I’ve been procrastinating on this review. I really, really wanted to like this book, but in the end, the honest fact is that I struggled to read this book and even once I finished, I never really enjoyed it. However, I am certain that my dislike of it is personal and really shouldn’t be taken into account when judging the book. So how to go about reviewing it?

Let me explain where I’m coming from. First, I read a lot. As in generally a book a day. Secondly, I studied writing and literature all through high school and college. Third, I actually do a fair amount of writing. So when I encounter a book that has no discernible structure, plot, or even central idea, it drives me up the wall. I don’t read books for a scattered handful of short vignettes. I might read a collection of short stories, but even there, the stories tend to be longer than a few paragraphs.

Learning to Love reminded me of when I stumble across an interesting blog and go back to the beginning and read through the post. (And yes, doing that bothers me too.) Very little tied together. Some wasn’t even in chronological order.  Were all the little snippets an interesting look at mission work in Africa? Absolutely! If they had brought them together as a narrative would I have loved the book? Yes! Was there anything about the actual content that bothered me? No!

So I didn’t like the book. But I disliked it for a very personal and probably very petty reason. The structure proved an insurmountable problem for me, but that in no way makes Learning to Love a bad book. Anyone who enjoys missions stories and doesn’t get hung up on things like grammar and structure should really check it out. It just wasn’t for me.

My thanks to Bethany House for providing me a copy of Learning to Love in return for my honest opinion of the book.