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shaybooks's review
5.0
Let go and Let God !!
To Live Again really ministered to me about letting go and letting God handle all things. Even though this is easier said then done we all need to practice this. I really enjoyed this story between Itohan and Osaro. These characters were well developed and made you fall right in love with them. This story dealt with a lot of relatable issues such as revenge, forgiveness, betrayal , family disappointment, true love and seeking God. Great Job on this book there is something for everyone in this story.
To Live Again really ministered to me about letting go and letting God handle all things. Even though this is easier said then done we all need to practice this. I really enjoyed this story between Itohan and Osaro. These characters were well developed and made you fall right in love with them. This story dealt with a lot of relatable issues such as revenge, forgiveness, betrayal , family disappointment, true love and seeking God. Great Job on this book there is something for everyone in this story.
shannanh's review
5.0
This was one of the best Christian Fiction Reads to date this year. Not only did I love the relationship between Itohan and Osaro, but also the secondary characters Tex and Isoken ( I can't wait to read their story in the next book). What I really loved is that it showed that we can't rush other's road to salvation. All we can do is plant the seed and hope it takes root, and allow God to do what he does. Phenomenal job.
mwright0814's review
5.0
The love story between Itohan and Osaro is a beautiful woven story of a broken hearted soul who never wants to feel that betrayal and pain again and loses faith in all she believes including God and a man who set his sights on her and turned her pain around. It is a story of forgiveness and sticking it out even through the difficul t times. I loved this story.
Thank you for your review.
Thank you for your review.
now_booking's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
In 2021, one of my goals was to read more Christian Fiction. Ideally, I would love for this exploration to include characters and stories that are underrepresented in this genre- stories that star black people written by black authors for example, or stories that feature people of other ethnicities, stories from around the world. For this reason, I was excited to check out this new-to-me Nigerian author’s Nigerian-American Christmas romance duo which features standalone stories of two sisters.
This first book, “To Live Again,” features Itohan, a photographer and substitute teacher who’s still dealing with bitterness in the aftermath of a horrible betrayal several years before. When she meets, the guardian of one of her students, Osaro, it’s attraction at first sight. But having been burned so badly in the past, Itohan isn’t open to trusting her heart to anyone ever again, ever the seemingly perfect for her Osaro.
This was an interesting read for me because there were many things I liked and thought were executed well, and there were other things that I wasn’t a huge fan of because they weren’t to my taste. One of my favourite things about this novel was the faith-based messaging about redemption and hurt and pain and letting go and allowing yourself to be found by God. I thought that was quite well-executed. I loved that this was a romance novel where the characters could enumerate the things they loved about each other beyond “being hot” as a character trait. Because of this, I found Itohan and Osaro’s relationship charming and eminently believable. Itohan’s characterization as being closed off because of the hurt she suffered was sufficiently maintained so that it wasn’t a token conflict but her actions, however stupid and ill-advised, made sense based on her characterization. I was fully-engaged in the story joining Itohan’s sister and best friend, begging her not to be a fool but alas! The premise and set up and even the family dynamic felt realistic and true to contemporary life. I loved how this book as a Christian romance approached sex and intimacy. In Christian romance, intimacy often tends towards the super chaste end of the spectrum, where sexual attraction is never alluded to and courtship is absolutely platonic, till someone closed door reference is mass after marriage. In this book, obviously there is nothing sexual on the page here and no sex before marriage but there is kissing (CW if this is something you avoid in fiction for personal reasons) and there is frequent discussion of sexual attraction but the commitment to be celibate for religious reasons- I appreciated that acknowledgement and the discussion(s) and flirtations that Osaro and Itohan have about this. I found it much more realistic than many novel’s approach to dealing with this real issue amongst Christians in love.
As real as I thought the characters were, for me some of the dialogue didn’t really work- especially the dialogue between the male friends. It felt stilted to me and not that realistic. This was in contrast to when the Itohan and her friends were talking to each other or even when a woman was taking to a man, where the dialogue always felt more natural. Also I struggled with Osaro a lot. He had ways about him that I found incredibly unappealing- ways of coming across incredibly arrogant, judgmental, unwilling to properly apologize and take the blame, somewhat gaslighty, and a little toxically masculine. There’s a table-flipping moment in the book where honestly I asked out loud on the heroine’s behalf “who the heck you think you are?” since she chose to remain mute. He did have a lot of redeeming qualities, being caring, successful, loving, supportive, but for me personally, there were too many toxic red flags. It’s not that his characterization was unrealistic, in fact it is hyper realistic, I know MANY Nigerian men with his vibe, but to me it wasn’t attractive so I was jarred everytime he displayed something (to me) problematic that the heroine just let slide. I didn’t dislike Osaro, but because his vibe was so far out of the realm of what I think is attractive to me, it was sometimes hard to like him for Itohan when he was in the middle of those his “ways.” I feel like there were also some vibes I didn’t like, like the women gathering to cook whilst the men hung out and played video games- it happens often in real life, but reinforcing it did not sell the male characters to me. I also think some of the other characters sometimes had judgmental ways about them that I didn’t love.
However, overall, I did really enjoy this Christian romance. It’s one of the best ones I’ve read in a while. I liked this authors storytelling and character development. I think the story was relatable to me as a Nigerian but I can also see how it would be relatable to anyone who grew up in a religious household. I’m invested in this world and in this family I not only care about Itohan’s sister, Keni, I also care about her brother in Benin, about Osaro’s friends, Malcolm and Tex. I got this book as a free gift from the author but I enjoyed it so much, I’ve bought the second book out of pocket, featuring Keni, Itohan’s sister.
This first book, “To Live Again,” features Itohan, a photographer and substitute teacher who’s still dealing with bitterness in the aftermath of a horrible betrayal several years before. When she meets, the guardian of one of her students, Osaro, it’s attraction at first sight. But having been burned so badly in the past, Itohan isn’t open to trusting her heart to anyone ever again, ever the seemingly perfect for her Osaro.
This was an interesting read for me because there were many things I liked and thought were executed well, and there were other things that I wasn’t a huge fan of because they weren’t to my taste. One of my favourite things about this novel was the faith-based messaging about redemption and hurt and pain and letting go and allowing yourself to be found by God. I thought that was quite well-executed. I loved that this was a romance novel where the characters could enumerate the things they loved about each other beyond “being hot” as a character trait. Because of this, I found Itohan and Osaro’s relationship charming and eminently believable. Itohan’s characterization as being closed off because of the hurt she suffered was sufficiently maintained so that it wasn’t a token conflict but her actions, however stupid and ill-advised, made sense based on her characterization. I was fully-engaged in the story joining Itohan’s sister and best friend, begging her not to be a fool but alas! The premise and set up and even the family dynamic felt realistic and true to contemporary life. I loved how this book as a Christian romance approached sex and intimacy. In Christian romance, intimacy often tends towards the super chaste end of the spectrum, where sexual attraction is never alluded to and courtship is absolutely platonic, till someone closed door reference is mass after marriage. In this book, obviously there is nothing sexual on the page here and no sex before marriage but there is kissing (CW if this is something you avoid in fiction for personal reasons) and there is frequent discussion of sexual attraction but the commitment to be celibate for religious reasons- I appreciated that acknowledgement and the discussion(s) and flirtations that Osaro and Itohan have about this. I found it much more realistic than many novel’s approach to dealing with this real issue amongst Christians in love.
As real as I thought the characters were, for me some of the dialogue didn’t really work- especially the dialogue between the male friends. It felt stilted to me and not that realistic. This was in contrast to when the Itohan and her friends were talking to each other or even when a woman was taking to a man, where the dialogue always felt more natural. Also I struggled with Osaro a lot. He had ways about him that I found incredibly unappealing- ways of coming across incredibly arrogant, judgmental, unwilling to properly apologize and take the blame, somewhat gaslighty, and a little toxically masculine. There’s a table-flipping moment in the book where honestly I asked out loud on the heroine’s behalf “who the heck you think you are?” since she chose to remain mute. He did have a lot of redeeming qualities, being caring, successful, loving, supportive, but for me personally, there were too many toxic red flags. It’s not that his characterization was unrealistic, in fact it is hyper realistic, I know MANY Nigerian men with his vibe, but to me it wasn’t attractive so I was jarred everytime he displayed something (to me) problematic that the heroine just let slide. I didn’t dislike Osaro, but because his vibe was so far out of the realm of what I think is attractive to me, it was sometimes hard to like him for Itohan when he was in the middle of those his “ways.” I feel like there were also some vibes I didn’t like, like the women gathering to cook whilst the men hung out and played video games- it happens often in real life, but reinforcing it did not sell the male characters to me. I also think some of the other characters sometimes had judgmental ways about them that I didn’t love.
However, overall, I did really enjoy this Christian romance. It’s one of the best ones I’ve read in a while. I liked this authors storytelling and character development. I think the story was relatable to me as a Nigerian but I can also see how it would be relatable to anyone who grew up in a religious household. I’m invested in this world and in this family I not only care about Itohan’s sister, Keni, I also care about her brother in Benin, about Osaro’s friends, Malcolm and Tex. I got this book as a free gift from the author but I enjoyed it so much, I’ve bought the second book out of pocket, featuring Keni, Itohan’s sister.
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