Arranged | Book Review

Arranged by Catherine McKenzie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I heard about this book from my husband actually. A conversation about love and marriage and friendship naturally led to one about arranged marriages and how "falling in love" and then getting married is a fairly new custom. For centuries people were matched and marriage and learned to love each other without the fading infatuation, the lust, the emotional roller-coaster. As an American girl in the 21st century, that idea sounds completely alien and undesirable. Anyway, he said there was a new novel about this from a modern perspective that might help me see the benefits of marrying someone compatible to you without the dating or drama. So I checked it out.

This book is about Anne Blythe - unlucky in love - when she contacts a private marriage broker to arrange a stranger husband for her. Her adventure into an arranged marriage is the direct result of her shallow, lusty interest in Men of a Certain Type and her jealous, self-indulgent Need for a Fairy Tale Ending. She meets and marries her match Jack. And of course everything is great... until it isn't.

(Sidenote: Her name is Anne Shirley Blythe! I'm not gonna lie, her name and her mother's obsession with all things Anne of Green Gables was definitely a warm fuzzy for me. Ann Shirley is the reason I became a reader and a writer, and she gave me my obsession with red hair.)

Writing technique: ★★ McKenzie's writing is simple. I'd recommend this for a vacation/beach read. Lit lite. I found the beginning fairly tedious and obvious. But it picked up pretty quickly and my interest in the plot overshadowed by disinterest in her actual words.

Character development: ★★★ Anne has a lot to learn. About men, but mostly about herself. I don't know that she learns her lesson though. But she does get over her shallow, looks-mean-everything ideas, but not really the fairy-tale-endings-are-realistic ideas. So... hmm.

Plot/Story development: ★★★ Most of the beginning I found pretty simplistic and predictable. But the one twist in the middle I did not see coming! The end was very rom-com paint-by-numbers obvious, but it was a cute read all in all.

Message/Theme: ★★★ Attraction and lust do not make a good relationship. Friendship and respect are a better foundation for a marriage. Liars and cheaters suck.

Overall: ★★★ This is good chick lit with a twist on what we consider normal marriages. Nice for a quick summer/beach read.



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I Do Not Belong To You | Original Song + The Story

A few weeks ago, I heard a message from my buddy Nate on the prophet Daniel that really got to me. A lifetime of Sunday School and Vacation Bible School has ensured that today I know the stories of Daniel In The Lions' Den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego In The Fiery Furnace very very well. It's easy to think that there's nothing new I could hear about these old Bible heroes that I haven't heard before. But there I was on a Sunday night learning something brand new.

So Daniel chapter 1 explains how Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were Jewish captives taken to the land of Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. And as part of their assimilation into Babylonian culture, they were given new clothes to wear, new palace food and wine to consume, a new place to live. They were taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans. And they were given new names. These names (Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were linked with Babylonian deities and were used to substitute the names they had which linked them with the God of Israel.

Everything they experienced was designed to make them conform to the society around them, to become Babylonians. To forget their home, their heritage, their beliefs, their God. They wanted it to affect them not just on the outside but on the inside as well. They wanted to change not just their appearance, but their habits and their identity also. All they had to do was change the way these Israelites thought about themselves.

But these four men didn't cave. Verse 8 says:

"But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank." 

He and his three friends separated themselves from the others not just in their diet. They wore new clothes and were called pagan names, but they didn't compromise. They followed God. Later Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah would be thrown into a fiery furnace for not bowing down to and worshiping an idol, and Daniel would be thrown into a lions' den for praying to his God. The law said they had to live like Babylonians - particularly in worship. But these men stood strong. They obeyed God. They were willing even to die for their faith. And of course, we know, they all miraculously survived. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah go into a furnace so hot it killed the men that threw them in, and they didn't burn up. (To hear a great song about the fiery furnace story, listen to this.) And God shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was thrown into their den. God protected his followers because they were faithful. They put their identity in the One True God.

Today, our world does this same thing to us. Media, books, movies, music - they all have this message to be like them. To sell ourselves out for the Great American Dream. To be greedy. To be hateful. To be lustful. To be cruel. To be liars, cheaters, adulterers, thieves, murderers, and idolaters. To compromise. To find our identity in success, in public opinion, in art, in nature, in academia, in medication, in individuality, in marriage, in sex, in family, in friends, in possessions, in music, in politics, in culture, in ourselves, in our own greatness. But God says the opposite.

So consider this my anthem. I will not be dictated to by culture. I won't cave, conform, or compromise. I do not belong to you, world. I belong to Jesus.

I Do Not Belong To You.m4a
  

I Do Not Belong To You
Music and Lyrics by Dana J. Moore

Change my name; paint my face
Bring me wine sweet to my taste
Give me coins, show me power
Threaten me; I will not cower

You do not define me
Mold me and refine me
You constantly remind me
I do not belong to you

Dress me up; push me around
For you, these knees will never touch the ground
Strip me bare; peel my skin
You cannot scratch the soul within

You will not defile me
Ravage and revile me
Your ways aren't so beguiling
I do not belong to you

Set the fire, toss me in
I will not bow; I won't give in
Find a pit; throw me down
I'll sleep with lions and still won't bow

Bind my hands; chain my feet
I don't surrender; I don't retreat
I'm prepared to pay the cost
Nail me backwards to a cross

I do not belong to you...

Come use and abuse me
You may execute me
Hang, behead, or shoot me
I do not belong to you