Click Here To Purchase One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Author: Ann Voskamp
ISBN: 9780310321910
Publisher: Zondervan


This book is packaged well, it looks good.  It has an interesting idea behind it.  Ann Voskamp was disheartened with her life until a friend challenged her to write a list of one thousand things that she is grateful for.  This is a book with many thought provoking passages and many important messages.  The trouble is finding these important messages within the book.

It starts off well.  The author begins the book by writing about her family life and giving background to the reasons behind her negative feelings towards God.  She reveals a heartbreaking tragedy that led to a life full of anxiety and fear.  I found that in the parts of the book where the author was revealing subjects close to her heart and events from her past, she was able to write those without pretension and without resorting to use of flowery language.  Those parts of the book are good and really held my interest, and sometimes moved me.  However, most of the book is full of poetic language to the extent that it reads more like poetry than prose.  There is also an inordinate amount of repetition of the same thing over and over again.  It took me a long time to read this book because sometimes I could not bear to read another word.  If I hadn’t been reading it to review it for Bookpleasures, I would have stopped reading about half way through.  

All that said, I think it is a great shame that the book wasn’t thoroughly edited.  Half of the words should definitely have been cut out.  The flowery poetry should have been binned, in my opinion.  It was as if the author was either trying too hard to find imagery to describe things, or was hiding behind this purple prose.  She obviously has a great talent, because the bits of the book that I liked, I really liked. 

She brought up many important issues in this book, but the way it was written makes it almost unreadable, unfortunately.  It is a pity because, if this book was re-edited and restructured, it would be a perfect way to get across to people the importance of trusting and being grateful for the many gifts we take for granted in life on a daily basis.