Before I Wake by Dee Henderson

Unpleasant experiences are a part of life. My most recent foray into this truth included car shopping. I guess it can be a fun experience - almost everyone who knew we were doing this responded with a "Oh, how fun!", but when you're on a time crunch because your family of four is down to one care with roughly 800 bazillion appointments every week and hate spending money to begin with, the search and purchase can be slightly stressful. Thankfully, we did find a van (my husband has a love affair with minivans... who knew?) that fit our specifications within our budget in a single weekend, but let me tell you, it was intense.

The cool thing was, we were able to buy a van in cash when the need arose. I'm always floored by God's provision in our lives - giving us more than we need with amazing faithfulness. Thanks to some crazy coincidences (that I think Someone had a hand in) we've never wanted for anything even when our youngest was born and we were down to one income, bringing in about half of what was considered "poverty". As frustrating as it can be to shop for a car or clothes or even groceries, I need to get better about reminding myself that it is a luxury that we can afford those things AND reminding myself where every good and perfect gift comes from.

Anyhew, (yes, I know that's not really a word) here's my review of Before I Wake by Dee Henderson. It's my first crime/suspense in the Christian genre, so feel free to drop me some other recommendations if you've got them!


Before I Wake by Dee Henderson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Okay, where do you begin in a book that doesn't end? Bad guy? who knows? Love interest? take a wild guess. You'll never know if you figured it out.

The technical writing is good: fluid conversation, great characters, perfect setting, excellent set-up, but the book leaves you wondering where the final chapter is. A certain amount of open-ended writing can leave you with wonderful possibilities with a strongly suggested path to follow, but this is so wide open it leaves you spinning in circles, frustrated with a lack of conclusion on any front.

I liked the spiritual questions and conversations. Nathan has deep, honest answers to some of the questions Rae wrestles with, but his answers are very real and personal.

The final straw for me was the constant use of 'for' as a conjunction. It threw off the pacing of the story and sounds like the author attempting to elevate otherwise common speech.

Apparently, Dee Henderson doesn't make a habit of premature endings in her books, and her technical writing is good enough that I'll be reading at least one other work by her, but this was not a great introduction and would probably deter me from reading her other stuff if she hadn't been so highly recommended.