I literally hated every single thing about this book. I only finished it because it’s by one of my top-three-favorite authors. Honestly, I was so angry reading it that I think my motivation to finish was I felt like I had to finish the fight I was having with Francine Rivers. Bailing on reading would have been the equivalent of walking away from a fight I was morally justified in winning because the other person was so, so, SO SO very wrong.
A friend of mine told me that I need to stop reading books that have anything to do with foster care, and he’s right. Because people get it SO WRONG and it breaks my brain.
SPOILERS AHEAD BUT THIS BOOK IS GARBAGE SO DON’T READ IT
Let me summarize this hideousness. Druggie woman delivers a baby under a bridge (book title) in a town called Haven (also book title). Town pastor strong-arms his wife into being foster parents when she’s terminally ill. Wife dies. Husband/dad bails on the foster child but keeps his biological son. The foster daughter gets adopted by someone else—a family (who by the way wanted the baby from the beginning but he made a commitment to this child and then bailed when things got hard!!) who have a daughter her age; they were best friends but as sisters are endlessly competitive. The pastor’s biological son and the foster/adopted daughter continue their intimate sibling relationship as they grow but the pastor cuts off contact saying essentially ‘it’s too hard’ and ‘I want her to bond with her new dad.’
Ok, so now they’re grown up. The girl has a series of horrifically abusive relationships with men (one of which includes a man forcing her to have an abortion against her will when she gets pregnant). So she comes back home now (she shaved her head because she’s edgy) and runs into her foster brother at a restaurant and “falls in love” with him who of course has “always loved her.” Wait, I’m sorry, what? GROSS GROSS GROSS. And the crazy thing is, we’re supposed to ship them—like the author isn’t using this to emphasize her male-relationship issues. But wait, there’s more. The girl’s biological mother re-appears (she’s successful now, by the way, and beautiful), and starts a relationship with the boy’s dad (the pastor, one who bailed on being the girl’s parent).
Hold it because I’m still not to the worst part. The kids get married (ew!), but the girl is still uncomfortable with his father who abandoned her (gee, go figure). But it’s ok because there’s like a big snowstorm and this huge healing moment for the family and SURPRISE the big healing at the end isn’t from her finding a safe, intimate male relationship with her brother-husband (which is gross anyway) — no no no — it’s from the father-in-law that she’s finally accepted is her “true father” and that the abandonment is what was best for her (EXCUSE ME?) and SHE STARTS TO CALL HIM DADDY AGAIN. HER HUSBAND-BROTHER’S DAD. SHE’S CALLING HIM DADDY.
I honestly had to wash my hands after reading this; it was that heinous.
