The Scarlet Thread

I think like many reviewers of this book, I had mixed feelings.

Ultimately, I think its important to note that you can forgive someone but NOT bring them into your life in the same role they were before. I think the main character should have considered that at some point.

This was a story of a marriage gone wrong, and while the main character, Sierra, was rude and whiny and a brat for way too long she ended up blaming herself for the falling apart of her marriage. While there are great lessons to learn through Sierra's brattiness, I found it appalling that the book did not explore how Alex's manipulation, emotional abuse, desertion of both her and the kids, and his own transgressions could not ALL be explained away as a response to Sierra being “unsupportive.” I think Sierra thought about it all wrong and it pains me to think that she thought her only choice was to a) blame herself ENTIRELY and b) accept Alex back in her life to be a good Christian.

There were a lot of times when I got extremely angry with Alex, it was really painful to read Sierra beating herself up so much.

WHAT MADE IT UNACCEPTABLE WAS: I went through this book thinking that maybe Alex would have a “Come to Jesus” moment and ok then I can (possibly) forgive all of this screw ups and see how he could be “changed.” HOWEVER, when asked about his faith, Alex said he had been a Christian ALL ALONG and when he screwed up he just “walked away from God.”...and it was left at that. The entire explanation of why he acted the way he did was pride and walking away from God. Red. Flag. I understand that Sierra was the main character so we focused more on her character development but it would have helped me more as a reader to understand Alex's.

Anyway...

The story within the story of her ancestor Mary Katherine was interesting but...weird. I didn't really get the point of it and found her conversion and her romantic relationships lacking as well. Her voice always seemed very young and naive and it made it made the romance seem a little creepy at points.

The writing style and overall quality is what made me not rate this any less, not the actual storyline.