Scan barcode
A review by brice_mo
Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!
Though marketed as a memoir, Bethany Joy Lenz’s thoughtfully restrained Dinner for Vampires is perhaps more accurately described as a testimony. It’s jarring, specific, and boldly redemptive in its willingness to interrogate religious language without dismissing it entirely.
Full disclosure—I haven’t seen any of One Tree Hill. In fact, my only exposure to Bethany Joy Lenz’s work is Psalty the singing hymnbook, a horrifying Christian cryptid I don’t recommend googling before bed. Truthfully, the book seems likely to resonate more with people who are in a similar boat; if you're an OTH superfan, you might be disappointed by how absent the show is here.
Throughout the book, Lenz details the way her involvement in a house church shifted from an exciting alternative to mainstream Christian culture to a more pervasive and perverse part of her life. “I Escaped A Cult” books are a dime-a-dozen, but Dinner for Vampires is distinct from its peers in that Lenz has a genuine desire to believe the best, leading her to earnestly ask questions and dissect the cult’s beliefs and language. Where many books of this ilk demand that readers assume someone would be “crazy” for getting involved, Lenz’s vulnerability invites readers to experience the discomfort of feeling “crazy” for assuming that something is actually wrong.
The muted approach makes for a less splashy book, but it’s one that arguably reflects the reality of religious trauma more accurately. So much of the spiritual, psychological, and emotional abuse depicted occurs within the space of plausible deniability. Lenz expertly describes behaviors that seem just a few degrees shy of innocuous—the kind of off-kilter actions that summon a pit in your stomach before you quickly tamp it down out of fear. To anybody who has moved through evangelical circles, it will feel all too familiar when the author notes the way “repentance” allowed cult members to shirk personal accountability, or how skin-crawlingly recognizable phrases like “guard your heart” and “love on people” are used to exert control.
Suffice it to say, Dinner for Vampires is an exceptionally meaningful book, and not merely another glossy celebrity memoir. Regardless of readers’ religious background, Bethany Joy Lenz has crafted a a grace-filled opportunity for all of us to reflect on how the language of freedom can so easily be abused, and how true freedom is often found in people being there to pull us out.
Though marketed as a memoir, Bethany Joy Lenz’s thoughtfully restrained Dinner for Vampires is perhaps more accurately described as a testimony. It’s jarring, specific, and boldly redemptive in its willingness to interrogate religious language without dismissing it entirely.
Full disclosure—I haven’t seen any of One Tree Hill. In fact, my only exposure to Bethany Joy Lenz’s work is Psalty the singing hymnbook, a horrifying Christian cryptid I don’t recommend googling before bed. Truthfully, the book seems likely to resonate more with people who are in a similar boat; if you're an OTH superfan, you might be disappointed by how absent the show is here.
Throughout the book, Lenz details the way her involvement in a house church shifted from an exciting alternative to mainstream Christian culture to a more pervasive and perverse part of her life. “I Escaped A Cult” books are a dime-a-dozen, but Dinner for Vampires is distinct from its peers in that Lenz has a genuine desire to believe the best, leading her to earnestly ask questions and dissect the cult’s beliefs and language. Where many books of this ilk demand that readers assume someone would be “crazy” for getting involved, Lenz’s vulnerability invites readers to experience the discomfort of feeling “crazy” for assuming that something is actually wrong.
The muted approach makes for a less splashy book, but it’s one that arguably reflects the reality of religious trauma more accurately. So much of the spiritual, psychological, and emotional abuse depicted occurs within the space of plausible deniability. Lenz expertly describes behaviors that seem just a few degrees shy of innocuous—the kind of off-kilter actions that summon a pit in your stomach before you quickly tamp it down out of fear. To anybody who has moved through evangelical circles, it will feel all too familiar when the author notes the way “repentance” allowed cult members to shirk personal accountability, or how skin-crawlingly recognizable phrases like “guard your heart” and “love on people” are used to exert control.
Suffice it to say, Dinner for Vampires is an exceptionally meaningful book, and not merely another glossy celebrity memoir. Regardless of readers’ religious background, Bethany Joy Lenz has crafted a a grace-filled opportunity for all of us to reflect on how the language of freedom can so easily be abused, and how true freedom is often found in people being there to pull us out.