Title Tuesday: The Memory House

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. You can see a visual summary of the books I have reviewed for both adults and children over on my Facebook page. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads!

Today I am sharing Rachel Hauck's newest book The Memory House. I want to start this review by saying that I desperately wanted to like this book. Parts of The Memory House is set in Waco, Texas, a place that I spent a fair amount of time in growing up. The delight of a book being set in my old stomping grounds was quickly squashed however when the author referred to a storm in Waco as a "south Texas storm" on page 95 of the book. Let me set the record straight. Waco is not a south Texas town. It is a town located on I35 in the north of central Texas. Any true Texas reading this book will notice that first thing.

From there my disappointment with this book just grew.

The Memory House tells the story of a New York City cop Beck and her love interest Bruno in quipy little vinyets while simultaneously telling the story of the man and woman who left Beck a house, Everleigh and Don. The back story is that Beck is pregnant and hiding it from everyone when Everleigh dies leaving The Memory House to Beck. Beck literally runs away to Florida to stay in the memory house for a few weeks and falls in love with her childhood friend Bruno, who is not the father of her baby. In a tidy turn of events the father of the baby (and his long suffering wife) come to Florida to ask Beck to let them raise the baby as her parents. All of this is happening while the reader is bombarded with choppy flashbacks to tell the story of how Everleigh and Don got together. In the end, everyone ends up happy.

The pros of The Memory House? There really aren't very many.

The cons of The Memory House?

• A woman has sex with a (married) man in a supply closet at a bar and gets pregnant... and it all magically works out.
• Beck runs away from her problems.
• Her family seems to have no issue with the fact that she hid a pregnancy from her family while living with them.
• Bruno and his mom have a seemingly good relationship that we later find out belongs on a television reality show.
• Bruno has some serious temper issues that are never really addressed in the book.
• Everleigh leaves her mother's home and doesn't even have the courage to tell her face to face
• Don is all but engaged to another woman when he is dating (and kissing) Everleigh

As if this list isn't enough taking a look at the theology of the book is enough to make your head hurt. This book is billed as a contemporary Christian romance. The only thing "Christian" about this book is the fact that they mention God. But lets be honest, even demons believe in God (James 2:19). It is also slightly worshipful of Everliegh and leans heavily towards the idea that it is HER rather than God that is orchestrating the life events. There is also the odd mentions of is it an angel talking to Beck or God? Don't even get me started on the fact that the author talks like Everleigh became an angel (which is as we all know completely incorrect theology).

Overall, I give this book a C- rating. If I had a lower rating, I would use that. This book is like a Hallmark movie and a soap opera had a baby. It seems to me that the author threw a few Christian phrases into the book so it could go into the Christian fiction market. At best it is cultural Christianity, at worst it is imitating Christianity to mislead people. Neither one warrants more than a C- from me.