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thewhimsicalowl 's review for:

Strait Is The Gate by André Gide
4.0

"'Oh, if only we could lean over the soul we love and see as in a mirror the image we cast there! To read in another as in ourselves, better than in ourselves! What tranquility there would be in our tenderness - what purity in our love!'" (35).

Yet again, I'm gobsmacked by divine book timing. I got chills when I reached Alissa's journal (on May 23rd), which she begins on May 23rd.

3.5 stars. Gide weaves a poignant tale of spiritual struggle and a love at once naïve yet strongly felt. This novel is a gathering of vulnerable prayers, faraway letters, and failed encounters. I can understand why some readers have an issue with the text, calling it too slow or unsatisfying. I do not always find it to be pleasant, but I do believe it to be true.

As Alissa writes quite simply, "God having provided some better thing for us." Amen.