Tuesday, July 3, 2012

"Life, In Spite of Me" by Kristen Jane Anderson & Tricia Goyer


Life, In Spite of Me, is the personal memoir of Kristen Anderson. At seventeen-years-old, after a series of traumatic events, Kristen decided to try to end her own life by lying across the train tracks in front of her home. Miraculously, she survived being run over by a train, but lost both of her legs in the process.

In her memoir, Kristen recounts her journey of dealing with the aftermath of her failed suicide attempt, learning to live life without legs, and the way that what began as a tragedy ultimately saved her life by propelling her into a very real and gratifying relationship with God.

Stories like this tend to be my personal favorites. I'm always impressed and humbled when people have the courage to write and share their journeys of hardship with the world. I love reading about how people overcame said struggles and am constantly inspired by the ways that God faithfully shows up in the darkest of times when people are willing to look for Him. Kristen's story is no different. It is powerful and very encouraging. I have seen videos of her speak and she definitely has an incredible story to tell.

That being said, I feel that her book left something to be desired. The writing was dull and I had a very hard time engaging for the majority of the book; focusing more on how many pages were left rather than the story itself. This is partially because of the fact that it was written at a juvenile level. I'm not sure if that was Kristen's intentional target audience or not. Based on the personal "notes" that she placed periodically throughout the book, it seems like she may have been trying to appeal to a younger crowd, but much of the content of her story, such as the piece about being raped or the moderately graphic details of being run over by a train, didn't necessarily seem appropriate for a young age group. I also had trouble engaging because I felt like the written account of her story was simply a superficial narrative of what happened. There was little to no depth to it. It felt like it could have been written by someone who had no more than observed the situation from afar. The book occasionally jumped so far forward in time with no explanation that I felt like I had missed something. The personal notes that Kristen disperses throughout the book between chapters address individuals who may be struggling with depression, suicidal thoughts, etc, which, according to the author, consist of "things I wish I had known, things I wish someone had told me back then." I understand the concept, but the notes seemed very random and redundant. They were also a bit of an interruption, never flowing well with the chapters they followed. I think it would have been more effective to combine them into one (they all said virtually the same thing anyway) and put it at the beginning or end of the book.

Kristen's story itself is beautiful and inspiring. However, her book does not do it justice and I would highly recommend viewing it on YouTube instead. Check out this short summary video if you're interested in her story.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

My rating: 2.5/5 stars

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