Act of Faith or religious pompousness - Act of Faith by Erica James (Act of Faith - Erica James)

Member Name: catsholiday

Product:	Act of Faith - Erica James
Date:	13/04/09 (166 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read and story is quite engaging

Disadvantages: characters a bit too good or obviously annoying

Act of Faith by Erica James

The characters in the story:
Sarah married to Trevor and and daughter Hannah
Ali married to Elliot = son Isaac died
Sam Elliots's father
Ali's parents -super dope/perfectr
Brother engaged to lovely friendly girl
Grace neighbour of Sarah, whose son Callum has a son James who was dating Hannah
Daniel - gay business partner of Ali life partner to Richard

The story begins with Ali visiting the cemetery where her son is buried and there she bumps into Elliot her former husband and you begin to feel the emotional tension between them As the story develops you find out more about how their son died and why their marriage broke up. This is one element of the story.

Intermixed with this is the relationship between Ali and her school friend Sarah who is in a very strange marriage to Trevor, a rather pious Christian man. He wears his Christianity like a proud badge but is a rather petty dominating husband and old fashioned disciplinarian father. Trevor and Ali do not get along at all but Ali as Sarah's best friend is godmother to Trevor and Sarah's daughter, Hannah and this relationship mix provides another element to the story of Ali and Elliot and their problems.

Beside these two main story lines there is also Ali's work relationship with her business partner and close friend Daniel and his life partner Richard who seem to have the perfect relationship. This is all a little too perfect and syrupy for me but that is just my own opinion and maybe it is the mirror that everyone else is looking into in order to measure their relationships; the one that they all aspire to.

Another seemingly perfect relationship is that of Ali's parents. This was where Sarah came to spend idyllic holidays away from her own strict, rather unloving parents. Ali's parents are loving, fun, hospitable and very supportive. Again they seem a bit picture perfect for me. Ali's brother who they despaired of ever getting married also manages to find Miss Perfect and brings her home to meet his parents while Ali and Sarah are having a restorative holiday at Ali's parent's house. This again provides a picture of what both Ali and Sarah desire and indeed it seems it was what Ali had and rather frustratingly for the reader, keeps throwing away for seemingly silly reasons.

Sarah has a friend and confidante in Grace, her newest neighbour who provides an element of normality in her rather too religiously pious friends in her village. The 'Slipper gang' are Trevor's bible study group who come to their house changing into their slippers in the hall as they arrive. They are all rather' holier than thou' and spend their time receiving 'religious gems of wisdom' from Trevor who seems to fancy himself as a sort of religious leader. Grace however seems relatively normal and acts as Sarah's supportive friend but does force Sarah to question her life choices and why she stays with Trevor despite his strange behaviour. Grace has a son whose son becomes Hannah's boyfriend which Trevor finds very difficult to cope with but this relationship seems to be able to cope with Trevor's ham-fisted attempts to thwart it. This seems to be the only normal relationship in the whole book but that is probably because we do not really hear much about it as Hannah is away at University.

The plot involves all these relationships intermingling and changing as different things happen. It can be quite amusing and certainly I feel the ''goodies are rather too good and those who are the 'baddies' a little too obviously stupid or selfish but having said that I did quite enjoy the book and it did get a bit tense towards the end just when you thought all was going to end well ... but I won't spoil the story. The 'Act of Faith' is a bit of a play on the word Faith - Trevor seems to wear his Faith or religion on his shoulder whereas his wife, Sarah is faithful to him despite his strange behaviour and we can't understand why. Ali and Elliot lost their faith when their son died and as a result they also had their marriage break up despite still obviously caring for each other. On a deeper level we can question what is faith and how does having faith differ from being faithful? Perhaps it is a deeper story than I initially thought!

In summary this is chick lit, holiday reading but it is a good story, quite well written and you can identify with the characters to an extent even if you could cheerfully strangle them at times. There are a few surprises on the way which saves the book from being too bland but I'm still not sure I would go looking for another book by the same author.

May be published on other sites under my name.
©Catsholiday

Summary: Chick lit and a holiday read - certainly not deep philosophical stuff