I don’t often accept books for review, both because I have so many others stacked up that I want to read and because I have been disappointed in many of the ones I did accept. But something about Song of Renewal by Emily Sue Harvey sounded like it might be a poignant read.

Garrison and Liza Wakefield begin as a happy couple, deliriously in love, expecting their first child. As the years pass, however, relationships wane. Garrison’s focus on maintaining his family’s lifestyle cause him to lay aside his promising art career and become an emotionally-distanced workaholic. Liza willingly gives up her ballet to be a stay-at-home mother, but projects her aspirations onto her teenage daughter, Angel, who isn’t really interested. The pressures of ballet and the pain of her father’s disinterest weigh heavily on Angel, leading her to an eating disorder.

A car accident on a rainy night puts Angel in a coma and kills her boyfriend, throwing the family into turmoil. The fissures in the Wakefield’s relationship widen under the pressures of this crisis, the expenses of medical care, and the less than hopeful prognosis.

The book explores the journey of renewal on several levels: faith, recovery, purpose, marriage, parenthood, and other relationships.

The writer did an excellent job conveying the progress of Garrison and Liza’s relationship, from the bloom of first love to complacency and distraction to blame, distancing, and anger after the accident to eventual forgiveness and understanding. I was almost in tears at times in their struggle. Angel’s struggles physically and emotionally during her recovery hit home as well.

There were a couple of things that marred the story for me, though. One was a smattering of language that I don’t usually find in the types of books I read. It’s fairly tame compared to a lot of what’s out there, but still, to me it was off-putting and I know it would be to some of you as well. Secondly, the frequency and intensity of the couple’s sexual life was meant, I’m sure, as a barometer measuring how well their relationship was going, and it fit naturally in the story and wasn’t terribly explicit, but it still was more than I personally wanted to know.

Though this book does mention the importance of faith, repentance, and forgiveness, I am not sure whether it will be promoted as Christian fiction. I have a feeling that those who read it who aren’t Christian might be put off by the faith aspect, though it is handled naturally and not at all in a preachy or didactic manner, and those who are reading from a Christian perspective will be put off by the language and sexuality.

I think the writer’s main intent was to convey hope in the many problems faced by her characters (and by extension, her readers), and she did that very well.

Special thanks to Lou Aronica at  The Story Plant for sending me a review copy. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)