Redeeming Love is THE WORST book 

This book seems more concerned about condemning sex work than the people responsible for the human trafficking. Priorities

As an ex-christian I can attest that many Christians describe God as an abusive partner and they don't even notice

He was worried that the Native Americans would dig up his sister's grave without his consent? Funny, all my anthropology books seem to suggest that the opposite happened (and I'm including the vast majority of archaeologists' behavior around NA graves up until three Native American Grave Protection Act was put into place)

Interesting a book like this will be given to young girls to study but if a gay couple holds hands in a book people try to ban it for being “inappropriate for young kids”

I was given this book by my Christian therapist while I was working through my own CSA trauma. I’m still f*cked up from it.

So apparently a "husband" so abusive that a trafficking victim would rather go back to being trafficked is a good thing?

Girl I’m 3 minutes in but the moment you said “based on the story of Hosea” I knew this was gonna be BAD

Do Indigenous Americans exist in this book solely to a bogyman for the white characters? Yikes.

The thing I hated most about this book when I read it, what about all the other “prostitutes”? Some God. You only save one girl, and the prettiest one? Seems about right. For me, a young sad girl who always felt rejected, this book just reinforced that I would never be good enough.

Gotta love how the abuse victim is constantly shamed and told she should "repent" for a life she was FORCED to do since she was 8. LIKE SHE HAD A CHOICE.

what if i told you this was required reading for my private christian schools english class when I was a junior💀

Just letting Angel run a home for former sex workers would have been a great ending. Her cottage in forest filled with her sisters? Perfect

If he loved her, he would give her the house in the woods and then never speak to her again

Duchess' bodyguard beating the brothel's prize money-maker to a pulp is ridiculously out-of-touch.

i was SO positively surprised by the whole opening a home for former sex workers thing, AND THEN SHE RUINED IT??!??

Hearing it called “paternalism “ unlocked something for me 😅 years of fundie men calling me the weaker vessel while I’m busting my ass trying to minimize the harm they’re causing, trying to survive, while also having to manufacture some vision of the world he thinks he lives in. Gotta keep him from crying at all costs, because crying gets me hurt.

This book is a horror novel. This entire book is just Michael, a rapist and abuser, getting so mad at Sarah/Angel for wanting to be treated like a human, that multiple times he has to fight the urge to not kill her.... That is so disturbing to say the very least.

I received this book as a Christmas gift when I was 12. I read it in one sitting the first time and it was my favorite book for more than a decade, so I probably read it 20+ times. I hadn’t read it in a few years and tried to read it last month and I couldn’t get past the first three chapters. I wish I could go back in time and tell younger me that this wasn’t the type of love I should aspire to have, it would’ve saved me so much trauma ;-; This book normalized the idea that I would never be good enough for a man, so I should do my best to keep the one that dared to love someone as dirty as me around. That brought so much hurt in the hands of a “Christian” man trying to “save” me. It also warped my understanding of sex work for years in ways that took a lot of effort and dedication to deconstruct. I wish I hadn’t read this book so early in my life.

a girl i went to school with was allowed to read this book, but was not allowed to read the mortal instruments…

I am an ex-fundie and when I was in the church I LOVED this book and read it as an example of how a "good christian wife" should act and what "real love" is. Fast forward post traumatic divorce filled with betrayal I revisited this book in an effort to understand what I may have done wrong. I decided after reading to begin the process of leaving my faith and stop feeling shame and fault for the actions of my ex.

I was lent this book by a Christian friend decades ago! I didn't get past the first chapter. Glad I never finished it.

I grew up in a southern Baptist church. I never heard of this book or the story of Hosea until this book became a movie. I went to the movie thinking it was a TEEN CHRISTIAN MOVIE. People were pushing for youth groups to go and see this movie in my city. Like multiple churches made events for the youth to go see this together. I went with my mom. I've never felt so uncomfortable watching a movie with my mom. The movie just kept getting worse. I can only imagine how much worse the book gets.

So fifteen years ago, this book was featured in an informal bible study/book club I joined with friends. I was soon horrified. This book got so bad for me that the ladies would joke, "...and here is where Jen ruins this chapter for us all.". Because this was some seriously traumatizing trash. Once a week for at least six weeks, I covered and harped on everything you said here including just how poorly written it all was. I mean, the least the author could do was write it in a readable manner. I started off writing my notes of disgust on paper like a civilized human being and then just devolved into writing on the book itself. That one scene where he makes her say his name? I drew big X's through the pages and wrote the word that rhymes with "gape" in all caps. Just no. I also could not stop challenging the group to tell me how the hero was so different from the Duke. Because yeah, he's exactly the same (down to changing her name bit) just with a god complex --I mean, she's broken down mentally to provide free labor and "favors", autonomy and identity stripped...and on and on. Blech yucky. For the record, the other ladies in the club were great and even those who liked the book enjoyed seeing if I'd written another one of my all caps "Run, Girl!" on yet another page. Thanks for bringing this book back into the spotlight, Rachel.

I was indoctrinated into a cult church when i was 23. I was a young single mom looking for a greater purpose. This book was given to me to read so I could know what it meant to be a "woman worthy of redemption." Needless to say, I am almost 50 now. I have spent YEARS deconstructing that experience and teachings like this. Thank you for bringing this to light on your channel.

This reminds me of people who read the parable of the lost sheep and assert that when the shepherd goes to find the lost sheep, he _breaks the sheep’s leg_ so it has to stay near him as it heals and will learn to love and be dependent on him.

When you mentioned a sapphic book with a woman escaping a similar situation but with the end result of emancipation and female agency I immediately thought, you’re in luck! That’s basically Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. It explores themes of patriarchal control, female agency and desire, and the myopia of the male gaze and how it strips women of the capacity for complex interiority. Would be an excellent counterpoint comparison to this book I imagine! That’s a high recommendation from me. Much love ❤ appreciate what you do.

I grew up “non-denominational” Christian. I have worked too hard in therapy working through religious trauma to dive into something like this! 😂

This is the perfect horror book for halloweekend

Purity culture is extreme horror. Now I'm glad my fundie mom wouldn't let me read anything with more than holding hands and kissing. At least I never had to read this.

Read it at the school board but dont specify what book it is until people react

Girl, when you said "at the age eight" my brain was begging you to add the syllable een, and it still would have been awful, but this...

I remember watching Ex Fundie Diaries’ multi part video series on this last year. I was absolutely shocked at the fact that this wasn’t just written, but sold as a romance and people bought into it

Oh my GOD I've been waiting for this one. So many Christian women I know think this book is the definition of romance and I read some parts and I was just EXTREMELY uncomfortable with it. I recently met one of the people who worked on publishing it (long story. I could not stand her btw, she was awful and hyper-evangelical and judgemental) and everything I heard about the book was red flags. (She also said a ton of stuff about how you always have to mirror God and the Bible in whatever and how all women are supposed to be a man's help-meet and I was just disgusted by her.)

I remember being reprimanded by church leaders for reading non-christian books before church services or at youth group events. They only wanted me reading "good" Christian literature or the Bible. There were no other options. Francine Rivers was definitely one of the writers they continuously tried to get me to read.

I had a relatively nice experience in my 12 years of catholic school, but I ended up leaving anyway because the jump from our youth groups into "church for adults" made us feel disillusioned. Like in this book, suddenly marriage was about "being chosen" instead of making an active choice, and the connection with god was suddenly put in a very strict hierarchy. Going to mass outside of school was very eye-opening. We didn't feel strongly abouy religion, we felt strongly about the group of friends we had.

I remember my ex who is super Christian (I'm not at all) compared our relationship to the story of Hosea and not long after I broke it off because I realized he saw me as someone to "save" for not believing

Just a little reframing would probably make this into a terrifying horror novel

27:51 That's ironic considering how the Pilgrims dug up Native American graves for food and supplies.

Suddenly *really* happy that the church I grew up going to was so against even mentioning sex that this book wasn't something recommended to us.

30:08 Michael Hosea: "You've suffered so I'm giving you a choice: Follow me out into the woods, where you'll probably be murdered, or stay in the cabin where I'll keep telling you, that you have a choice, while denying you the ability to leave."

28:31 I want a fanfic version of this involving a character being a friend and helping angel get out and finding self worth without bloodthirsty zealots like micheal.

Fun fact: Davis County in Utah, a very Mormon community, briefly banned the Bible in schools. I’m exmo and grew up in Davis County and this is very funny to me. Unfortunate that it didn’t last

WHAT PART of this is romantic?! WHERE was the romance? Did I blink and miss it?

oh my god, my grandma's friends chose this movie for their friday night hangout and brought me with them to see it. Truly could not explain the revulsion I felt sitting through it- truly, one of the worst things I've ever seen. They all loved it but to me it was a horror movie. I can only imagine how awful the book is.

I am a Christian and I thought this book was pure TRASH. I lost all respect for Rivers when I read this. If she had wanted to write a book about "redeeming love" she couldn't have failed more spectacularly. This book was pure trauma. I would never in a million years recommend this book to anyone. It's a dark mark on the genre of Christian romance...and fiction in general.

Apart from the entirety of the book sounding horrifying, I am glad you mentioned that jealousy is not love. Even in non fundy books, jealousy gets touted as being a cute sign of love. NO my dudes, real love is based on TRUST (especially trusting the other not to schmape them)

I can relate so hard to how excited you got when you couldn't remember the bible song. That was me when I couldn't remember the bible pledge my school made me say everyday, multiple times a day, for years. I was so happy it was finally starting to leave my brain 🙏

As someone whose family was not particularly religious growing up I’ve learned so much from your reviews of Christian fiction and your talking about your life experiences, it’s really allowed me to identify religious influence and propaganda in the world around me!

my sister tried to make me read this book. She gave it to me and kept insisting that i read it. This was after i started to leave fundamentalism because of my own abuse. I read the first chapter got hella triggered and refused to read the rest of it. Now im hella glad that I did because my sister was clearly trying to rebrain wash me. Now she's in a horrible abusive relationship and i am with the person of my dreams who treats me well. sooooo, uh yeah, one of us learned about what a healthy relationship looks like and the other used this book as dating advice.

Julie: I want The Bluest Eye banned because there's a scene where the main character gets SAed by her dad 😡 School Board: Okay, well in Redeeming Love, the husband shows absolutely no regard for his wife's autonomy. Should we ban that too? Julie: Oh no! It's a good Christian book that teaches girls how to be godly wives 🥰

oh my god I know this book, my youth pastor's wife set up a book club for 6th to 12th grade girls when I was in high school and this was the first book she chose! Wild story: I was super uncomfortable with it even just a few chapters in and decided to quit going. When I told her I wasn't going to continue going because I thought it was *highly* inappropriate for *6th grade girls* to be reading this, she tried to convince me to come back. I turned her down flat and stopped attending. Years later, when the movie came out, I told my mom that was the book I was uncomfortable with -- and she told me this woman had tried to *go over my head* and convince my MOM to force me back to the book club! Hindsight's 20/20, but man oh man, that put some other things about my youth group experience in context -- and I wasn't even raised fundie. God, I'm so glad I didn't finish reading this book. Makes me wonder how the other girls in the group reacted to it, but I'm not in touch with any of them anymore.

Totally gonna write that sapphic book now, what a terrible “romance” hearing that this was considered a thing for teens to aspire to makes me so grateful to my parents for taking such a firm stance on letting me come to my own conclusions about religion (or in my case lack of religion) (Sorry if there are any errors it’s pretty late at night rn)

As a Christian, I want ear bleach. What in the SWERF is this😔

Talking about triggers, it's rare that I've seen the usage of slurs to be the least problematic. This book did it, though.

Interesting how all these women can write terrorized victims so well and yet call it romance 🤔 almost like they base it off their own perspective of romance, and yet somehow their MC is a traumatized from who reacts accordingly to being abused. What a weird connection 🤔

i'd never heard of this book before (the mormonism i grew up in would probably clutch pearls over depicting a sex worker at all) but i'm only 30 mins into the video and HOOOLY SHIT YIKES 😱 the thought of giving this book to girls/teens/young women as a 'good example' of ANYTHING is *horrifying*....

if this man was really a christian he would have nursed her back to health after being almost beaten to death and then given her all his money and house and left her alone

My Papaw (grandpa) refinished the chest he made in junior high shop class ( the farthest schooling he had) for my hope chest. But my hope chest was filled with things like my own baby clothes, and items my family had bought for me FOR WHEN I got married.

As a Christian, I have to say, what a mess this book is. I'm tempted to write my own romance based on the Story of Hosea, just to show that a better one could be written, although I'd be more inclined to write one based on Ezekiel 23. There's something very compelling about the image of God scolding Israel in the voice of an aggrieved husband, complaining of his wife chasing after handsome foreign soldiers who were "hung like jackasses and spurted like stallions" (yes, that's exactly what Ezekiel said).

What makes me mad about this book (aside from all the other shit in this book that is obviously infuriating) is that it COULD have been super romantic if he heard about her cabin in the woods dreams and he went and bought her or built her a cabin in the woods, no strings attached, so that she could escape her abysmal circumstances and be free like she wanted to be. He could have done that for her and said, "Hey, if you need me, I'll be over on my ranch" or whatever without any coercive elements whatsoever and it would have been a much better story. And she would have had agency to choose him later on. Instead Rivers wrote... this.

I watched Ex-Fundie Diaries’ video on this, and it horrified me. Since I’m a masochist, I’m here for this.

This book was published the year I was married. I read it shortly thereafter as part of a book club. I promptly memory holed a lot of it. This book was the beginning of the end for me and Christian fiction. To be honest, Francine Rivers was woefully inaccurate in her theology, but churches at the time (and currently, unfortunately) overlooked it because it fit the purity narrative. The story of Hosea is a uniquely Jewish story. It is not a Christian story. The account of Hosea and Gomer is an analogy of God’s faithfulness to the Jewish people despite their unfaithfulness to him. You may agree or disagree with the details of the story itself. Francine had no right to appropriate it in the horrific way she did. This book is offensive on SO many levels. It is rot from the very first word. The answer to your question about why this book is allowed and others aren’t is easy. They will say ‘redemption’ - lol. They will say that the girl is redeemed at the end of the story just like God redeems us. I call bullshit, but that’s what the response will be. I know their catch phrase answers before the questions are even asked. It’s very frustrating to have a conversation with a fundie who think apologetics is the epitome of intelligence.

Thank you for being so vulnerable in both your honesty and in your civil rights advocacy. It's surely not easy.

I grew up baptist and my mom told me I shouldn't read this until I got married but like...why would I? Horrifying story

I’m a survivor of CSA and trafficking. I read this book at my fundie boarding school, and boy howdy did this book fuck me up

As an ex-christian I can testify that the scumbag male protagonist exosts in real life in plenty of churches.

Omg this was that movie that came out last year where they had the lead female character wearing the corset upside down. Bernadette banner pointed it out in her overview of period movies from 2022.

I remember being in high school and asking one of my friends about the book she was reading. She explained that it was a modern retelling of the book of Hosea set in the Wild West, and one of the only romance books her parents (whom I now realize were devout fundies) allowed her to read. I was raised with a different interpretation of Hosea and God's love, so when I asked some questions about what I thought would be a book about unconditional love, I now understand why she made a conflicted face and dropped the subject. I've read a lot of "trashy" smut, but I feel like this is worse because it's portrayed as an ideal rather than a titillating fantasy contained inside book and mind. I can't imagine anyone reading this book and saying "Yeah that's some ideal love right there." Every time I watch a video involving fundie (or Christian in general) teachings, I think I reach a new level of horror and disgust - and I unlock a new memory of thinking "Well that's weird" during weekly non-denominational in-school sermons led by my classmates' religious leaders. I could count on one hand the number of non-fundie sermons I attended, to the point that I learned to sleep sitting up and staring at the Bible because inevitably one of the regulars would say something messed up and I'd realize they weren't worth listening to. Even so, these fundie religious leaders managed to traumatize me and I'd stopped attending church after 8th grade - and my church wasn't even fundie!

Whelp, glad to know my American Catholic experience is just as nutz as this unfortunately published piece of work. 🙃 Oh, my childhood/adolescent trauma... Also....I like the "fear" of indigenous people digging up a grave... when, like, the barista who makes my coffee in the mornings was telling how they're trying to locate the descendants of an indigenous person who BODY was in THE BASEMENT of some white woman's house because of a "spiritual connection". You have to be more worried about a white woman stealing the remains of an unrelated human being because their spidey senses told them to, just saying.

This is actually way more horrifying then the actual bible story, which is actually kind of impressive considering how wild the bible gets. Hosea's wife just kind of runs the streets and it's more like a cheating/forgiveness narrative. Also the name Michael Hosea is so unserious 😂

You mentioned "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" and all of these horrible memories flooded back to me 🤣 It was literally one of the things my youth group forcibly imposed on us as a way to ensure our "relationship to God" and we weren't even fundy. Hell, we would probably be progressive looking to other churches.

i remember going to the movies and randomly picking this and i was so horrified and that was the last time i picked a movie blindy - 20usd ill never get back

I read a few other Francine Rivers books as a teen and they are all like this. The romance novels I got from the public library (usually from the 80s) had the same plots but no religious focus, so I was very confused why I was encouraged to read Francine but not the secular romance novels.

Yesss I love long from book rant content!!! Also I love how you bless us with constant content

Ex-Fundie Diaries on RU-vid did a whole series on this book. It’s … absolutely crazy. My fundie friend was in college when this blew up and it was basically like twilight for fundie how hard the chokehold was on young adult women

Yeah I've noticed there's a definite trend of people ignoring certain things in Christian books that they would have a hissy fit about if it was in a non-religious book. For example, when I was around 15, my mom gave me permission to read the A.D. Chronicles, a series featuring prolific amounts of consensual and nonconsensual sexual content, pedophilia, homophobia, torture, child sexual assault, sex work, heck, probably lots of antisemetism and racism. But it was all no big deal because they were in books about Biblical figures :D definitely would not have been allowed to read non-Christian books containing such content though

This book reminds me of Maybe not by Colleen Hoover (if you take out the Christianity). Literally down to child SA and being “saved” by the male MC who… explicitly assaults her several times to prove his love? This shit’s fucking scary istg.

I grew up christian. Now I don't consider myself one anymore (maybe I never did), but my family and some of my friends are. One of the things they tought me is that evil exist because God WANTS us to have free will, so hearing takes like this is kinda shocking. Like, which distorted version of christianity are they teaching in America? When I think of God I think of someone who is always ready to help and accept you and put you on the right track, I have never felt real fear. Maybe a little guilt on occasions. I've been very lucky, it seems.

The head hopping in the same scene is called Third Person Omniscient narrating. The idea is that the narrator is an unknown person who is all knowing and can see everyone's thoughts and actions. Definitely not as popular as Third Person Limited, where the narrator can only see and know what the POV character does. Even though I was forced to go to a Catholic elementary school (despite the fact that we weren't religious AT ALL. My parents were both baptised Protestant but we didn't go to church or follow any of it. My dad seemed to think I needed to know the real reason behind Christmas and Easter and how the Earth began. Love you, dad, but you messed up), I never saw this book. And now, I am eternally grateful because YIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKES.

A consensual, sapphic version would slap, but I also want a version where halfway through the book, she just fucking kills and robs him lol. (I know that sometimes, abuse/SA and revenge stories can be just about as tasteless and exploitative, but when it's handled correctly, I can't help but find it cathartic)

The protestant hate towards catholics throws me every damn time. I was raised Roman Catholic in an Italian-American/Irish-American neighborhood and I'm just like.......... You realize catholicism came first right????????? Catholicism has it's own brand of fucked upness (high guilt complex) but still. Like how do fundies grapple with Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy being closer to the origins of the church than any protestant or baptist church................. Is it even acknowledged?

45:26 at this point i literally have tears welling up, how can anyone think this is a love story, the coercion, dehumanization and victim blaming is just too much.

33:00 Given what romance fiction looked like during that time, who knows. It was just getting out of that “reactionary” period to second-wave feminism in the 70s and 80s where many of the popular romances of the time had explicit SA scenes between the main couple as a means for women to gain sexual experience on-page without having to explicitly ask for it. Think books like The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss, which was the first of its kind, published in 1972. The genre had *mostly* moved on throughout the 80s and into the 90s, but the remnants have taken a long time to shake off, and we’re arguably still trying to shake them off in some ways.

as a current, practicing, Christian I never heard if this book... but I already hate it.

It really is just proselytizing instead of any plot or anything. I don't have anything else to say because this is truly horrifying in multiple ways. Edit: for a better book, I might recommend The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, which is about a woman who escapes an abusive husband, taking her son and residing as a tenant elsewhere.

I think about this book a lot. I was definitely not given it by church or parents - can say with almost 100% certainly that my mom would not have allowed me to read it if she knew what was in it. The media I was allowed to consume was so extremely controlled that this was the first book with any real erotic content that I read. I was obsessed! I still think there’s something very interesting about it. I’ve tried before to find the original version, cause I’m dying to know what it was like before it got Christianed! I think the main thing that keeps it from being good is that it’s not allowed to be just a story, it’s also a metaphor. Michael isn’t just some guy, he’s also god. Because of this, the narrative can’t really admit that he’s super fucked up. I think there’s possibly a really interested book in the story of two very fucked up people. Michael is the son of an abusive father and a damn slave owner (love the scene where he talks about his father trying to toughen him up by forcing him to rape an enslaved woman, and Michael is like “I had to flee the temptation of sex before marriage!” without any reflection on, you know, the whole slavery thing.) Since Michael is also a metaphor for god, everything he does has to get a gloss of spirituality. He falters a little, but he’s a good Christian man, so there never any real reckoning. But if he was allowed to be a man, then there’d be a lot about him having a crazy savior complex and using that to cover up his own trauma. He’d really have to reckon with the way he damaged Angel (using that name since it’s the one she insists over and over that she be called) while trying to make her better. There’s SO much room for that character to come to terms with himself and realize how much he has hurt others. Angel is an incredibly compelling character to me, and any time I try to fix the narrative in my head there’s just no way it ends with her romantically linked with Michael. I’d like to see her actually getting that little cabin she wants of her own and finding a way to build a sense of self she never had. I really like the section where she’s living free in SF; helping to rescue other trafficked girls and set them on their feet seems like a very healing path for her. Also I’ve always HATED the ending with her magically having babies. Wouldn’t it have been much better for her to have found peace with her inability to have children? And even take in other rescued victims? It was such a massive source of pain for her the whole book, that her suddenly being able to have kids just… cheapens it. Also her stripping off all her clothes and falling to Michael’s feet to beg his forgiveness is just nasty.

Holy shit, you just unlocked so many memories, not only did i love this book and read it so many times, it still might somehow still be on my bookshelf. Boy howdy deconstruction is a never ending process😂😭😭😭

This discussion about this book made me think on a discussion I had with some other ex-christians of various denominations (mostly AFAB) and our experience of what we were told was right as children, what we were told about sex, and all that. And somehow it got around to almost all of us when we were young teenagers began to essentially have rape fantasies because, in the fantasy, "I" was not "responsible" for "wanting" to explore ideas around sex, and the fantasy of course does not go farther than I can imagine, or farther than I am safe with, because within the bounds of purity culture... someone else exerting control over you is the only even approaching borderline acceptable way, as a woman or someone assigned female, to experience sex. And even then, it is of course, dirty to be curious. I'm asexual and even I had a libido to deal with, and felt shame over it regardless if there was a fantasy attached at all, which there commonly wasn't much of one because I wasn't interested in having sex with others, I wasn't really attracted to anyone, I was just trying to understand and cope with the feelings I was experiencing. Honestly I had nightmares about people telling me that attraction did not matter in marriage so much as the "love" of God, so it was fine I wasn't attracted to men... I should STILL get married and have sex I don't want. That shit scared me as a kid, that I would be "wrong" or "sinful" for lacking desire towards others... No, I'm just experiencing sexual attraction differently, and that's okay. I get to decide what I want to explore and what I don't. So glad I'm not there anymore, I'm grateful you're calling out religious abuse and these narratives they push on young women so often.

Thank you for the breakdown of this book. I grew up conservative Christian and read all those purity books (I kissed dating goodbye, everything by Elisabeth Elliot, trying to block out the rest), but I never read this. And I honestly think I wouldn’t have been allowed to because of the sex scenes. However, what you said about this sort of relationship being prescriptive rings really true. I remember being so confused as a teen trying to figure out relationships because being a godly leader was like the only criteria for marriage (and you definitely can’t pursue a relationship without marriage being the goal). I, as the woman, was to submit and that’s it. Finding someone who was a good fit for me didn’t really seem to be an important part of the equation (and why would it if I was supposed to submit anyhow). I am grateful that I met my husband when I wasn’t as entrenched in this worldview because I’m not sure I would have really given him a chance.

I left the religion earlier last year after looking through everything the Bible says about women and how it regards women and since then I’ve been watching videos discussing atheist studies and narratives of the Bible and what it says about certain things and it’s helped me so much on my deconstruction.

The rainbow eyeshadow youve got on is amazing and i adore it

The number of times I had to pause this video to collect myself. Man. I don't know how I escaped this book, or how you managed to keep yourself together to film this, but I am finding myself equally grateful for both of those things

somewhat off topic, but i just want to thank you for talking about the books that are being threatened in schools because every time i hear you mention a new one, i immediately go to buy it.

I read this book when I was 18 years old even though I got hooked into the book at times it was hard for me to read it I was surprised that it was made into a movie I didn't like it

Every time I watch your video, I realize more and more how my parents both ended up sucked into fundy land and never even knew it. They just assumed that was Christianity as a whole, and that’s how it was supposed to be. And then when they tried to raise me like that, except they let me go to public school and see the world as it is, I was like ???? wtf is this ???? Someone gave my mom this book a few years back, and she doesn’t read books, so she got rid of it. I assumed it was some random romance novel and told her it might have smut and she was like nooooooo that’s a sin. And then trashed it. That’s one copy out of the hands of people who don’t need to be traumatized by this book. Fundy thinking is so wild. I’m so glad I realized it was all bs when I did.

I read the wiki of this book outloud to my boyfriend & we cringe laughed through out. you are truly so brave for sacrificing the brain cells.

This was recommended to me by a coworker and it took me over 7 months to finish since it’s unnecessarily long. I have never read Christian [romance] fiction or just novels like this before so I was deeply horrified to learn how well accepted and encouraged it was for young people to read and that it’s so popular that they made it into a movie 🤮. It pissed me off how Hosea was written to be a good example of a perfect man to marry, even though he absolutely disgusted me. I also thought this would have been at least slightly decent if rivers had written it where Sarah wasn’t married to Michael but instead working off a debt but it’s so stupid and badly written (a sapphic rewriting of this by a better writer would be amazing). I also watched the movie and OMG, it made me so livid that I wanted to throw my phone into a wall. I’m so appreciative that you took the time to cover this and the many harmful subjects written in it, reassuring me that I’m not the only one whose grossed out by it because I didn’t even know it was in high schools until now 🤢 and I only know one other youtuber who covered it too but it was a few years ago. I am definitely going to share these videos to others and I’m so grateful to have stumbled upon your channel so long ago because if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have been informed about so much stuff that matter to me and make me feel validated, seen and heard. Keep doing what you are doing because it’s so important and amazing! ❤

Systematically dismantling my childhood trauma, one book at a time…

The casual use of “fundy” is sending and healing me all at once. Love your vids ❤️‍🔥

i am so sorry you had to read this, but we thank you for your sacrifice. you're one of my favorite booktubers and deserve the best 💗💗 (also sorry i'm legit 6 months late help)