Author Archives: Deborah Khuanghlawn

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What Good Books Have You Been Reading Lately Vol 4

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To new comers of this blog, this is a semi-regular feature on my blog. I have no set date on when these posts will go up. It all depends on how much I read and how good the books are that I read. Lately, I have been picking good books so it’s been good reading times for me. I’m now standing at 159 out of 225 books read for my 2014 goal with about 2.5 months left to go!

The Legend of Sheba: Rise of a Queen by Tosca Lee (Howard, 2014)

My blurb: As far as I can remember, the Queen of Sheba gets a blip of a mention in Sunday School but I don’t know that much about her other than she came to visit King Solomon and they had a lot of wise talks. This book takes her character and creates a whole story for her that is incredible. You can tell there was a lot of historical research that went into the book. Tired of safe fiction coming from the Christian fiction publishers? This one has lots of sex. Good stuff. Heh.

An Accidental Life by Pamela Binnings Ewen (B&H, 2013)

My blurb: This book is about woman lawyers and abortion. But lest you think it’s a preachy pro-life book, it actually isn’t. It’s more about the legal issues surrounding the pro-life/choice debate and makes for a very compelling read.

Miracle in a Dry Season by Sarah Loudin Thomas (Bethany House, 2014)

My blurb: To sum up this word in just a few words: West Virginia and food. Seriously there is a ton of food in this book. And the best part is that one of the characters has the gift of making more food come. But people think she’s a witch! Like I said…..West Virginia.

Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good by Jan Karon (Putnam Adult, 2014)

My blurb: I LOVED this book. I’ve read all the Mitford books and this one was just like going home again. You know how when some authors go back to their most popular books and they just cannot recreate the magic? Not this time. Everything and everyone was there. I also haven’t laughed so much while reading a story in a long time. This is wonderful comfort reading. I don’t know if there will be more books but even if there isn’t, this was a joy to read

Blur by Steven James (Skyscape, 2014)

My blurb: Confession: Even though I LOVE Steven James’s books, I nearly avoided this one because it wasn’t published by a mainstream publisher. (I’m snobby about that.) I’m glad that I went against my normal way of thinking because this was a really great read. It’s a YA suspense with some paranormal elements and it is GOOD. James writes the story from a first person teenage boy’s POV and I believed it.

The Miracle Thief by Iris Anthony (Sourcebooks Landmark, 2014)

My blurb: This book is an amazing historical fiction read set during France during the 900s which is a time period you don’t see a lot of these days in books. Stuff about miracles and witches and nuns and royalty. All good stuff. Also even though I know what the word means, this was the first time I’ve actually seen the word “palfrey” used in a book and multiples times at that.

Sing for Me by Karen Halvorsen Schreck (Howard, 2014)

My blurb: Interracial relationships! Jazz music! Immigrants! The 1930s during the Depression! This book was fantastic. There is a serious lack of interracial couples in Christian fiction so I’m really glad that this book happened. Lots of soul in this one.

The Butterfly and the Violin by Kristy Cambron (Thomas Nelson, 2014)

My blurb: Not your typical WWII Christian fiction book. It doesn’t romanticize the time period at all. But if you have a love of music and European history, you will definitely enjoy this book. Out of the box.


Overwhelmed: Winning the War Against Worry by Perry Noble (Tyndale, 2014)

My blurb: We all know I worry a lot. And how I’m really trying not to. I’ve watched sermons from Noble’s teachings online and I’ve read excerpts from this book in an online devotional and really liked his style of teaching. I basically devoured this book in a day. There’s a lot of what goes through my mind in this book and he really touches at the heart of the manner. I don’t read a ton of non fiction normally but this is one that I needed and definitely recommend.

That’s what I’ve been reading. What good books have YOU been reading lately?

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Say something, I’m giving up on you

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Something must be wrong with my phone.

I mean that must be the reason why I haven’t heard anything back.

It’s not showing me that I have any notifications.

I don’t see a text. Or a call. Or a email. Or a chat.

After all I do have Sprint. I mean sometimes their service can be unreliable.

Maybe my message didn’t go through. Or perhaps the return message didn’t go through.

So it must be the phone’s fault.

It can’t be because I’m being deliberately ignored. Right?

I could think of a bunch of excuses. To justify the reason.

People get busy. People forget to respond.

Maybe it’s the OTHER phone’s fault. Maybe it got stolen. Or broken.

Or maybe there was a kidnapping, illness, natural disaster, moved away.

Hoping that there wasn’t a death and no one contacted me about it.

Most likely though, it’s not intentional. Though it could very well be.

Maybe there just needs to be space. And time. And waiting. And being patient.

There’s always a reason. I just don’t know it yet.

The point is that despite all the things I just wrote, I’m not worrying about it.

The message on Sunday in church was yet ANOTHER one of those ones when I was NOT expecting it to be relevant to me and yet it was again. The speaker filling in talked about having a “black water” experience, and how hard helmet diving is a good illustration about facing a trial when you’re a Christian. Just like diving into places where everything is pitch black and you can’t see anything, going through trials makes you feel like you’re isolated, alone, and in the dark. You don’t know what’s going to happen and you get lost and scared. The only thing that you can rely on is having trust in someone who will tell and show you what you need to do. And then when it’s all done, you’ll come out of the pit, the hole, the darkness and you’ll look and be amazed at what you went through and still made it.

God is the only one that knows what exactly is happening and why it’s happening in this way. From past experiences, I know that I’ll be in the pit looking up and I have to trust that God will rescue me and bring me back up. And when I do come back up, everything seems so much better. And I also know I couldn’t have done it without my faith.

The waves of death swirled about me;
the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me;
the snares of death confronted me.
“In my distress I called to the Lord;
I called out to my God.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came to his ears. (2 Samuel 22:5-7)

Basically, it’s going to be ok. It’s scary now not being able to see and not knowing what’s ahead. But because I know that I can trust in God, because I know that he’s not failed me in the past, it will be ok.

Maybe the phone will ring or a text will come. And maybe it won’t ever. It’ll still be ok.

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What’s Your Attention Span Like?

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I know that I can get distracted pretty easily if I don’t have my mind set to finish something.

I can’t read a book if the TV is on in the background or even if I’m hearing music. It’s weird because I’m usually able to drown out actual conversation from real life people in the same room with me if I’m trying to focus on something. But when it comes to reading, I need complete silence. Otherwise my mind will just be drawn to the background noise like a moth to a flame even if I have absolutely no interest in it whatsoever.

That being said, when I DO put my mind to something, when I start getting an interest in something, I focus all my attention on it.

  • While running is probably never going to be my favorite thing in the world, I’m really proud at the dedication I’ve made with sticking with the Couch to 5k program. I’ve got 3 more workouts in it before I technically finish but I’ll continue to work out it to better my progress. I finished my first 5k race last week and though my time was rather horrible, I’m proud of myself for actually entering and then finishing. And now I know what I need to do to make it better. Plus I agreed to run a zombie 5k obstacle course at the end of the month because I’m crazy.
  • I’m not sure why I upped my reading goal to 225 books from 200 last year. But with 2 months left in the year and 69 books left to still be read, I’m putting all effort into finishing this goal.
  • This blog. Blogs are a dime a dozen. There’s ton of them out there. Why should people care about what I have to say? I’m not anyone important. And yet, I still write. Even if nothing ever comes out of this, I am still wanting to keep up with this blog. It’s been over a year since I started this and I hope I don’t stop anytime soon. I know of so many dead blogs out there even from people I know in person who get super excited in the beginning and then just stop completely for whatever reason. I’m not planning on this one to become one of them.

While I’m sure that there are still many things that I have wanted to try that I haven’t done or even lost interest in, I think that there’s a bigger part of me that wants to keep my word even to myself.

I know several people who put 110% in the first 10% of something and then the interest slowly wanes and then dies away completely. I also know that life happens and sometimes you have to choose between what you want to do and what you have to do. That being said, if you really want to make something happen….stick with it.

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Fall means ALL the TV, ALL the time

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It’s that time of year when ALL the new TV shows are coming out. It’s a good year to be a geek when it comes to TV shows.

This time for Entertainment Weekly, I’ll be recapping Selfie on ABC.

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It stars Karen Gillan (Amy Pond/Nebula) and John Cho (Harold/Sulu/MILF Guy #2) and is an updated version of My Fair Lady and Pygmalion. I know that the name and premise of the show turns people off but it’s actually not that bad. Though I watched the pilot online and then rewatched it when it aired this past Tuesday. And well…they changed things which I’m not sure why because I thought that they did not help the story. But we’ll see what happens. My first recap is up and if you’re watching it too, follow my Facebook page to get links to all season (or however long this show manages to stay on) as I recap the show. I will say that I DO love John Cho and think he’s fantastic.

I would totally like to watch Gotham but as I have already have Monday nights busy, I can’t watch it live. Hopefully I can catch it on On Demand. I would also really love to watch The Flash on the CW but I haven’t even gotten around to watching Arrow yet so that will probably have to wait.

Last year I started watching Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but then I got busy on Tuesday nights and missed the second half of the season. Which is a bummer because I know there was that whole tie in with Captain America: The Winter Solider (Hail Hydra!) Therefore sadly I cannot watch new episodes until I catch up from last year. Luckily one of libraries ordered the first season on DVD so I’m on the holds list for it. I’m annoyed this isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I hope I can catch up because I DO want to watch this show as well as the Peggy Carter spin-off that is coming.

I WAS able to catch the premiere of Gracepoint on Fox last night.

I haven’t seen the original show that it’s a remake of, Broadchurch, so I can’t compare but so far I am planning on watching as much as I can. I will admit, David Tennant’s American accent was the real reason why I tuned in but the show is actually good. I am trying not to look at spoilers of the original series.

I’m still watching Doctor Who. Peter Capaldi is GREAT as the Doctor and the episodes have been pretty good so far. He’s VERY different from Matt Smith but I think that’s a good thing.

The other show I can’t wait to come on again is The Walking Dead. I’m both geeked and terrified at what is going to happen in this season. It also doesn’t help/hurt that with the news about the Ebola virus coming to America that the zombie apocalypse might very well become a real thing one day…..


So yeah. That’s what I’m watching on TV this fall. What about you?

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Ask God a Question? You Get an Answer

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It happened again.

Those times where I swear God decides that I’m being too dense and He chooses to speak directly at me through someone else so that I’ll actually listen to what He wants me to hear.

You may have noticed that I haven’t been really writing a lot of faith posts lately. Not because my faith has changed or gotten any less. It’s just I’ve been busy and focused on things. One of my major prayers got recently answered and while I’m very blessed and thankful, worries that had gone to the back burner are back in full force again.

It was one of those Sundays where I started off my drive to church being honest with God. I wasn’t angry at him this time. Just frustrated with things. And I told Him how it was making me feel. I know that some people don’t like complaining to God but I’m all for letting him know what’s going on my end.

This particular time I was frustrated with myself for worrying so much about the future. I’m a planner by nature. I like knowing how everything is going to be so that when it happens, there are no surprises that will cause me stress or worry. Ironically though because of this desire, I still get stressed out and get anxiety because I can’t make things go smoothly beforehand. I don’t like not knowing the future because I hate uncertainty yet worry about things makes it worse.

I told God about how I wish I could be someone who lives in the present and never seems to worry about anything. They have such a carefree anything goes attitude and just seem happy all the time. I feel like I could never be that kind of person however because I DO like planning ahead and the thought of never planning for anything is terrifying.

And then sometimes I feel like I live in the past. Not that I want to stay there but memories keep popping up and I want to get them out of my head and they just will not go away. I had been catching up with episodes of this season’s Doctor Who and there was a character who continually had memory wipes so that he could forget things. Even though I knew the consequences of not remembering things, I totally envied him because sometimes memories carry too much pain with them.

I walked into church feeling very meh that morning. I did pray that hopefully I would get something out of the sermon but I wasn’t feeling very into it. And then of course, it would be the Sunday that all the worship songs we sang seemed to jump out at me.

Focus my eyes
Away from myself
You become greater
I become less

Promise maker, promise keeper
You finish what You begin
Our provision through the desert
You see it through ‘til the end
You see it through ‘til the end
In the silence, in the waiting
Still we can know You are good
All Your plans are for Your glory
Yes, we can know You are good

When the songs finished and the guest pastor walked out, I was like oh, I’m not going to get anything out of today’s sermon. It’s not going to be anything I can relate to. This is ——“I am a planner. I am always thinking about the future. I am always thinking about what’s to come,” he said. I immediately shrunk down in my seat with my mouth slightly ajar.

Are you kidding me God? Seriously?

He then proceeded to talk about how we all tend to default to living in the past, present, and future. Some of us might focus on just one area, others will dabble.

(WHAT IS GOING ON???)

All have good qualities: you learn from the past and don’t want to repeat mistakes, by staying in the present you become less anxious and don’t worry as much, planning for the future can be wise. However all have negative qualities as well: you become focused on reliving the glory days or staying focused on what’s hurt you before, you have to keep getting a kind of “high” every day to stay happy, and too much living in the future makes you not focus on what’s in front of you.

We’ll have arguments with God where we just ask him to show us that he’s there, to throw us a bone, give us a sign, just prove to us that he’s there and hasn’t abandoned us. (Have I been bugged????)

He instead then said that the best thing to focus on was being in the presence of God. That no matter what is going on in life, no matter how good or bad things will get and how much you may worry, it’s better to realize that God is always there.

In Your presence there is freedom
In Your presence there is hope
In Your presence there is healing
Love restores me, I am whole

No matter how far I run
You are with me
No matter how far I fall

Your love is everlasting
Your kindness never ends
God You never leave me
Your presence goes before us
Your glory has no end
God You never leave me

The focus of the message was on John 14:1-17 and while I won’t post all of it here, the passage basically explains how Jesus is telling the disciples that they need to just believe in him. They don’t need signs or other miracles (though he has already shown them these things). Just have faith.

Well. Geez. I don’t think it could have been any clearer that God was choosing to speak to me through this message. Yes, I know that it wasn’t made specifically JUST for me. Yes, I know that all this had been planned for at least several days beforehand. And yes it does seem like a big coincidence.

But I know it isn’t. I know that God didn’t create specifically this for me because there are many people who benefited from hearing something like that. But He knew I needed to hear it and He knew WHEN I needed to hear it. It’s just always is incredibly freaky when it happens mere minutes after you tell and ask Him those exactly questions and He answers it immediately. True, it doesn’t always happen. And sometimes you may NEVER get an answer. But those times when it does happen? Awesome.

Therefore all my worries about God not caring and turning a deaf ear to me? Yeah…He just pretty much pulled one on me. God: Infinity. Deborah: Zero.

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Far, far away

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I was talking to some friends the other day and we were discussing locations of places we wanted to go eat. I suggested a place and was immediately shot down because it was too far away from though, even though it was near me. Apparently 20 minutes away is too far. They then suggested someplace that was a lot closer to them because it was more convenient for them. Never mind that it was going to take me 30 minutes to get there.

I’ve discovered this a lot in the DC metro area. Due to traffic, everyone wants to find a job that is either 1) extremely close to them or 2) telecommute. You basically don’t want to leave your bubble because then you end up having an hour plus commute thanks to traffic. If you are one of the lucky few that can find a place near you, you basically never want to go anywhere because you don’t have to and you’re not used to driving places. It’s really interesting how some people have lived in this area for DECADES and have never really traveled into DC or even explored the area around them. Heck I know people who’ve never crossed state lines ever and we’re RIGHT next to Maryland AND West Virginia (and vice versa)!

On the other hand, if you DO have a slightly long commute, while it can get really frustrating being STUCK in traffic, you find that distance isn’t really a big deal. You don’t mind driving places because as long as you’re moving, hey it’s shorter than your commute! It also helps if you like exploring. A lot of neighborhoods and cities in this area have it so that technically you could find everything you want within 5 miles around you.

Not for me. I like to explore. I think it’s because growing up, our family didn’t go to many places for vacation. If we ever traveled it was to visit family for reunions or because someone got married. Even then, not counting two trips to Malaysia, the furthest we ever went was to Michigan and it was strictly for the family get together and not for any sightseeing. Heck, my parents live about 25 miles from the beach and in the 27 years they’ve lived there, they’ve never once been.

I realize that some people don’t like getting out of their comfort zone. Also once you have a family, I know it’s harder to travel even if it’s somewhere just half an hour away. Since I’m just by myself, it’s usually easier for me to come to someone vs forcing them to come out to me. I don’t mind so much though it can get a bit frustrating when I do suggest something and all I hear are complaints.

I chalk this all up to comfort zone and priorities. Right now, I’m in explore mode. And I’ll enjoy making distance seem not so far away as long as I can.

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Pumped up kicks? You Better Run

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So as we all know (since I talk about it at least every other week), I’ve taken up running.

For a while I had been listening to the Alternative Endurance Training station on Pandora. There is a lot of great music on there that I enjoy. However, I made the mistake several months ago of giving the thumbs up to a few songs that weren’t really in that style of music and now I have a bunch of Beatles and some really great but very slow indie folks songs that come on the station. This is all fine and dandy when you’re on the treadmill and can balance the phone to skip the song but not so much when you’re outside running.

I decided to switch to audio books so that I could focus on the story. I downloaded The Magician’s Nephew from The Chronicles of Narnia from the library onto my phone’s app. Even though I’ve read/listened to the story a bunch of times, it’s one of my favorites and I was due for a reread anyways. Unfortunately I discovered that even though audiobooks work great for me during car rides, I’m not really a big fan of them during running. My running apps will talk over the narration causing me to miss things. Plus I found myself not really listening because I was paying too much attention to my feet, breathing, or watching the road.

I finally decided to just make my own playlist. Someone on Reddit had mentioned that if you don’t want to keep constantly looking at your clock to see how much time you have left, you can still use songs to keep track of time. If you know you’ve reached the halfway mark at 15 minutes, if your playlist consists of songs that are about 4 minutes each, then you know that you have 4 songs (or less) and then you’re done. Much easier to make time go by faster.

So I present to you my current running playlist.

Yes it’s a bit of a mix. I have alternative, punk, EDM, classic rock, and pop on there. Yes there is a One Direction song on there. I like the song ok? And no I will no put any Josh Groban on here. He is too slow. Sacrifices. I know.

There are all these fancy playlists with certain BPMs (beats per music) that you can listen to so you can make yourself go faster. But really though, I’ve created a really great mix for ME. Music is always something I know that I can lose myself in and helps me to do things better. And these are songs that I actually know and like. A lot of the songs are good for me because they may have some slow parts but then the music gets faster and faster. You feel like you suddenly get a burst of energy and realize that you CAN keep going even though your legs feel like death. Since I use the free Spotify app, the playlist HAS to shuffle but that’s actually good because I never know what song is going to come up next. I will say I do like it when “Livin’ On a Prayer” happens to come on especially when I’m halfway through my run for obvious reasons.

I haven’t gotten bored with this mix yet. It’s long enough that I haven’t had any repeats yet during my runs but I’m sure whenever the day comes that I can outrun it, I’ll add more music. For now, I think these songs will help me when I run my first 5k this weekend.

So with that in mind, anyone have any suggestions for other songs to add to my list? Or what’s on your playlist? What do you listen to when you run? Music? Audio books? Podcasts? The sound of your own breathing?

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Anniversaries, milestones and memories

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I have two degrees in history which can be interpreted that I enjoy remembering and preserving the past. One of the things that comes of being a history scholar/buff is that you’re really good with remembering dates and anniversaries. You remember why specific dates are important and what happened on that day in history. You may not exactly want to relive the past but you know why it’s a significant date and worthy of remembering.

I sometimes wonder if things fall on certain dates or milestones and it’s just a coincidence and me trying to connect everything or if God’s the one in control.

Again it’s always really good timing when the message at church seems to correspond with both posts I’ve written about recently or ones that I’m getting ready to write. It makes me feel like God is tracking with me and helps me to hear what I need. This past week in church, our pastor talked about how “For better or worse, human character always impacts history. But divine character, led and influenced by the Holy Spirit, always impacts eternity.” He talked about things can happen and we can just classify them as being just a coincidence and brush it off or is it something much more significant and important than that?

There are certain dates that are upcoming in the near future that to the average person aren’t important and could be written off as just coincidences. And to be honest, sometimes I question why I feel so strongly about these dates. Is it nostalgia? Sentiment? Wishful thinking at trying to make everything fit? Or are they all part of God’s bigger plan and I’m aware that I’m a part of it?

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I really don’t try too hard to make everything connect together. It’s not like I’m sitting here trying to find the tiniest little thing that matches up with something else. But when things DO fit together and you look back at them, sometimes there’s just nothing else you can say but how it’s totally a God thing. There’s no other explanation. I’m not trying to manipulate the circumstances at all.

I talked about last week about how the die has rolled a certain way in my life and I was meant to be in a certain timeline. Sometimes I question why because it just seems like everything can feel pointless and am I really making that much of a difference. But then I’m reminded that sometimes all I need to really do is just plant the seed and God will take of it and he’ll do all the work. Even if I never see what comes of it this side of heaven, I just need to do what I’ve been told to do.

So as these anniversaries go by, I don’t have to make a big deal of it. I don’t even need to recreate everything that happened in my mind and relive those memories. But I also don’t need to constantly ponder if these things happened for a reason because I know that they did. I know that God purposely planned out everything and even if I can’t see or understand it now, I just need to trust in Him. He’s used me and he’ll continued to use me as he sees fit. He’s placed me in THIS timeline for a reason.

“And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b)

Life is so complicated. But God calls us to trust Him. To rest in Him as He holds us in His hands, as He fulfills His promise to work the details of our everything together for our good. http://shereadstruth.com/2013/08/08/wob3day4/

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Bring on the Sweater Weather

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Today is the last official day of summer. All you people who want to argue that summer ended the day after Labor Day, fine you can have shorter vacation time. You’re probably all the people who want Christmas in July too!

*ASIDE* For the record I just want to point out that I have a summer birthday. Yes it falls in the month of September but it’s so close to the beginning of the month that it’s WELL before autumn equinox and so early that sometimes it falls BEFORE Labor Day and school starting (for those who start school AFTER Labor Day). But September birthdays always get shafted in schools. Teachers will sometimes honor those who have birthdays that fall in June, July, and August. But September birthdays NEVER get mentioned. We’re not included in the summer birthdays because it happens during the school year but come the beginning of school, the teachers are so busy with back to school stuff they forget. Therefore it pays to have October-May birthdays for maximum recognition potential. *END ASIDE*

I do enjoy fall coming. This means cooler weather! Sweaters! Boots! Leather jackets! Scarf appropriate weather! Apple picking! Football! Bonfires! School starting! Leaves falling! No more allergies!

Confession: I’m not a big pumpkin flavor person. It’s ok in small doses. I just never really grew up eating pumpkin so forgive me that I’m not very excited for the pumpkin spice latte (plus when it comes out in August it really does not excite me).

Fall also means that the holiday season will be coming soon. I don’t want to rush things but I think that September through December are the best months of the year because there’s so many things to look forward to. Also fall and winter scents > spring and summer scents. I mean spices and apples vs… grass?

However as much as I love the change in season, historically for me fall has always been a rough time. The past couple of years the change in weather brings along changes in my life, usually ones that I’m not too fond of and it makes me have to go reevaluate how I’m going handle everything. I usually spend much of September and October kind of in a funk and they are usually very hard months emotionally for me. The summers had always been so awesome and then fall comes and everything changes and it leaves me feeling anxious and worried about what’s going to happen next.

This year I’m hoping however to avoid that. It has been a good summer, different from previous years, but still it’s been an awesome summer where I was very blessed. The upcoming changes ahead seem to be good ones too. I’m going to try my best to enjoy this time of year and everything that comes along with it. And that includes pumpkin flavored beers and zombie 5k runs. Because just because things have to change doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy all the good stuff that will come along with the new season in life.

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When the genre you read the most fails you

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I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I’m still trying to reach my goal of 225 books for 2014 (I’m currently at 144 books) so I have about 3 and a half more months to go to read about 80 books.

One of the book bloggers that I follow (S. Krishna’s Books) tweeted this the other day:

https://twitter.com/skrishna/status/512632270750883841

https://twitter.com/skrishna/status/512632473948147712

I thought that was interesting because for me the majority of books I read are written by white women. In fact out of those 144 books, only 8 were NOT written by white women. 6 of those authors were white men and the other 2 were POC authors (Asian women to be exact). That’s a rather dismal statistic. In 2013, I read 217 books. Again only 8 of those authors were NOT written by white female authors (2 male, 6 POC).

The reason why my books are geared towards this way? The majority of what I read is Christian fiction.

And that’s is incredibly sad.

I’ve been reading Christian fiction for most of my life since I was 8 years old. I’ve watched the market change throughout the years and there has been a lot of good that’s been done.

However I’ve also accepted the fact that there are some things about Christian fiction that are just not going to change.

The market is targeted at a specific kind of reader (white middle class Middle American woman who is usually a mother). There is nothing wrong with that type of market. That just usually tends to be who the authors are as well. And they write what they know. What is super popular in Christian fiction these days? Amish fiction, historical romances, and contemporary romances. All three of these genres do not really appeal to me, though I will admit sometimes I can find good books among the weeds.  I’ve accepted the fact that since I do not fall into the demographics for the market, I will never be completely satisfied with the market itself.

I’m not asking for edgy fiction. I’ll just read books outside the Christian market if I wanted that. I realize that a lot of authors don’t want to write about what they don’t know because it can sound not authentic. Ok, I can understand that. You don’t want to come across as sounding fake. It just gets me that so many of these stories feel like the characters just live in a bubble. Barely any POC characters. Maybe a few people will go through some hardships. Barely anyone questions things. To want to further your education or move to a big city for a job is a bad thing. Romances happen after 2 hours of knowing someone and marriages take place after 2 months.

I know it’s hard because you don’t want to offend people. But it just feels like to me that it only happens like that in the Christian world. I don’t see general market authors having such strict guidelines on how or what to write in fear of offending  group of readers. No wonder why Amish books are so popular. It’s so….safe.

Why then do I keep reading the books? I ask myself this question all the time. It’s not that I don’t read outside of this market. I also read a lot of general market young adult fiction as well as general market contemporary women’s fiction. I will also pick up a random book out of my normal reads from time to time and find it liking to my taste. Yet I still find myself going back to the Christian fiction for the majority of what I read.

Another book blogger (Relz Reviewz) asked this question on her blog the other day: “Do you prefer a “comfort” read or something “out of the box” in Christian fiction?” She talked about there were some authors who when writing their books, they know what sells and what their audience wants. Therefore their stories have a same formula to them where the story and the characters are so similar that it’s completely interchangeable almost to the point of predictable. They’re comfort reads because you know what to expect. And in Christian fiction there’s A LOT of these.

I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to be fully satisfied with the market. It’s never going to cater to exactly how I want but then again just like many things in the Christian world, there are so many personal preferences that cause dissention among everyone. I know that what I CAN do is continue to seek out writers and books that do understand that there are more readers than the targeted demographic and talk about their books (future post!).