Another Ending by Sara Whitley

This is book one of The Hope on the Horizon series. It’s a book focused on one teenage girl’s redemption. There is some justice, though more of a footnote at the end.

This is an important, well-written book. However, if you’re looking for entertainment, this isn’t the book to read. It’s a tough book. It follows Molly, a high school girl who grows up in a small, conservative town in Iowa. She believes she’s a follower of Christ. Molly makes a series of poor decisions that shatter her idyllic life. As the book goes on, we watch Molly spiral farther down into a pit of despair. Until…you’ll have to read the book for this part.

The book deals with some difficult subjects. Teen pregnancy, date rape, abortion, and how those things fit into the Christian life and the church. Embedded in the story is the author’s commentary on watered down faith, the dangers of the prosperity gospel, and the danger of trying to go it alone when bad things happen. All these things are rampant in the American church today.

Molly frustrated me throughout the story. Along with frustration, I felt anger, disappointment, and sadness. Molly’s worldview is tainted, and her logic is twisted. The story is told from first person point of view, mostly from Molly. She is an unreliable narrator. Her view of some of the events and her reasoning for her decisions are flawed. It was hard to watch her continued decline. I nearly gave up on the book because of one of the decisions she makes, but decided to stick out and see where God would come into her life.

This book will be difficult for Christians to read. Though I encourage Christians to read it. It will be difficult for non-Christians to read. Though, again, I encourage non-Christians to read it. The author does a fantastic job telling a story of God’s unending grace, mercy, and forgiveness. But it takes a while to get there, so don’t give up like I almost did.

The book falls short of a five-star rating only because of a lack of editing, in my opinion. It could have been about a hundred pages shorter. There are some mistakes that jumped out at me. And I’m not convinced the couple times the author did a chapter from another character’s point of view were necessary or helpful. I would have preferred the entire story from Molly’s point of view.

I particularly recommend this book for teenage girls and parents of teenage girls. It would be a great book for a teenage girl and her parents to read together. What happens in this book happens way too often in our country and there are too many girls suffering the same fate as Molly.

It’s a clean read. Even the disturbing scenes are tastefully presented. Hard to read about, but nothing gratuitous. I’ll rank this one eighth at this point. Another good book read this year.

1. The Record Keeper by Charles Martin
2. The Samaritan’s Patient by Chevron Ross
3. Days Coming by Pat Simmons
4. The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
5. The Maid by Nita Prose
6. Where is My Sister by Jane Daly
7. Braving Strange Waters by Sarah Hanks
8. Another Ending by Sara Whitely
9. Blood Red Deceit by Steve Rush
10. The Dark Wind by Tony Hillerman
11. Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke
12. A Vanishing Act by Edwina Kiernan
13. Cali’s Hope by John Matthew Walker
14. Field Training by Patrick O’Donnell
15. Deadly Pursuit by Elle Gray
16. American Prophet by Jeff Fullmer
    

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