Emotionally Raw and Too Intense: The Christian Fiction Books I Will Never Read Ever Again
Everyone has their limits and I’ve reached mine with these Christian fiction books.
I absolutely love re-reading books. Actually, I don’t think you’ve fully enjoyed a book until you’ve read it twice. Some stories are so comforting and familiar—like a hug to one’s soul. Others are so powerful, so uplifting and raw, that you have to revisit them every few years just to feel their weight again.
In fact, I’m working on a list of books I re-read at least once a year because they’re that good. They’re my absolute go-to’s, no matter the season, no matter the time.
But before I get completely distracted by those, I HAVE to talk about the only two books that have marred me. There’s no other way to describe it. These books were fire, and I burned with them. They burned into me. And they are utterly unforgettable.
They wrecked me. They unsettled me. They made me sit in the pain. And as much as I respect them, I will never pick them up again.
No. 2
Uncharted by Angela Hunt
At the start of this book, you think it’s a survival story. Someone got stranded in the middle of the ocean. And as cliche as those stories are, we all root for the shipwreck survivor.
Man, you can’t be more wrong with this book.
Once you’re over that first surprise, at some point in the story you don’t even know if this is Christian fiction—or even fiction at all. You just don’t know. It grips you. It gets you invested.
And then…
Then, once the plot has taken you up and down, like a sick literary rollercoaster, and you’re about to finally discover what the heavens is going on in here, the final unraveling, the revealing of the biggest mystery, what you’ve been waiting for… BAM! Smacks you right on the face!
And you forget to breathe, to think, to blink, and to speak.
And everything makes sense.
And you look at your life.
And you just wonder.
Could that be me?
And you pray to God in heaven that you’re not one of them.
No. 1
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
[exhales]
I don’t even know how to bring myself to talk about my experience with this book. If you’ve read it, then you know exactly what I mean.
I am deeply disturbed and affected by child abuse of any kind. I just am. And not because of past trauma or anything; I mean, if you aren’t disturbed by the innocence of defenseless children being stripped away by the worst kind of human sin, do you even have a soul?
But here’s the thing, I’ve read other books that touch on that kind of pain, and I’ll gladly read them again. So why is this one different?
Because it forces you to open your eyes, look pain in the face, and sit with it.
Uncomfortably.
For a long time.
It challenges you. It unsettles you. It wrecks you. And the worst part? The blasted book wouldn’t hit this hard if it weren’t so true.
Yes, it ends well. But it never gives you a happy ending that isn’t scarred. There. I said it.
I love happy endings—we all do. But this one never offers a happy ending at the cost of diminishing the wounds that led there.
And that’s why I will never read this book again. I just can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I was fuming. The devil has no pity on anyone and that irates me.
And then the process. The agonizing healing process takes so long. It’s like you can’t escape it. If you want to know how the story ends, you’ve got to go at the pace Francine sets. And oh how she takes her time walking through pain.
Anyone who has walked with someone recovering from an abusive situation—where they keep going back to the very thing that broke them—knows that you don’t just “get better” overnight.
This is one of the most heartbreaking stories I’ve ever read. Yes, I’m glad for the ending. I cried over it. But the pain is too weighty for me to ever turn a blind eye and say, “Oh, but at the end, it all worked out!”
Shut up. Just shut up.
Acknowledge the pain. Acknowledge the wounded. Acknowledge the ones inflicted.
Rejoice when they’re healed. But never, ever, ever diminish the COST of their healing—and what broke them in the first place.
