Book Review -- Stand By Me

Stand By Me, by Neta Jackson, is about Kathryn, a college student from Arizona, and Avis, a worship leader at SouledOut Community Church. Kathryn has recently dropped out of med school to attend a Christian college in Chicago, and Avis' youngest daughter wants nothing to do with Avis or her new husband. When Avis first meets Kathryn, the latter is bringing in food she's salvaged from the dumpster. Obviously things aren't off to a good start. Avis silently criticizes everything about Kathryn and her friends when they start attending SouledOut, and Kathryn has a tendency to just say what she's thinking.
After a time, the two learn to understand each other, and the book ends with the usual happy ending, where everything is resolved and Kathryn and Avis get along.

I didn't really enjoy reading Stand By Me. While I normally don't read books in a real-life setting, that really wasn't the issue. Kathryn's environmentalist personality annoyed me, and I never quite understood why it was that she decided to go Dumpster diving. I also felt the author is a bit out of touch, the way Kathryn mentions how long a 4-hour work day is, and how Avis complains about her husband working 5 or 6 hours a day. There were a couple other things mentioned in passing in the same manner.
The author did accurately portray how some middle-aged and older people think when they see young people in church, the way Avis dislikes how the college students wear jeans to church and speak up too often.

Overall, I could recommend Stand By Me to someone closer to Avis' age, but as a younger reader, I really didn't get much from it.


I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255


This review has also been posted at Into The Book.