I started reading – well, actually, listening – to Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness by Eric Metaxas based on a recommendation from my husband. He had seen the title in our library’s audiobook lending program, and knowing about my love for Christianity and the strong women who defend it, he recommended this book.
While Ben has the right idea that this book would be right up my alley, unfortunately, the book was lackluster compared to its description on Goodreads.
In his eagerly anticipated follow-up to the enormously successful Seven Men, New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas gives us seven captivating portraits of some of history’s greatest women, each of whom changed the course of history by following God’s call upon their lives—as women.
Each of the world-changing figures who stride across these pages—Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks—is an exemplary model of true womanhood. Teenaged Joan of Arc followed God’s call and liberated her country, dying a heroic martyr’s death. Susanna Wesley had nineteen children and gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn-writer, her sons John and Charles. Corrie ten Boom, arrested for hiding Dutch Jews from the Nazis, survived the horrors of a concentration camp to astonish the world by forgiving her tormentors. And Rosa Parks’ deep sense of justice and unshakeable dignity and faith helped launch the twentieth-century’s greatest social movement.
Writing in his trademark conversational and engaging style, Eric Metaxas reveals how the other extraordinary women in this book achieved their greatness, inspiring readers to lives shaped by the truth of the gospel.
I loved the diversity of women selected by the author. There were tough homemakers and activists, loving neighbors and leaders in battle. The common thread he found between them all was also particularly meaningful: their strength came from God. I loved that he didn’t just pick the first women to do something that a man had already done; instead, he selected women who were remarkable in their own way. Overall, I thought the stories of these women were interesting. Though I learned a lot, there were some flaws in the book that made what could’ve been an amazing book end up being a lackluster collection of short biographies.
My biggest annoyance with this book is the author sometimes went off on tangents about people in these women’s lives. While it was helpful for context, it was a little frustrating that so much of a relatively short biography was focused on other people. I think the author easily could’ve pared down these side details to still bring across key points rather than the lengthy descriptions that detracted from the main person’s stories.
There were two other aspects that annoyed me about this book, but they are more personal preference things. First, I didn’t really like that the author wrote about why he selected the women he did in the body of the work. I thought his explanation at the beginning was great, but having it within the book itself felt a little weird. I also didn’t like his broad condemnation of feminism. In a book about strong women throughout history, it seems out of place to criticize a key movement for women’s empowerment. Though opinions about modern feminism may differ, it seemed disrespectful to historical feminists.
While this book had amazing stories, it was bogged down by unnecessary details.