I feel like my prayer life is constantly in need of improvement, so I was excited when I got the opportunity to review Women Who Move Mountains: Praying with Confidence, Boldness and Grace by Sue Detweiler for the Bethany Bloggers Program (they give me the book in exchange for an honest review).
This book had some strong claims on the back cover, and I am happy to report that this book lives up to those promises. Before I get into the meat of my review, I do want to clarify that I read this book straight through, but I think it would be better read more like a devotional. Though I didn’t use the book for its intended purpose, I still would confidently recommend it for women looking to deepen their prayer lives.
Good
This book was written incredibly well. It was encouraging and inspiring while remaining grounded in reality. Though it is incredibly encouraging and motivational, it felt like authentic encouragement rather than a cheerleader. The structure was also really good. It contains stories from a variety of women (both living and Biblical), asks engaging questions, shares Detweiler’s thoughts, and wraps up by pointing out lies and replacing them with truths. There were a lot of things I really enjoyed about this book. Though I have some minor criticisms, they are so tiny compared to the excellent content in this book.
Bad
Though the book was grounded in realism, I did feel that Detweiler could’ve done a better job distinguishing between anxiety as a mental illness and just anxiety as in worrying. Though she did offer clarification later, I think it could’ve been clearer and presented earlier. I know this seems like a minor detail, but Christians who suffer from a mental illness may need more than prayer so clarifications like this or important. The only other general criticism I have is the use of The Message translation.
Catholic
From a Catholic perspective, I thought overall it was really good. There were a few things that were phrased oddly (like “before you were saved”), but there wasn’t anything majorly wrong. There were also some points that could’ve been expanded on like addressing the saints in Heaven when talking about the clouds of witnesses. As a Catholic, I was pleasantly surprised with her section on Mary.
Final Thoughts
Though there were a few minor flaws, I thought this was a great book, and I would recommend it to any woman looking to improve her prayer life. I do want to add the warning that the book does talk about abuse, so readers should be cautious if those topics could be triggering or would not be age-appropriate.
You can read my other book reviews here.
