Pastors' Wives by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen
Release Date: April 30, 2013
Publisher: Plume
Genre: Christian Fiction, Novel
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
What’s it like when the man you married is already married to God? asks Pastors’ Wives, an often surprising yet always emotionally true first novel set in a world most of us know only from the outside.
Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s debut novel Pastors’ Wives follows three women whose lives converge and intertwine at a Southern evangelical megachurch. Ruthie follows her Wall Street husband from New York to Magnolia, a fictional suburb of Atlanta, when he hears a calling to serve at a megachurch called Greenleaf. Reeling from the death of her mother, Ruthie suffers a crisis of faith—in God, in her marriage, and in herself. Candace is Greenleaf’s “First Lady,” a force of nature who’ll stop at nothing to protect her church and her superstar husband. Ginger, married to Candace’s son, struggles to play dutiful wife and mother while burying her calamitous past. All their roads collide in one chaotic event that exposes their true selves. Inspired by Cullen’s reporting as a staff writer for Time magazine, Pastors’ Wives is a dramatic portrayal of the private lives of pastors’ wives, caught between the demands of faith, marriage, duty, and love.
This book is not what I expected. For some reason, I was expecting a self-help book advising pastors' wives on how to handle their marriage. Yes, I'm aware the cover clearly says it's a novel, but I was still surprised. However, I did enjoy the book, for the most part. I enjoyed the real struggles between the three women, their families, and outsiders. I liked seeing into their lives, as if they were real.
I didn't like how Candace treated Ginger. I feel like she does not represent Christians well and I was very offended by her demeanor at times. I also did not like the "mini" affair that occurs between two of the characters, who will remain unnamed for the sake of this review.
This book made me wonder how much of this is true in current relationships with pastors and their wives. Obviously they have struggles like everyone else, but we as Christians often put them on a pedestal and think them untouchable.
Overall, I felt this book was well written, considering the author is not a traditional Christian author. I will be curious to see what she writes in the future.
I received this book free for review from LitFuse Blog Tours. I was not compensated for this review, and the opinions contained herein are my own.