Living Right

De: Laila Ibrahim

Narrado por: Susan Hanfield

Jenn Henderson is proud of the church-centered life she's created for her family. She prays each morning, attends worship every Sunday, and confidently takes up the struggle to defend traditional marriage when she learns marriage licenses are being issued to gays and lesbians in nearby San Francisco. But the certainty that she is living right falters after her teenage son, Josh, swallows a bottle of sleeping pills. Her fear deepens when she discovers that Josh struggles with same-sex attraction. If she's living right, how can Josh be gay?

Desperate for a cure, Jenn and her husband send Josh to a Christian conversion therapy camp recommended by their trusted pastor. Jenn is unwavering in her faith that Josh can be transformed by the grace of God. But as the story unfolds, her husband, son, and daughters seem to be questioning her deepest values, threatening irreparable damage to the tight-knit Henderson family.

Author Laila Ibrahim tackles a subject directly out of the headlines in Living Right, an intimate story about a mother's struggle to reconcile her religious beliefs with her son's sexual orientation. Living Right strips away the politics of gay rights to reveal what's really at stake in this ongoing conflict: family. As with her debut novel, Yellow Crocus, Ibrahim's second novel explores an intimate and sensitive topic with insight and compassion.

©2015 Laila Ibrahim (P)2018 Tantor

Good book but the narration was blah

Very good book. But the narration was blah. I was wondering if it was done on purpose as possibly trying to seem like s staunch Christian

Living right

I must say, I found this book a bit of a forced read on my part. Perhaps it is because I have had my own disappointment with religion. The main character was hard to identify with. As she struggled with her sons coming out, she kept insisting that she only wanted God’s will for her son, but what came across is what she wanted for him more than anything else.

The author does a good job of exposing the hypocrisy of conservative religious people who ditch those who do not fit their mindset. They seem to forget that Jesus felt equally comfortable socializing with sinners as with saints.

The reader delivers the story in a sweet, languid tone that complements the flavor of smug surety of the characters. It would have been nice if she had used a little more emotional intensity in the beginning chapter to make it more believable.

I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish

I really want to be able to finish this book but due to the absolutely awful narration I don't know whether that's going to happen.

I have listened to three other books by Laila Ibrahim so far and have enjoyed them very much however I'm struggling with this one.

I'm going to plod on and hope I can finish as I hate to abandon a book and I would love to be able to say that I have enjoyed the story despite the narration.

I wanted to love this book…

I enjoyed the story. However, I struggled to listen to this book because the narrator lacked ANY kind of emotion.

Controversial

Not a fan of this book. The storyline was very controversial and quite honestly offended me. I couldn’t even read the entire thing. I feel this book takes religion and gay rights and meshes them to make all religious people look bad towards people that are gay. Terrible, Terrible book.