The Voice: Listening for God’s Voice and Finding Your Own

In this uneven if emotional book, Christian singer Patty (Broken on the Back Row), winner of five Grammy and 40 Dove Awards, shares intimate memories of times when she felt voiceless. As a six-year-old girl, she was abused by the woman her parents left her with as they traveled with their music ministry. Patty locked her secret deep inside: “So from age six, I walked through my unconscious life looking through the lens of being the bad girl and everything being my fault.” She found expression and relief through her music, but over-eating sparked additional emotional problems. She went on to become an international success, but many Christians later rejected her when it was revealed that she was having an affair and her marriage ended, nearly destroying her singing career. Patty writes about how her strength only returned when she learned to hear God speaking. But details of how this happens are vague and she occasionally skirts discussions of pivotal moments. For instance, the childhood abuse is discussed in detail, but Patty doesn’t share specifics of her adult recovery, and though she writes that her parents helped in that recovery, she doesn’t mention how her revelation of the abuse was received. Patty’s story is a singular one, but its impact is somewhat blunted by the arms-length treatment of some topics. [em]Agent: Esther Fedorkevich, Fedd Agency (Nov.) [/em]