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jonscott9 's review for:
To Be Told: Know Your Story, Shape Your Future
by Dan B. Allender
Oh, books -- I just can't quit you. Usually.
It's very seldom that I stop reading a book before finished, but I did with this one. I was more than halfway through, to note. Not to entirely lump this read in with them by any means, but as with a lot of self-help-y Christian books, To Be Told just gets repetitive, with a side dish of "I know you wish to inspire, but I've heard it all before."
Dan Allender's story of recovery from abuses and addictions in his own life to become a leading spiritually-minded psychologist and counselor is a captivating one to an extent, sure. His writing is just a bit bland, though sometimes vivid and engrossing, especially in links or metaphors or analogies he makes (ever the therapist).
I think this could've been a better long-form magazine article or essay or journal article rather than an all-out *book*.
It's a bad sign when what I look forward to most about a next chapter is the quote from a trusted, revered other writer that will start it. Shew. Allender does read and quote from some of the best, be it the psalmist or The Velveteen Rabbit.
That said, faves from this book (I'm so mean) from a couple of personal all-time authors:
"Why must holy places be dark places?"
-C.S. Lewis
(this quote, from Till We Have Faces [the retelling of the Cupid & Psyche myth:] could have me thinking for hours)
"God acts in history and in your and my brief histories not as a puppeteer who sets the scene and works the strings but rather as the great director who no matter what role fate casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings, if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and sometimes even if we don't, how we can play those roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the whole vast drama of things including our own small but crucial parts in it."
-Frederick Buechner
It's very seldom that I stop reading a book before finished, but I did with this one. I was more than halfway through, to note. Not to entirely lump this read in with them by any means, but as with a lot of self-help-y Christian books, To Be Told just gets repetitive, with a side dish of "I know you wish to inspire, but I've heard it all before."
Dan Allender's story of recovery from abuses and addictions in his own life to become a leading spiritually-minded psychologist and counselor is a captivating one to an extent, sure. His writing is just a bit bland, though sometimes vivid and engrossing, especially in links or metaphors or analogies he makes (ever the therapist).
I think this could've been a better long-form magazine article or essay or journal article rather than an all-out *book*.
It's a bad sign when what I look forward to most about a next chapter is the quote from a trusted, revered other writer that will start it. Shew. Allender does read and quote from some of the best, be it the psalmist or The Velveteen Rabbit.
That said, faves from this book (I'm so mean) from a couple of personal all-time authors:
"Why must holy places be dark places?"
-C.S. Lewis
(this quote, from Till We Have Faces [the retelling of the Cupid & Psyche myth:] could have me thinking for hours)
"God acts in history and in your and my brief histories not as a puppeteer who sets the scene and works the strings but rather as the great director who no matter what role fate casts us in conveys to us somehow from the wings, if we have our eyes, ears, hearts open and sometimes even if we don't, how we can play those roles in a way to enrich and ennoble and hallow the whole vast drama of things including our own small but crucial parts in it."
-Frederick Buechner