Christa Parrish's Watch Over Me ~ Reviewed

Watch Over Me
By Christa Parrish
Published by: Bethany House
ISBN# 978-0-7642-0554-5
349 Pages

Back Cover:

Things like this don’t happen in Beck County. Deputy Benjamin Patil is the one to find the infant girl, hours old, abandoned in a field.

As police work to identify the mother, Ben and his wife Abbi, seem like the obvious couple to serve as foster parents. But the newborn’s arrival opens old wounds for Abbi and shines a harsh light on how much Ben has changed since a devastating military tour.


REVIEW:

When this book became available to read through an author blog tour I signed up. I had read Home Another Way, Christa’s first book, and couldn’t wait to see where this new author would take me next!

Edgy! Christa has away of not only talking about the elephant in the room, but describes it too. Not in great detail, but enough to make you experience the moment and maybe start to have some compassion and understanding of an uncomfortable situation.

This book is gut-wrenchingly honest, transparent and difficult to read in parts because of the subject matter. God loves what most people deem unlovable. Christa shows this very aspect of God’s love in a powerful and moving way!

Another fascinating aspect of Watch Over Me, is the fact that a young deaf boy is one of her main characters. No one makes special accommodations for him; he’s a deaf boy making his way in a hearing world. He learns to adjust. He explains himself to someone that asks him if it’s hard.

“What part?”

“Any of it.” She asks.

He thinks..."this part. The communication. His inability to say the very thing he had pent up inside.

“It’s hard to fit everything I want to say on a scrap of paper!”

The font in the book is set to look like Matt, the deaf boy's, actual handwriting. I liked that. Christa showed many struggles a deaf boy might have going to school, also living day-in and day-out trying to talk to everyone he met, by writing everything he wanted to say on a note pad. I can't even imagine doing that.

The author describes what goes on inside a person’s heart, mind, and emotions when someone meets God where it hurts. Where the rubber meets the road; where life is messy and uncomfortable. When life happens fast and furious, when you lose control and there seems to be no hope. Can you really lean on God? Does He care? Will He help? Christa Parrish answers these questions and so much more in a very honest, riveting way. These characters and this story will stay with you long after you close the book.

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent
Finding Hope Through Fiction