Uninvited: a Review

There is something strange about writing a review for a book on overcoming rejection, especially when your sentiments towards the book veer more towards rejection than praise. It is with humility that I share that Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst is one such book.

I wanted to appreciate this book, especially since a number of women that I love read it and recommended it. I've heard a number of women share how it has encouraged them and how relatable and helpful it has been to them. I do not doubt that the Lord has used this book in their lives. However, I struggled while reading this book.

Before I share some of the critiques of this book, I wanted to share a few things that I did appreciate.

Honesty
One of the things that I appreciated about this book was Lysa's honesty in sharing the ways that she has experienced rejection in her life. I could easily identify with the various situations that she shared and they recalled instances in my life when similar things happened to me.

Chapter of Prayers
Lysa takes a chapter to share several prayers to the Lord to encourage in times of rejection. Her prayers are based off of Psalm 91 and would be a helpful resource to someone in the midst of feeling rejection.

End Chapter On Jesus
I spent the entire book wishing she would focus on how Jesus experienced and responded to rejection and how we should respond to rejection in light of the love shown to us by Christ. It wasn't until her second to last chapter that she brought up how Jesus is the one that helps us to overcome rejection and live loved. I appreciated this last chapter, but wished it had come sooner.

While these are some of the encouraging points of the book, there are a number of things that concerned me with this book and prevent me from recommending this to women that struggle with rejection.

Shallow Content
I spent most of my time reading this book just wanting more. Lysa shares personal stories and gives truisms about God and His love, but I did not see how this book would help someone overcome deep hurt from rejection, such as from a spouse or a parent or a close friend. The deep and heart changing content did not come until the second to last chapter in which Lysa focuses on the character of Christ in the midst of rejection. It saddened me to read this book and realize that I would not want to recommend it to a person that needs biblical encouragement in the midst of facing rejection.

Twitter-Style Writing
Uninvited is written in a twitter-style with staccato sentences and pages dedicated to a twitter ready quote. While I can understand wanting to appeal to a younger audience in the writing of this book, the twitter-style writing made it difficult to follow her writing.

I really wanted to like this book. There were a number of passages that I appreciated, but the shallowness of the content is my main critique. If there is someone that wants to read an encouraging book filled with truisms about God in the midst of rejection, this book might be helpful. However, if there is someone that struggles with working through the rejection that they face, I would recommend looking at the life of Jesus in the Bible or finding another biblically focused book on the topic.

I received a copy of this book from Book Look Bloggers in exchange for an honest review, and this is my honest review of this book.