Looking for Lovely was a quick and (mostly) enjoyable read. It is a personal narrative of a young, single Christian woman. (I see it as a polished form of stream of consciousness; it is organized not random, but, it's almost an uncensored look at a woman's private thoughts.) If the book has spiritual insights to pass along, it is probably in the showing and not telling. In other words, that she is--that we all are--works in progress; that we all struggle with ups and downs, good days and bad days. That in spite of how we appear to others, how we appear to ourselves even, God loves us because God is that good and gracious and faithful.
Readers can benefit from the chapter "Looking for Lovely." In that chapter, she stresses two things: 1) God made you on purpose and 2) God made you to be brave.
Most of the book focuses on the author: on her past, on her present, on her dreams for the future, on her desperate pleading to the Lord to send her a husband, on her desperate need to be married, on her fears, on her doubts, on her strengths, on her weaknesses, on her good days, on her bad days, on her weaknesses, on her successes. She doesn't seem to hold much of anything back from her readers.
One doesn't particularly learn much about God and the Bible directly. It is more indirect and subtle than that. If you look for it, you can find Him there in her messy, chaotic, fun-filled life. But this isn't particularly my favorite type of "Christian nonfiction."
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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