Beth's Review: Night Driving: Notes from a Prodigal Soul by Chad Bird
REVIEWER PURCHASE PUBLISHER: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
NARRATOR: Trevor Thompson RELEASED: October 3, 2017 GENRE: Christianity, PERSONAL GROWTH LENGTH: 3 hours and 8 minutes FORMAT: EBOOK, PAPERBACK, AUDIBLE
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Journeys that begin in brokenness rarely follow a straight road to healing. There are twists and turns—and setbacks—on the path of repentance.Night Driving tells the story of a pastor and seminary professor whose moral failures destroyed his marriage and career, left his life in ruins, and sent him spiraling into a decade-long struggle against God. Forced to fight the demons of his past in the cab of the semi-truck he drove at night through the Texas oil fields, Chad Bird slowly began to limp toward grace and healing. Drawing on his expertise as an Old Testament scholar, Bird weaves together his own story, the biblical story, and the stories of fellow prodigals as he peels back the layers of denial, anger, addiction, and grief to help readers come face-to-face both with their own identities and with the God who alone can heal them. TWO BOUNDLESS STARS
I appreciate that Chad Bird shared all the stories from his personal life. His mistakes were lessons we can benefit from. However, it didn’t read as such. The personal stories were all over the place in no particular order. The presentation of each lesson understood as just that, a lesson. I wasn’t able to feel with, or for the writer. Chad shared a little emotion, but just not enough to make him relatable to me, as a reader. The scriptures read were relevant to each lesson, but there were too many scriptures. There’s nothing I love more than hearing the right scripture at the right time, but in this case, there was overkill. At some points, it sounded more like a church sermon than a personal story. Overall, Chad Bird is an excellent writer; everything is written in a professional and easy to understand manner. Unfortunately, the lack of emotion was a massive barrier for turning his experiences into a book the average reader can relate to. To give my honest opinion, I have to rate this with two stars. It was ok, but it could have been better. Trevor Thompson narrated this book, and I enjoyed his presentation of the book.