Soul Survivor: Miracles Beyond Imagination

White debuts with an emphatic if clumsy testament to the faith that helped her beat cancer. Seven years old when her older sister was diagnosed with cancer (which she survived), White grew up plagued by fears of death and struggled with overeating. Further heartache followed in her teens when her mother died. White describes being diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma when she was 18; the seemingly endless, crushing rounds of radiation that followed; and the love from friends and family that sustained her until she went into remission after a year and a half of treatment—only to be told at age 28 that the cancer had returned. From there, White recounts how she developed congestive heart failure and chronic lung and kidney disease at 38, and received a heart and kidney transplant at 47. The author’s passionate ode to her unshakable faith in “God’s grace and mercy” inspires, but the book’s strengths are obscured by awkward writing that tends toward platitudes and often contradicts itself (“Although Sheila and I had an ambivalent relationship due to me ‘taking her place as the baby of the family,’ we were also best friends, and I did not want any harm to come to her”). Still, readers will find it hard to forget White’s incredible life story. (Self-published)