A review by marjolaine_lafreniere
A Memory Between Us by Sarah Sundin

3.0

I was actually really disappointed in this book. One of the very last scenes (an attempted rape on the heroine) rubbed me the wrong way, knocked the rating a full star down, as a matter of fact. The good news is that trying to formulate why that scene bothered me so much, especially from this author who had yet to let me down, forced me think about the rest of her writing and put into concrete thoughts and words why I like it so much.

I've been saying since the first thing I've ever read of her that Sarah Sundin wrote Christian Fiction that didn't feel like regular Christian Fiction. It didn't feel preachy. I never quite put my finger on why, and just attributed it to the WWII setting. Now that I found something that did feel preachy and wrong in the writing, I am better able to put into words what it is that I actually liked about the rest of the writing.

The heroes and heroines of Sarah Sundin are Christians who struggle with their faith in a way that feels natural to me, and I've always been able to appreciate the way those struggle are resolved. It was never about God saving them from an external force even if it feels that way sometimes with the characters surviving a brutal war. It has always been about finding an inner grace, about accepting some weakness of character and becoming a better person. The fact that the source of inspiration for that change was a Bible never bothered me, because ultimately it wasn't that important. The people were important.

And they still are, which is why I'm going to keep reading Sarah Sundin. I'll just be a bit more weary from now on.