Shadows of Hope

I'm going to skip the star rating on this one except on NetGalley where it's required. I requested it on NetGalley partly because of the beautiful cover. I knew it was about infidelity but hoped it would be handled well.

Honestly, infidelity on the man's part is a thing that has had a massive impact on my immediate family and a number of my friends. Some have stayed and some have not. However, one thing all these women I know have in common is a sense of guilt over having failed in some way, and at least one encounter with well-meaning (usually) church people who think that by scolding the wife they will save the marriage. Because of that, infidelity is a huge and very touchy subject for me, and I also think it's one of the major failures of the modern American church.

I'm very grateful for a friend's heads-up that this might not be the story I hoped it would be, which saved me a book purchase and several hours of frustration. I was able to flip through it some and read the ending and see that it was definitely not a book I needed to be reading. I have too much baggage from all the friends I have who have been hurt.

One thing that is VERY clear in biblical marriage is that the marriage tie is a picture of Christ and the church. The husband is told to love his wife sacrificially; the wife is told to give her husband brotherly love. Vast difference there. We aren't held to the same standard–the type of love a husband must give is very much harder to give. He is obviously held to a much higher standard in the relationship. And yet the modern church seems to think they can blame the wife for the husband's errors.

The next section contains some big spoilers, so click at your peril.
First, the book is more "shadows" than hope. It's not edifying to have a woman left in the same pit she was in before the story started, and alone to boot. Her faith is mentioned, mentioned as being different, but the explanation of it is short and hazy and not edifying to us, nor does it share the exact state of her beliefs other than to say they are "different."Second, she acknowledges "I failed him just as much as he failed me." NO YOU DIDN'T. You didn't CHEAT on him and sleep with others and break your marriage vows. Their marriage was not her lone responsibility to uphold. He is the head of the household and thus the primary person responsible before God to maintain his marriage. Look at Hosea, for goodness' sake! Read the New Testament and study the different Greek words used for love. Just because the poor baby boy thought he needed some kind of emotional support in his marriage doesn't give him the right to physically break his solemn vow before God. We aren't supposed to expect our marriage partners to do the hard work for us. If he needed emotional help, he needed to hit his knees and find it in God--NOT in the arms of another woman.Third, the book ends on a sad note with no promise of a sequel. I've never been a lover of tragedies.

Thanks to the publisher for a free review copy.