Of Stillness and Storm by Michèle Phoenix

Summary from Goodreads

It took Lauren and her husband ten years to achieve their dream—reaching primitive tribes in remote regions of Nepal. But while Sam treks into the Himalayas for weeks at a time, finding passion and purpose in his work among the needy, Lauren and Ryan stay behind, their daily reality more taxing than inspiring. For them, what started as a calling begins to feel like the family’s undoing. 

At the peak of her isolation and disillusion, a friend from Lauren’s past enters her life again. But as her communication with Aidan intensifies, so does the tension of coping with the present while reengaging with the past. It’s thirteen-year-old Ryan who most keenly bears the brunt of her distraction.

Intimate and bold, Of Stillness and Storm weaves profound dilemmas into a tale of troubled love and honorable intentions gone awry.

My Review:

Everyone wants their dreams to come true.  What happened when they do and the person you share your life with is forced to follow your dreams against their own wishes?  Are you willing to follow along to keep the one you love?  Or will you put your needs first?

Phoenix really takes us into Lauren's mind in this book as she's faced with this dilemma when it comes to her husband Sam's dreams.  By following her husband and not caring about her own needs or son's wishes, I felt that she was weak and I hated to see that.  In this time and age, we as women have come so far that we shouldn't be seen as weak, dropping everything to follow a husband to a crazy dream of his, as in Sam's case of going to Nepal.  I feel that it took way too long for Lauren to come to her senses and finally get the strength and courage she needed.  You can see when she got in touch with her old friends that she started to realize she needed to stop giving in to Sam's crazy demands.  The conversations with Aidan, an old friend who is dying, and Lauren I found to be on the lighter side, even if the topic was grim.  The way Phoenix wrote them as if we were reading real messages from two friends on Facebook.  As someone who is on Facebook a lot to talk to friends, it was easy to read it this way as a regular conversation and it set it apart from the rest of the book.  I also felt bad for Ryan throughout the whole book.  Lauren seemed to be the only parent who cared about Ryan because I never got that feeling from Sam.

Phoenix really went into detail about living in Nepal for the family and I could feel Lauren and Ryan's pain, while Sam didn't have a clue how his decisions were affecting the family.  I didn't like Sam at all, not even a little bit.  And I have a feeling that's how Phoenix wanted it to be, the reader finding not one redeeming quality in him.  As I continued to read, I couldn't wait for when Lauren would finally tell him off.  

There was very little I didn't like in this book, such as the chapters that dealt with the past.  I could care less about how Sam and Lauren met.  I would've rather just seen the book stay in the present.  It took away from the story when I had to read about so many years before they arrived in Nepal.

I rated this book 4 out of 5 stars because Phoenix had in-depth characters that you got attached to that you really felt for them through their hardships.  I received this book from a giveaway on Goodreads and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Christian books that aren't so straightforward with religion, but rather having people struggle to find their belief in God about what is going on in their lives.