by: Sarah Mally
Publisher: Tomorrow's Forefathers
Dates Read: February 6-February 23
Pages: 248
Source: Own It
Why did I read it?
Five years ago I did a "boy fast" (see teen angst filled blog for more on that). During which I read multiple books about Christian dating/relationships. This was one of them. One of my youth has been asking to borrow some of these relationship books and I wanted to be reminded what was in them so we could discuss. Also, maybe a refresher course would be nice after five years.
I bought this book because I was a big fan of the Duggar family and the Duggar girls were a big fan of this book. It matched my theme of the year in 2012 so I figured why not. This is probably the most conservative book to ever be written about courtship - and yes, I have read (and will probably be re-reading in the near future) I Kissed Dating Goodbye.
Sarah Mally is trying to speak to the princess that every girl has always wanted to be (I never did). She's also really emphasing that we are daughters of the King (aka. God). Every chapter starts with a fictional story of a princess actually living in the Middle Ages and being challenged by society and her impatience to find a husband. Her dad, the king, encourages her to be modest and be nothing like the people; while the crocodile (big callback to another reptile from Genesis) tells her she should go to festivals and talk to boys. Whoa. Hold on their princess. No festivals for you. Anyway, we get the little princess story and then Mally writes a chapter about whatever the princess had been feeling in the story. It's a little juvenile. I am guessing the target group for this book is girls ages 13-17, but it feels more like a 9-12.
As far as content, as I said before, super duper duper conservative. I did not remember it being this conservative. She emphasizes modesty to an extreme degree. The princess wants to go to a festival to hang out with her friends, but because there will be lots of princes who might want to talk to her her father strongly discourages it. She'll hit on something good like dreaming about a man coming into your life and making everything good, but ruins it by saying do not think of men ever. Never ever. There is little balance. You cannot never see boys or think about boys, it's nearly impossible. I think we should be teaching girls the healthy balance and why it is not healthy to go too far with it.
The writing itself was also not the greatest. Sometimes the stories she threw in to try and prove a point were super random. At one point she tells a story about a girl who dates *gasp* and now she is stuck in an abusive marriage, then she just moves on without even addressing the real problem of this story. Somehow in her mind dating was worse than abuse. Oh boy. She's a bit all over the place and pretty repetitive. This book did not need to be 248 pages. Also, it's full of cartoons that are just terrible. It could have gone down to 200 pages without the pictures and repeats.
Rating: 2/5
Unfortunately, five years ago I probably would have given the book 3 stars. I am knocking it down to a 2. I am not even sure I want to lend this to my youth who is asking to borrow it - maybe under the condition she discuss it all with me afterwards. I did glean a few lessons out of the book, but overall, unless you decide to court in the most extreme way, it was not very helpful.
Recommendation:
I guess the Duggar girls can keep reading this book. It seems to really be working out in their favour. We're up to 4/5 Duggar daughters, of marrying age (that sounds Austenian), who are married or engaged now.
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