Book Review: Simple Gifts

Copeland, Lori. Simple Gifts. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007. Paperback, 336 pages. $13.99

(Review copies courtesy of Zondervan.)
Purchase: Zondervan | Amazon | CBD

ISBNs: 0310263506 / 9780310263500

Subjects: Christian Fiction, Romance

Lori Copeland has been writing for twenty-five years, and more than three million copies of her books are in print. Monday Morning Faith was a finalist for the 2007 Christy Awards. Lori was inducted into the Springfield Writers Hall of Fame in 2000 and lives in the beautiful Ozarks with her husband and family.

On one level, Simple Gifts is about a middle-aged woman coming to terms with the unconventional family she fled from years ago. On another level it addresses the reality that choices have consequences, especially choices made by taking matters into one’s own hands. These are choices that result from not trusting the Lord.

Marlene Queens’ existence is the result of two mentally challenged adults being left alone in an assisted living facility long enough to conceive a child. She grew up with the shame of that beginning as well as the embarrassment of her father’s presence at almost every event in her life, including her senior prom. He came to live with his stepmother, Ingrid, after Marlene’s conception, and Marlene was raised by Ingrid’s sister, Beth. After Marlene’s birth, her grandparents removed her mother from the facility there to another town to start over. Ingrid and Beth are two rather eccentric sisters: Ingrid was married, but her husband left her for another woman; she is opinionated, stubborn, and bitter. Beth had a softer side, has always been single, and has an odd fetish for rocks.

Marlene was in love with childhood friend Vic, but as their friendship blossomed into deeper feelings, she left her small town of Parnass Springs, Missouri, and returned only rarely. With her genes she was afraid of having mentally challenged children and didn’t feel she should marry Vic if she didn’t want to have children, so she fled. She did marry and did accidentally conceive a child, who was born perfectly normal. But her husband walked out on her when her daughter, Sara, was two. Later he died, but she never told anyone at Parnass Springs about him because she didn’t want to admit that her life was such a failure.

In this state of affairs, she finds herself heading back to Parnass Springs for what she thinks is a short visit to settle her Aunt Beth’s estate and put her house on the market. Sara is now a grown woman with children of her own, but Marlene has still never told any of her friends and relatives that her husband is no longer in the picture. Her short visit expands as she deals with extended house repairs handled by leisurely repairmen, with her Aunt Ingrid’s problems and demands, and with an animal shelter that wants to erect a monument of her father, a desire that splits the town. All the while she is being pressured by her overly dependent daughter, who wants her to come back home; by unresolved issues with Vic; by her diabetes; by her feelings for her father; and by keeping up with the lies she has fabricated over the years while knowing all along that she needs to come clean.

With all of these complications, it doesn’t sound like this would be a funny book, but parts are hilarious. This was my first experience reading Lori Copeland, and her writing style drew me in right away.

“Life is like a box of chocolates—and someone had eaten the creams and left me the nuts” (p. 7).

“My daughter was like the lilies of the field—she toiled not, neither did she spin” (p. 7).

After a hail storm, “The smooth candy-apple red surface on the shiny [rental] car looked like bubble wrap” (p. 10).

Lori set up most of the plot in the first few pages. As events unfold, Marlene comes to terms with her lies and her relationships, and she has to acknowledge God’s working in her heart.

I don’t know if this was the author’s original intent, but an additional truth I gleaned from the books is that coming from an unconventional family is not a hindrance to living for God. Though we need to uphold a godly Christian family, especially with the world’s efforts to undermine what a conventional—much less Christian—family looks like, we must still realize that God saves and uses people from all kinds of family situations. For example, consider Joseph, who came from one of the most dysfunctional families ever. Consider Hezekiah, who “did that which was right in the sight of the LORD” (2 Kings 18:3) even though his father Ahaz did evil (2 Kings 16:2). Consider missionary Mary Slessor, whose alcoholic father sometimes locked her out of the house for the night.

I found one item of theological concern when the author describes Marlene’s baptism. The description almost sounding as though she believed it was the baptism that saved. But other passages in the book clearly refer to trusting Christ for salvation.

Lori Copeland did a wonderful job of detailing the painful, complicated entanglement of running from problems and from God. She showed that while God gives us grace and forgiveness, life also has consequences. The ending isn’t a fairy tale ending; it’s happy but realistic—which suited me perfectly.

Barbara Harper, who resides in South Carolina, has been married to Jim for 27 years and is the mother of three boys. In college, she majored in Home Economics Education and minored in English. A stay-at-home mom for 23 years, she keeps busy with her family, home, ladies’ group, and missionary activities at church. Her favorite hobbies are reading, writing, blogging, and crafting. Check out her blog.

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