The book is on my book reading list, 14-17. It’s a fun book, but in a way it’s clearly fiction. I don’t think it is intended to be fiction and I think, for some people, it might be fact, but I think that overall it’s just not so.

It says that being married and having a family takes away from who you are. It may, in a way, but it also adds to who you are. Could you be as compassionate if you had never felt the fear for your child? Would you know what another was going through if you hadn’t gone through something, if not similar, at least as difficult?

Who am I? I am S. I am a wife. I am a mom. I like my house to be clutter free but don’t like to clean. I like blue glass and wood furniture. I like art. I love my husband. I love my kids.

This book was about a woman who always looked at other people’s needs and never her own. Her husband found her to be a strong woman, but she had never seen herself as strong. But just because she hadn’t seen it, didn’t make it so. She lived “other people’s lives.” But, something the book does not touch on, that was her choice. It might not have been the best choice, but it was her choice.

My choice is to write a story I love, and not send it out. My choice is to homeschool, not as well as I could. My choice is to read blogs, write this one, and not aim for a niche market and a wide readership. My choice is to dye my hair and wear pink. My choice to keep my hair long. My choice not to take the Christmas tree down, even though it’s dwarfing the living room. All those things are my choice. Yeah, they may impact someone else, but they’re my life, not “other people’s lives.”

I could have not homeschooled, but I decided that was more important to me than being comfortable and making money. Homeschooling is not easy. And it is certainly not easy for me. It is hard. But it is something that needs doing and I can do it and I want to do it because I think it is important.

I could have not finished my PhD, but I decided I wanted to and I got it done, right at the end of the time limit. It’s finished. No one can take it away from me. There are lots of people who wanted me to do it, but in reality I was the one who chose.

That’s what the book misses. It sees her going along, making limiting choices because of her past. But they were still her choices, her limits. Those other people did not choose them for her. She chose them for herself.

Then she chose to change. She changed in a big way. She left her philandering husband and her empty house and her “always gone” kids. She went in search of her past and found a new present, but not one I would have liked. She got a beautiful apartment and a funky backyard and took up a new profession.

Those changes were also her choice. But the book made her first choices seem to have been someone else’s. They weren’t. She chose the way her life was. Then she chose another way.

I wish I knew wild and crazy friends like Elizabeth and Bianna. But then again I don’t know if I would choose women like those characters to be my friends.

It’s still an interesting read.

Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn by Kris Radish.