I read Stand By Me by Neta Jackson as part of the booksneeze.com blogger program where you are provided with free books in exchange for an honest review.
And since I am being honest, I was not a great fan of this book. It is the story of people who are involved in the SouledOut Community Church and particularly focused on two characters and seasoned member of the church, Avis, and an idealistic college student, Kat, and their interactions. One of the reasons I wasn't a fan of the book was that neither character was all that likeable or well developed (as a side note...at the end of the book I did discover that Avis was a character in some of the other books by this author so her character may have been developed in those.) There were also topics that were touched upon in the book, but not developed: racism, church crisis, homelessness, HIV, domestic abuse, family dynamics, calling in life, educational crisis, being new to faith, etc. Now I realize that no author could develop all of these topics in a book, but none were really developed. Overall, it was a below average book and I am not sure I would have finished it if I had not agreed to review it.
As a side note, this book was an example of what I find often in Christian entertainment. In many cases, it is just OK. Now I recognize that many publishers and producers do not have the big budgets that some of the big name movie studios, music producers or book publishers have, but does that mean that quality has to be sacrificed. Just because it is Christian doesn't mean it has to be crap. OK...off my soapbox. Happy Reading Everyone!
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