I disagree. However, they still deserve my smile, thoughtfulness and consideration, not my scorn and arrogance. I have nothing to be arrogant about. Anything good in me at all comes from God and He is the only One in whom I trust.