Search for Eden

I was excited to read Sarah Cunningham's Picking Dandelions. I had heard it compared to Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz) and Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies), two of my favorites.

It's good. But it's not that good.

In this memoir, subtitled A Search for Eden Among Life's Weeds, Cunningham explains "how coming to religion through the front door—rather than through a weeping, born-again conversion—can make it difficult to understand how faith changes life, and even harder to grasp why it must" (from the product description). Her voice is endearing. Her stories are strikingly (sometimes laughingly) familiar to those of us who grew up in the church. And her insights are often impactful.

Unfortunately, I often wondered as I read where I was being taken, and why (a not-uncommon struggle of mine with memoirs, but never with the really good ones). She did periodically return to her theme of the search for Eden, but in between those times, while I was entertained, I wasn't compelled forward in my reading.

Still, I think nearly everyone will find her experience and perspective thought-provoking, and many will fall in love with her, and with her book.