Here's a snippet from that brand new review:
Finding Grace by Laura Pearl
Reviewed by S. Leigh Hall
The theme of Finding Grace, a young adult novel by Laura H. Pearl, is to understand the life of a teenage Catholic girl surviving high school amid the rapidly changing culture and tumultuous conflicts of the 70’s. There is so much to talk about because there is so much to Grace’s story as she strives to live her faith during a time when our society questioned deep moral issues.
The first part of the novel covers 1972, Grace’s freshman year. From the beginning, we learn that Grace Kelly who comes from a traditional Irish family dislikes her name. She finds it humiliating that she is so unlike her namesake, the beautiful actress/princess from the movies. As she discusses the problem with her father, the first issue of the decade is introduced as he demonstrates an aversion to “women’s lib.” His hopes for his daughter’s future include a good marriage or life as a nun.
This topic of discussion isn’t the first conversation of its type, but her father indicates that he believes his daughter is a saint or will be someday, and Grace makes an important decision affecting the rest of her life. Her mission becomes learning all she can about the saints and striving to achieve that goal.
There's the teaser; now if you want to read the entire review, here's the link. (Spoiler alert: there's a passage in there that particularly tickled me, about how the writing style reminds the reviewer a bit of St. Therese's autobiography, The Story of a Soul. AND...I think I can die happy now.)
If you're looking for worthwhile works of modern Catholic fiction, you should check out Catholic Reads. Here's an excerpt from the founders' mission statement, which appears on their website's "About" page:
But we love books and we love reading. So we kept searching.
And we found dozens of hidden worlds, indie authors, small presses, and magazines. Despite the lack of advertising, imagination and art are alive and well in our parishes. We started Catholic Reads with the aim of putting authentic Catholic fiction into people’s hands. We want our nation and our world to have the chance to see what the Church’s imagination has to offer.
Wow, I just love this! And I hope that exposure on this wonderful site will lead more readers to Finding Grace, and that Finding Grace will in turn lead even just one soul closer to Christ.
Okay then, until next time, happy reading!
The theme of Finding Grace, a young adult novel by Laura H. Pearl, is to understand the life of a teenage Catholic girl surviving high school amid the rapidly changing culture and tumultuous conflicts of the 70’s. There is so much to talk about because there is so much to Grace’s story as she strives to live her faith during a time when our society questioned deep moral issues.
This topic of discussion isn’t the first conversation of its type, but her father indicates that he believes his daughter is a saint or will be someday, and Grace makes an important decision affecting the rest of her life. Her mission becomes learning all she can about the saints and striving to achieve that goal.
There's the teaser; now if you want to read the entire review, here's the link. (Spoiler alert: there's a passage in there that particularly tickled me, about how the writing style reminds the reviewer a bit of St. Therese's autobiography, The Story of a Soul. AND...I think I can die happy now.)
If you're looking for worthwhile works of modern Catholic fiction, you should check out Catholic Reads. Here's an excerpt from the founders' mission statement, which appears on their website's "About" page:
Our Mission
We are four readers who got fed up with how hard is to find good Catholic fiction that features authentic Church teaching, themes, and characters. When we did manage to find a good story it was usually something written fifty years ago or in a genre that wasn’t always our favorite.But we love books and we love reading. So we kept searching.
And we found dozens of hidden worlds, indie authors, small presses, and magazines. Despite the lack of advertising, imagination and art are alive and well in our parishes. We started Catholic Reads with the aim of putting authentic Catholic fiction into people’s hands. We want our nation and our world to have the chance to see what the Church’s imagination has to offer.
Wow, I just love this! And I hope that exposure on this wonderful site will lead more readers to Finding Grace, and that Finding Grace will in turn lead even just one soul closer to Christ.
Okay then, until next time, happy reading!
Love the review!!
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