captivating: THE END

That's right -- there is indeed an end to this book. And I did finally manage to get there.

Long and short: From a literary standpoint, I contend it would have made a more effective essay than book-length work. There was a lot of material that was kind of a stretch to tie into the theme at all. At times I wondered if it was just a chance to write about oneself, but that's an incredibly cynical thought so I'm trying to stifle it. But as there's not much of a venue for essays in Christian pop lit, I guess this was what there was.

(It helped in finishing that I found a new fantastic reading spot -- a sunny hill across the street that overlooks a real field and owls are calling back and forth to each other and all that jazz.)

One thing I started to think about toward the end was that the author's preferred rhetorical tools and mine do not line up. Several friends mentioned that they've read the book and loved it, which makes me feel kind of snooty and bad. (So please, don't forget that when you too read it and think it's fantastic.) The authors tend to use pathetic argument (meaning sort of emotion-as-reason arguments, not pathetic as in really bad), whereas I'd personally prefer a logical argument when someone is trying to prove to me that "this is the essence of a woman" and so on. Quite possibly the Eldredges did not write in order to be be argued with, but more to let people think about particular topics in a new way.

Who am I to judge until I've published (and actually written) my own crap.
(I'm well on my way with an extensive vocabulary including the word "crap.")