Style, Sex and Substance Book Review

Many of the women who contributed to this book edited by Hallie  Lord are bloggers I follow on a regular basis.  I looked forward to reading more of what they had to say about each topic, knowing that a chapter would be much longer than a blog post and so provide for information. 

Each chapter’s author spoke to a specific topic of interest to women, even if not Catholic.  Style, God, sex, friendship, marriage, motherhood and more are all covered with wit interspersed with advice and faith.  As I read it, I felt like I was having coffee at the mall with a friend. 

The overriding sense was one of ten women with the similar struggles as the rest of us and while they may have found some answers at this time, the expectation is that they will continuing to search and grow as life went on and provided new challenges. 

Karen Edmisten in the chapter titled God and Godiva quotes St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, “I even believe that the deeper one in drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself; that is, one must go to the world in order to carry the divine life into it.” And then reminds us that the ways to conquer the temptations of the world are “grace and prayer, the sacraments, accountability, spiritual support from others, and an ongoing discernment to keep our relationship with God flourishing.”  Throughout the book, we are reminded to turn to him and  his Church, no matter what.

The last chapter, Plugging In and Embracing Discipleship in the Twenty-First Century by Barbara R. Nicolosi reminded me that we have much work to do in our culture.  We cannot simply remove ourselves from the world and expect to know what people respond to and need.  We must engage the culture,

All women, Catholic or not, can learn from this book.  

I wrote this review of Style, Sex and Substance for the free Catholic book review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods

Aquinas and More is the largest on-line Catholic bookstore.

I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River.