publisher: Tyndale
Hayley DiMarco's The Woman of Mystery celebrates a woman's grace, creativity, space and faith. It takes the modern woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of lasting love- --- one that lasts far longer than the frothy moment mid-chick-flick.
Structured in a readable fashion wtih short outlines and moments of reflection, women looking for a boost like caffeine will sink into this book quite easily.
DiMarco speaks to both single and married women of faith. She readily validates her voice on the single woman due to the fact that she married at 37 years old. The snippets of her life story throughout gave the book an altruistic and refreshingly personal appeal. In fact, I almost felt like Hayley was leading a small Bible study group chatting in an intimate setting, or across from me at coffee.
A few negative points...
I was distracted by cliched chick flick quotes that preface each segment of the novel. Especially because they prove quite contradictory when she urges women to stray from emotional pornography: one symptom of danger being the re-visitation of love stories.
While I enjoyed what DiMarco said about single women failing to start their life and putting goals on hold until they find a man ( thinking a relationship starts with a man), she immediately trails into a domestic cure. Independence through domesticity. An oddly contrary stance. DiMarco mentions buying a house ( I nod at financial independence but how much of our viewpoint of women is sculpted into matron of a house) and learning to cook. Sure, these are but two examples of DiMarco's urging of women to start life, but they are placed exactly after her plea for independence and I couldn't help linking the two.
With redemption to follow....
With the aforementioned exceptions, I was quite relieved and surprised at a strong female voice.
Her spirited approach to mystery and romance, her insatiable appetite for life and her plea for women to remember and embrace the romance in their every day life was heartening.
Her strongest suit continues in a paragraph on a woman's space: which put me immediately in mind of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.
I don't often read Christian non-fiction of this ilk and I was happy to stray from the norm. DiMarco has a lot to offer women in the way of self-esteem, celebration and re-assurance.
Coming from this at a Christian angle made her book ever more delightful.
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