Arms of Love

Last night I finished Carmen Marcoux's novel about a young couple's chaste courtship and marriage. I appreciated the couple's devotion to Jesus and their desire to live according to His will; I appreciated that they wanted to save all the physical stuff, even kissing, for their wedding day. I appreciated that their parents were such a big part of their relationship. But there were so many things that made the book itself unrealistic and annoying.

For one thing, the big home-schooling family with eight children... The NEVER fight. No, they do fight, but it's not real. In one part, the mother, in a bad mood, yells at the 16-year-old daughter. The 16-year-old daughter, now in a bad mood as well, turns and yells at the BABY, a darling 4-year-old girl, and says some very hurtful things. I can get in a bad mood when people shout at me, but I would never ever EVER think of telling my almost-four-year old brother that he "looks so stupid." But then when the family makes up, with eloquent apologies, I feel like we're a rotten family. We're a homeschooling family with five kids, and we can't get along like that. So it sort of amazed me that, though the author claimed that they fought as families "sometimes do" (try "often") their arugments in the book seemed so contrived.

The second thing I found annoying was the fact that the author kept repeating herself. I read about three times that "Brandon was a skilled guitar player" and that "Joanie enjoyed working at the station." The adjectives also got on my nerves.

It seemed that the author set out to tell about courtship and chastity and disguise it as a novel, which isn't too bad of an idea, really. But, as I said, though I liked and was even inspired by the messages, the numerous conversions (always happyifying), and the parent-children relationships, it was dissatisfying as literature.