Reading Tai-Bo

Since I was on a roll with my waiting stack of Christian fiction, I decided to read another from the pile this week. There was a bombing and a mystery, but most of the story tension came from within the main character, like in literary fiction. And one of the characters who played a lead role was a down-and-out Psychiatrist who was recovering from the grief he’d suppressed for 13 years over his wife’s suicide and the accompanying death of their infant daughter (drove car off bridge, not the baby, the mom). The protagonist was the overweight older sister of a very thin very wealthy “Name it Claim it” Guru who gets mostly blown up in her personal jet and is so terribly burned that no one can recognize her anymore. All characters are struggling with God. Some just trying to survive grief, some fighting to avoid midnight food binges and the oppressive cheerfulness of false Christianity, and some waiting confidently for a miraculous healing that never comes.

I’m a little leery of books that take place internally, being a fan of action, but despite several chapters that were basically extended counseling sessions, this book was remarkably well written and honest. The people and their failures felt real. They acted like people act, thought like people thought, even up to the caustic inner thoughts that we all have to suppress…or not suppress. I was pleasantly surprised. A good book.