Book Review: You Who? by Rachel Jankovic
You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal With It by Rachel Jankovic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I liked this well enough. We’re supposed to die to self and live to Christ and Jankovic discusses how the world tries to invert that and lead us away from following the Lord.
It didn’t seem all that surprising to me in general: as believers we are to find our identity in Christ; the Lord conforms us more and more to his image and we are to follow his example as disciples. “A disciple, when he is fully trained, will be like his master.”
I appreciated, perhaps the best, the beginning parts where she explained the modern philosophies that brought culture to where it is now. That sort of big ideas in history is something that fascinates me. That section could have been a little deeper, I thought, but this isn’t an academic work where she’s citing works to prove her thesis. I suspect she thought a little goes a long way.
The living it out seemed like a series of blog posts rather than a unified whole. She went from one topic to the next – and good, worthwhile topics – but with little transitions or thematic structure.
I will probably have my kids read this just so they’re aware, but we hear much of “who and what we are” in church regularly, so I doubt it will be wholly new.
Jankovic’s writing fluctuates between witty and clever and the annoying, all-knowing tone so prevalent in books from her family. Overall, it was worth the read and the eye rolls.
Ha! Nice review, Dawn. I did think of buying this at one stage after I heard her on a podcast but from the sounds of it she communicated the gist of the book in the interview I listened to.
This is on my TBR list for this year. I do have a hard time with some of her stuff because of the all-knowing tone you mentioned. I think sometimes her message doesn't get through because of the superiority in her attitude when she's delivering it.