This is a book that I had a lot of hope for, but ended up forcing myself to read in one day because I knew that if I closed it, I would not go back to it.

It claims to be about marriage, but the connections are very weak. Actually, the connections between most of the content are very weak, to the point that I had to keep going back to the chapter pages to see what I was supposed to be reading about. In overwhelmingly most of the cases, I just could not follow how we got to where we were. In addition, many of the truths that were highlighted are as true outside of marriage and relationship as they are inside of it, and the connections to marriage weren't strong enough to make me feel at all like this was a book about relationships.

Part of the trouble is that this book reads very much like stream of consciousness. It bounces from one idea to another to another without ever landing on an actual point. It was dizzying to try to follow the authors through this entanglement.

The most common punctuation in this book seems to be the exclamation point, which is a personal peeve of mine. There is a difference between writing a book and speaking at a conference, and if your information and presentation are on point, you don't need all of the excitement. But these two authors seem to place a lot of emphasis on being bouncy and acting like your best friend. It may work for some, but the content is so weak that it's hard to really get on board with this. I think they really just like talking about themselves (while at the same time not giving you enough actual information about their stories to make you feel like you know them at all or even understand). Truth be told, I'm not sure I understood why any of the stories that were included were in there. Again, this goes back to weak writing.

This could easily have been that rare unicorn of a book that I didn't finish reading (it's been many years since I didn't finish a book that I started), but I forced myself to keep pushing through. Sadly, it just does not get better. This was a very disappointing read.

In God's Grace & Grit: Surviving Your Fairytale, Snelling and Tompkins share their experiences with relationships and faith. Both authors are what I would consider fairly "new" Christians, and they acknowledge the effect that their lack of relationship with God had on their previous marriages.

While the concept and title of the book piqued my interest, I was initially leery of reading it. Too many times, books like this tend to be geared toward women in committed relationships. I was pleasantly refreshed by the tone and tenure of the book. In spite of the fact that it is written primarily to the woman in a relationship (dating, engaged, married), it also addresses issues that engulf Christian singleness.

I did find a few places that were out of sync with my own personal faith, belief and understanding of scripture. (Again, the authors are what I would consider "new" Christians.) While there was a section addressing Jewish tradition, bordering on mysticism in one of the early chapters, along with an interpretation of Jacob's ladder that I had never heard previously, it did not permeate the rest of the manuscript.

It was a quick, easy read that definitely impacted my faith journey and I will be adding it to my permanent collection of religious non-fiction texts. The authors were transparent, engaging and information was provided to be thought provoking, as well as to facilitate and encourage change. I highly recommend this book and will be suggesting it to my friends as a must-read this year.