Melody Carlson

Dear Readers,
Melody Carlson is one of my favorite authors. I love the "realness" of her stories. It is just amazing. I know several of you have heard me say that the grittiness of stories make them hard to read, but so helpful to life.

In The Otherside of Darkness she takes on the story of Ruth. She is what seems to be a normal wife and mother on the outside, but she suffers from OCD. As the symtoms of her illness become worse she finds herself wrapped up in a church that is not teaching the true word of God. They are more focused on the "bigness" of Satan. They are more worried about what he is doing than what God is doing.

As Ruth's slide becomes stanger and stranger, it effects every aspect of her life. Her children suffer because they are lead down the path with her by the church. Her husband is falsely accused of many things and her spiritual life is always under attack and so she struggles to get the demons out of her house and life by getting rid of things.

This is a dark look at a subject that not many of us experience first hand. As her spiritual struggles and her OCD feed on each other, Ruth looses more and more control. She can't keep on top of it all...

Ok that is where I should stop or I will give the whole book away and there would be no need to read it. This is not a light read by any stretch of the imagination. It is not a quick read either. It is one that actually makes you want to stop reading it, but I know personally I needed to know how everything turned out.

I feel like this is one of those books that is a must read so we can be better prepared to help families or friends that maybe dealing with this. It is a subject I didn't know much about, but had heard a bit about it. I did have a co-worker that suffered from OCD to a smaller degree than Ruth does and she knew it, so was able to control it, but it doesn't go away either.

I can't say this was a great book as it was uncomfortable to read at times, but it is a interesting read. I did learn a lot from it.

Happy Reading