Remembering days of my youth, my grandma heart was drawn
towards the candor of this book title. Paula Hendrick’s voyage through
boy-crazy turbulence holds many too-familiar descriptions of seeking attention
of boys and needing to feel liked and attractive to them. I see my grand daughters involved with guy
relationships at very young ages. Add in the “helps” of technology like texting
and facetime and it becomes a faster paced boy-craziness.
I was hoping this book would help me understand my past
better and that it would be a good resource for the grand girls. Paula has
helped me look back and confirm neediness that I experienced in my teens and
young adult years. I could identify with lack of emotional relationship with my
Dad, total focus on getting a guy to like me, reading Christian romance novels
and wanting to feel loved and beautiful. Her evolving understanding of how
immensely God loves her and allowing him to transform her thinking about
herself is right on. I reached similar
conclusions in my own story.
Paula starts her story from the point of self awareness of
her neediness and how her pursuit of boys had become an idol in her life. The chapters are set up almost as a
devotional with journal prompts, to help the reader do some reflective
thinking. Her message is non-judgmental and very Bible based with scriptures,
prayers and encouragement to the reader to be a student of the Bible. I come from a strong faith background and have a working knowledge of scripture, so I get where
she is coming from and where she hopes to take young women.
However, I’m not certain the author’s style would engage the
average teen reader who is saturated with today’s pop culture and media. She
makes no reference to popular culture in
her own experience nor does she address current trends and the challenges
of technological influences. I would have liked the book to give more “story” about Paula's
experiences before emphasizing her spiritual transformation and how she applied scripture to learn the
lessons God was teaching her. The book will probably have best appeal to late teens and on up who are actively seeking to live a faith-filled life.
Overall, this book contains a wonderful testimony that is very
encouraging and will hopefully help many young Christian women who can identify
with boy-craziness. I will donate my copy to the church library as a great
resource for young adults and keep it in mind for sharing with family members as they get older.
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