Randi C. (nordicgirl) reviewed on 3/26/2012 + 10 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

I've already got more unread books on my bookshelf than I know what to do with, but the title of this novel called out to me from the fiction section of my church library last week. "My Life as a Doormat." Somehow, I knew this story would be one I could relate to. I have NOT actually lived my adult life as a doormat, but that's only because I happened to marry someone who has always insisted that I stand up for myself, to him as well as to the rest of the world. (I suppose I could get philosophical here and wonder whether I'm really being a doormat by bowing to my husband's insistence that I not be a doormat...but I won't.) Over the last 21 years of marriage, I have learned to deal with conflict when necessary, to say what needs to said -- yet I still usually feel panic-ridden during the whole process, as if the words in my head were going to strangle me on their way out of my mouth.

Gutteridge's heroine, a playwright named Leah, feels just as frightened of conflict as I do, but has not yet learned to fight past the panic. She lets everyone in her life -- her parents, her best friend, her theatrical agent, and her boyfriend of two years -- walk all over her. She can't even order what she wants for dinner in a restaurant if she thinks it will displease her companion. Then her boyfriend, Edward, enrolls her in a conflict management class as a surprise. Leah, of course, goes to the class even though she doesn't want to. Thus begins a journey that eventually leads Leah to discover who she really is and what she wants out of life. She learns that God values and loves her as she is, and that it is ultimately more unselfish to speak the truth in love than to try to please others by pretending to be someone she's not. The novel is funny, both in the narration and in the ridiculous situations that Leah finds herself in on her journey from doormat to authentic woman of God. I had trouble putting it down.

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