I first heard of this book through a review request. The memoir’s synopsis mentioned religious abuse, which I thought was an interesting idea, so I decided to accept the review request and give this book a try. Here is the synopsis from its Goodreads profile:
Some of Janice Romney’s earliest memories bring back painful images of sexual abuse, and the guilt and turmoil from that abuse at age five carried throughout her life. In “Beyond the Power of Love,” Romney narrates her life story from the perspective of a mother and woman who lived through abuse, divorce, marriage, transformation, and fallen dreams-only to discover the healing power of love.
In this new revision of her earlier book, Beneath Wings of Angel, she provides firsthand insight deep into the heart of a disturbing and terrifying world of abuse. She shares a journey filled with heartbreaking challenges as she moves from domestic violence to freedom. Even with its difficulties, however, her story is one of great healing, faith, and love.
This book is a difficult one to review. To describe it as brutal would be an understatement; because it’s a memoir it was that much harder to read. This wasn’t a fictional character, is was a real woman who was telling her story of abuse. The honesty behind her cruel experiences definitely kept the pages turning.
Even though I appreciate her truthfulness I did wish it was written a little differently. The book is written entirely chronologically, no occasional flashes to the future or vignettes from her childhood. I think it would have brought more depth to her story if she had been a little creative with the organization. She’s a great writer, she was able to write about her years of pain without being repetitive and her story was never boring, but I think it could have been a little more powerful if it had been occasionally juxtaposed what it looks like now after her healing process.
The message of her book is clear and definitely something I can get behind: no matter what anyone in authority tries to say to you, you have every right to get out of any abusive relationship. Unfortunately, in Ms. Romney’s life, she was abused by not only her husband but also her LDS religious leaders and friends who put pressure on her to fix her marriage when her husband was the source of the abuse. She has some great resources in the back of the book for getting out of abusive situations and how to parent teens that were or are the victims of abuse. She now is a speaker on teen dating and violence, and I’m so happy to see that she’s made so much of her life.
You can buy the book on Amazon here and on Barnes and Noble here. You can find the author on twitter here and here, and on her website here.
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