ENGLISH LESSONS:
The crooked path of growing toward faith
By Andrea Lucado
Authentic. 228 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 780 781 877
This book arrived on my doorstep in a ridiculously busy week. I went to put it on the to-do pile (that one that gets hidden when people are coming round – the one that has letters dating back to 2013 at the bottom of it).
Then I picked it up to flick through it to see who it was by. I glanced into the first chapter and before I knew it had finished chapter 3. Thus explaining why school letter due in the next day didn’t get signed and returned!
It was a great mix of beautiful writing, intriguing style and fascinating insights into what it’s like for an American Christian girl coming over to the UK.
More than that, what it’s like for a Pastor’s Kid (PK) (yes, you guessed, the real reason I opened the book to peek inside was to find out if Andrea Lucado was Max Lucado’s daughter!), who grew up in the Bible Belt of America attending Christian school and university, to be plummeted into a very secular graduate course in an English University.
Challenging is the short answer. English Lessons is the long answer.
Honest about struggles
I really enjoyed the book, though it was a bit like chewing gum for the brain. Not much really happened, there were no great theological insights. But I did love how honest she was about her struggles to work out ‘do I believe just because I have been brought up in a Christian family?’
I guess I was hoping for an exciting plot twist at the end. For some massive crisis to loom that made me gasp with excitement unable to put the book down until I had reached the resolution. Not so. There was not even a boy-meets-girl happy ending.
Encouraging walk
Though girl did meet plenty of boys, none of which worked out, and perhaps therein lay its appeal. There was no sunset kiss, no amazing journey of self-discovery. Just an encouraging walk with an honest friend, willing to share what it’s like for her to be a Christian in our completely alien culture.
It would make great holiday reading for a younger woman, especially from a Christian home. Though if you’re anything like me, you may well accidentally read it before you give it!
