Book Review: "Sophie's Dilemma" by Lauraine Snelling

Impulsive Choices

Lauraine Snelling takes us back again to Blessing, North Dakota. This time she tells us the story of Sophie Knutson, daughter of Kaaren and Lars and twin sister of Grace. When Hamre Bjorkland returns, Sophie finds her childhood crush has grown to love. Against her father's wishes, she convinces Hamre to elope and they move to Seattle. However married life is not all that Sophie thought it would be and she soon finds that her honeymoon is not paradise. Unfortunately disaster strikes and Sophie must return back to Blessing, alone and now pregnant.

I really love the Bjorklund family. I've been reading the series for several years now and it's really cool to see the younger generation growing up. It seemed like yesterday that Ellie, Sophie, Grace and Astrid were all babies, now they're all grown women. Sophie is very headstrong compared with her twin. She is very young when she runs off with Hamre and learns from her mistake almost at once. I feel sorry for her because everything takes place so suddenly and she has no idea what to do. She is more feisty than Grace, who at first comes off as a "perfect" character. I'm glad though that Grace was portrayed being very angry with Sophie and took a while to forgive her. I didn't like Garth at first. I hate reading about men who abandon their children after their wife dies. I just don't like men who are so obsessed with their wives that they blame the new baby for killing her. He runs away without any thought for his children and thrusts them upon others to raise. It is not mentioned in this book but his relationship with his kids is going to be rocky from now on. One thing that was quite a shock was how two members of the Bjorkland family suddenly die in the middle of the book. It came out of nowhere and I was rather surprised. I also want to know why no one mentions about word getting sent to the oldest son still in Norway, did they forget about him? This is a wonderful book, an excellent addition to the Red River Saga. I'm looking forward to reading Grace's story and hopefully Astrid's as well.

Sophie's Dilemma by Lauraine Snelling is published by Bethany House (2007)