Official Review: Finding strength in pain by Renia McElroy
-
Juliana_Isabella
- Posts: 728
- Joined: 19 Feb 2019, 22:34
- Currently Reading: Modern Death
- Bookshelf Size: 176
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-juliana-isabella.html
- Latest Review: Love, Grandma by Ann Morris
Official Review: Finding strength in pain by Renia McElroy
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Finding strength in pain" by Renia McElroy.]
Finding Strength in Pain by Renia McElroy is a short book about the many poor decisions the author has made in life. McElroy grew up in a bad part of town, and she did not have a lot of structure in her life, as both of her parents spent most of their time working to support the family. Many boys in her neighborhood were involved in gangs, and she started dating one of these boys because she liked how he paid attention to her and gave her money. Over time, this evolved into three pregnancies and an abusive relationship. After leaving this relationship, McElroy continued to fall into difficulties where love was concerned. She wants readers to learn from her mistakes so that they can find a better life just like she has.
I feel that it would be remiss of me to begin this review without commenting on the writing style and grammar issues in this book. The book is written like the author just wrote down the same words she would use to tell the story out loud. This led to me finding ten grammatical mistakes within the first five pages, and these mistakes occasionally impeded my understanding of the author’s meaning.
Now that I have covered the issues with the writing, I feel that I can consider the story itself. The author claims that she wrote this book to help other people learn from her mistakes, which made me believe that the book would include stories of how she learned from her own mistakes. Instead, the author simply tells the story of her life, which involves relationships with multiple harmful men. She does end the story on a positive note with her life improving, but she doesn’t actually talk about how learning from her mistakes allowed her to then enter a better phase of her life.
Considering the issues stated above, I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I would like to be able to rate it higher because I appreciate the author’s honesty in laying all of her mistakes out for the reader to see; however, the unclear writing, grammar issues, and the fact that the author doesn’t show how she learned from her own mistakes prevented me from giving this book a higher rating.
I would recommend this book only to adults, as it does include (non-graphic) descriptions of an abusive partner and underage sex. This could be a good book for people who are headed down a bad path and need to see how that path will end in order to get off of it.
******
Finding strength in pain
View: on Bookshelves
Finding Strength in Pain by Renia McElroy is a short book about the many poor decisions the author has made in life. McElroy grew up in a bad part of town, and she did not have a lot of structure in her life, as both of her parents spent most of their time working to support the family. Many boys in her neighborhood were involved in gangs, and she started dating one of these boys because she liked how he paid attention to her and gave her money. Over time, this evolved into three pregnancies and an abusive relationship. After leaving this relationship, McElroy continued to fall into difficulties where love was concerned. She wants readers to learn from her mistakes so that they can find a better life just like she has.
I feel that it would be remiss of me to begin this review without commenting on the writing style and grammar issues in this book. The book is written like the author just wrote down the same words she would use to tell the story out loud. This led to me finding ten grammatical mistakes within the first five pages, and these mistakes occasionally impeded my understanding of the author’s meaning.
Now that I have covered the issues with the writing, I feel that I can consider the story itself. The author claims that she wrote this book to help other people learn from her mistakes, which made me believe that the book would include stories of how she learned from her own mistakes. Instead, the author simply tells the story of her life, which involves relationships with multiple harmful men. She does end the story on a positive note with her life improving, but she doesn’t actually talk about how learning from her mistakes allowed her to then enter a better phase of her life.
Considering the issues stated above, I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. I would like to be able to rate it higher because I appreciate the author’s honesty in laying all of her mistakes out for the reader to see; however, the unclear writing, grammar issues, and the fact that the author doesn’t show how she learned from her own mistakes prevented me from giving this book a higher rating.
I would recommend this book only to adults, as it does include (non-graphic) descriptions of an abusive partner and underage sex. This could be a good book for people who are headed down a bad path and need to see how that path will end in order to get off of it.
******
Finding strength in pain
View: on Bookshelves
Latest Review: Love, Grandma by Ann Morris
We get hurt when we make wrong choices and poor decisions. Luckily she was able to retrace, accept her faults and make right moves to better her life.
