It was a first for me.

An unsolicited invitation in my email inbox.  “Would you like to read this book and review it?”

I think I might have said yes just based on the sheer novelty for me of the question.  Also, I like reading books and I already write frequent reviews for what I pick up from the library book shelf on my own.  So this seemed like a perfect opportunity.  The publisher is local and the author has local ties as well. (And you all know how I feel about local.)

As it turns out, it was actually a little more than just a request to read a novel.  It was a request to be a part of a blog book tour – also a first for me.  The idea is that a handful of writers and bloggers will read the book and then write their reviews during a specifically assigned time.

Love Him Anyway by Abby Banks is one family’s story about what real life struggle looks like.  When what you imagine your life to be is not what your life actually is.  When an impossibly hard medical diagnosis threatens the future for your child and for your entire family and you are forced to face a new reality and a completely new (and unpredictable) future.

The book had not been released officially yet when I read it so it was sent to me via a pdf.

Well.  

I can’t stand reading real books on a computer screen.  It feels – foreign, cold, something not like what I love about a book.  But the hard copies had yet to be printed and so the screen was what I had to to.  I delayed.  Wrote “read Love Him Anyway” on a list and kept avoiding getting started.

Then I read the first chapter on my computer screen.

It’s a good story.  A broken story.  A hard story.

Two chapters in – I wanted to read more.  It is compelling and it reads as if a friend is telling me her story over coffee, well – over tea – but you know what I mean.

But good grief – it’s SO Much.  SO much hard in this one family’s life.  There would have been a time, maybe two years ago, probably more like about ten years ago, when I would have read the story of Abby and her family, of their son Wyatt, of their own extensive physical complications and those of their extended families (which are just skimmed over in this story really), and I would have thought it was almost unreal.  I couldn’t have related to so much heavy and so much sorry being inundated on one family.  But now my own life looks vastly different.  Different than it did.  Different than I had planned or assumed or hoped or prayed.  And so, what that has burned into me personally, is empathy.  Reality.  A hard reality, that life is often unpredictable and messy and terrifying and too much, some days.

I’m just not at all a fan of spoilers in stories or movies or books.

So I don’t want to give away the story, the intimate details, the baseline.  And yet, I know I have to tell you a little.  The tease, if you will.

I’d much rather just say – You know what, read this book.  Can you trust me?

But I know it doesn’t work that way.

Abby and her husband Jason have three children.  When their youngest son, Wyatt, was only seven months old, his life (and theirs too) changed forever when Wyatt suffered from a medical condition that paralyzed him.  (I’m pretty sure this much is basically on the back cover.)

Love Him Anyway is a book that tells Wyatt’s story, Abby’s story, Jason’s story.  A story about Jesus really.

It definitely reads like a memoir, like a diary – a personal journal of both medical and day to day life.  More like a prayer book, a timeline, a this-is-how-it-all-happened sort of retelling.  As you read you are caught up in the struggle and the pain, the unknown and the fear, the hope and the life raft that carries Abby and her family through the process of fear and frustration and then fighting and accepting, the balance of attacking the situation and living in the weakness.

It’s a true and honest retelling.  A take-a-deep-breath because I’m just going to peel back my layers kind of book.

My favorite part of the whole story is the way that Abby, Wyatt’s mother, describes the difference between the way she sees Wyatt’s limitations and the way Wyatt sees his own limitations.  It is both humbling and up lifting.  She’s unflinching and sincere and regular and admirable – kind of like lots of women I actually know in real life.

All of which serve to make her book readable and endearing.

You can follow along with Abby and her family, and hear more about Wyatt, on Wyatt’s Facebook page.

If you’d like a chance to win a signed copy of the book Love Him Anyway you can click here.  (Winner will be announced the first week of March when this blog tour is completed.)

You can also buy your own copy at Ambassador International for 10% off with the code LOVEHIM.

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