My Reading Reviews: "Love Comes Softly"

At the beginning of this year, I decided to try and get back into reading books. I used to read a lot as a kid (fiction, some mystery, nothing to heavy or serious), but I have not really read books for pleasure since I started college years ago. In the past, Jason has tried to encourage me to read books, but I never really got started. This year, I did. With the revival of my blog, I'm hoping to do a bit of a book review for you, maybe once a month. But, that may depend on how much time I devote to reading! Before I start my first book review, let me put out a few disclaimers....

• I'm not 100% sure what a book review looks like, and it's been a while since I wrote a book report for school.
• I think book reviews are subjective to the reviewers personal, and natural, propensities, opinions, and beliefs.
• I am going to try and be objective.
• I am open to your thoughts and constructive criticism regarding my book reviews, and suggestions on how to be a better reviewer.

The first book I am sharing with you is actually
an entire series. And yes, I just recently read the entire series. (My mother-in-law gave me the entire series last fall.)

"Love Comes Softly," by the author Janette Oke

There are eight (8) books total in this series with the following titles:

1. Love Comes Softly
2. Love's Enduring Promise
3. Love's Long Journey
4. Love's Abiding Joy
5. Love's Unending Legacy
6. Love's Unfolding Dream
7. Love Takes Wing
8. Love Finds a Home

Janette Oke is a relatively well-known Christian author, and first published these books in the late 1970's - 1980's. I don't think that the books are being printed anymore. You definitely won't find them in your typical bookstore; I have looked. The copies that I was given were reprinted into two very large books.

These book covers do not depict the original art that was on the individual covers of the earlier published books.

Each of these two books average about 800 pages. The original individual books averaged about 200 pages.

The "Love Comes Softly" series, and the author, are not new to me. I have read this entire series at least two, or three, times through as a young teenager. So, that may explain how I was able to read the entire series in just a couple months. (Jason even questioned me when he found out I was almost done the second big book: "How are you already through the first book?!") I will also say that this series is what I would consider "easy reading." It is not super heavy, dense material. And, the chapters do not drag on and on; some of the chapters are really quite short. There was something that stood out to me when I read through the books this time that I had never caught before. But, now, of course, I can't remember what it was. (I didn't know I was going to start doing book reviews when I read it!)

As I stated, Janette Oke is a Christian author, and this is a series of Christian novels; romance fiction. It is not overly saturated and dripping on either the Christian or romance part. Yet it is very clearly written from a Biblical Christian stance and the main characters publicize, believe, and live Biblical Christian lifestyles. Likewise, the romance isn't ooey-gooey, super love-dovey, sickeningly sweet, and it definitely does not ever border on the lines of being risqué, or hardly ever insinuate the physical side of bedroom romance. Although the characters and events in this series are purely fictional, I do think that Janette Oke tries to maintain a "as close to factual" element for the time period the books are set in.

The series starts during the time period of people pioneering and wagon trains moving west, and the time period appropriately progresses through the books. I'm not exactly sure of the geographic area of this story. It is not in the East, nor is it in the plains of the mid-west; it is somewhere in between, so I would think around the Kentucky type of area. The actual storyline of this entire series revolves around one family that is continually growing. It starts with the husband and wife, Clark and Marty, widower and widow, meeting and getting married under less than desirable circumstances, and joining their two very small families. (I don't want to give away to much here!) Their family grows in number, and not always in the way you expect, in books 1. Love Comes Softly, and 2. Love's Enduring Promise. Then the next two books, 3. Love's Long Journey, and 4. Love's Abiding Joy, branch off and follow the eldest child, Missy, into marriage and the starting of that new family. Missy, and her husband, actually wagon-train further west across the plains, away from the family, and pioneer their own homestead and livelihood. The original characters from the previous books are still involved throughout the books- they just aren't the main focus.

Books 5. Love's Unending Legacy, and 6. Love's Unfolding Dream, go back to focusing on the original characters, Clark and Marty, and their family, though time has passed and their children have gotten older. Books 7. Love Takes Wing, and 8. Love Finds a Home, once again branch off from the original main characters and follows their youngest child, Belinda, into adulthood. It is at this point that the series originally ended. The author, Janette Oke, had written an epilogue stating that the original "Clark and Marty" family had "grown to large and scattered to comfortably keep up with all their comings and goings..." At a later publishing, however, Oke added a post-script to her epilogue informing the reader that she had written four (4) more books focusing on Belinda's (Clark and Marty's youngest child) own family. I can't remember if I have ever read those four additional books, or not.

As I said before, these books are not heavy, nor are they dripping with mushy love, but the characters and storyline do have their ups and downs, hard times and good times, somewhat devastating tragedies, times of not getting along as well, and times of everybody loves everybody else. If you are looking for clean, wholesome, easy reading, and aren't looking for fast-paced, current-times, or action, then you may enjoy these books. I will say that the larger book set (having combined 4 of the original books into 1) is not very conducive to reading while lying in bed. The original, individual books are much more desirable for that setting.

I hope you found my very first book review informative. And, as I said before, I am open to suggestions and constructive criticism on how to write a better review! I am finishing up my next reading choice, and hope to have another book review for you next month!