Susanna Foth Aughtmon's I Blame Eve ~ Reviewed

I Blame Eve

By Susanna Foth Aughtoman

Published by Revell

ISBN#978-0-8007-2047-6

187 Pages

Back Cover: When our great-to-the-nth-degree grandmother Eve ate the fruit, we lost out on the perfect life. But that doesn't stop us from trying, does it? In fact, we make trying to be perfect the focus of our entire lives! But what would happen if we stopped trying to be perfect and started trying to be his?
In this fantastically witty book, Susanna Foth Aughtmon helps women find out what it means to be honest about what we crave in life and let go of our deep need to be in control. Using Scripture and amusing personal stories, she shows women the freedom of embracing the unique path God lays out for each of us. Includes study questions to facilitate group or individual use.

Review: I’m grateful for a review copy of a book that introduced me to a new author I adore. I enjoyed her humor, transparency and the way she helped me look at Adam and Eve and their situation with fresh eyes. I realized I had blamed Eve for a few things too.

Susanna says this about Eve, “She had it all – a loving husband, an unhindered relationship with God, all of her needs taken care of. She could walk around naked and not feel like crying inside. Her life was perfect…And she still wasn't satisfied…she thought she could do better.”

I hadn't looked at Eve this way before. This author helped me get a deeper understanding of how things might have gone down in the garden with the snake.  She says, “Eve was clueless. She had no idea what perfect was, even though she embodied it. She was exactly the person God intended her to be…She was comfortable in her own skin…She never once had to say to Adam, “Do I look fat? Oh, wait, never mind. I forgot I’m perfect.”….Even better Eve had no weird ideas about God. She could meet up with Him and have a heart to heart talk.” Anytime she wanted.

This author brings up things I hadn’t thought of before like this, “I kept wondering if there wasn’t more to the conversation God had with Adam and Eve about what would happen if they decided to ear from the tree of knowledge. Did he give them the whole run down of everything and the consequences of their actions would resonate until the end of time?”

We have the bible today that lays it all out for us and we still struggle. Susanna says, “Poor Eve. Poor us. The ones who do exactly as she did. We have so little ability to imagine the consequences of our actions. We act without thinking about where an action will take us. We step out of God’s palm into a world of our own making with our sad choices and shabby reasoning…It begins the same way for us as it began for our Sister Eve. It begins with the voice of doubt, and chaos, the voice that invites us to wonder if we don’t deserve more than we’re given. It begins with the thought that no one can tell us what to do. It begins with a hiss and a mirthless laugh as we wonder far away from the heart of the one who breathed life into us. It begins with the snake.”

I’ve learned so much about Adam, Eve, the snake and the garden. I realize that given the situation I might have done the very same thing Eve did. This author helped me learn from this story and gave practical ways to apply the principles of the story to my life in very real ways. I enjoyed Susanna’s humor and how she gave hope to readers in the last few chapters titled, “I need a new idea of what perfect looks like, I am not in control, I need a paradigm shift, and I am ready for a new out-of-control me.”

I don’t blame Eve anymore because I’ve realized I’m very much like her. I hadn’t looked at scripture and this situation like this before. It was enlightening. I highly recommend this book. . I’ll be getting more of this authors’ books and so will you!

Reviewed by: Nora St.Laurent

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