Book Review: "Turning the Paige" by Laura Jensen Walker

At 35, Paige Kelley is feeling very "in between." She's still working her temp job after two years, still not dating three years after her divorce, and still melting at every chubby-cheeked toddler she sees while her biological clock ticks ever louder. Paige even moves back home to help her ailing, high-maintenance mother.It's not exactly the life she'd dreamed of! When her Getaway Girls book club members urge Paige to break free and get on with her life, she's afraid. How will her mother react? How can Paige honor her widowed mother and still pursue her own life? The answers come from a surprising source.

A trip to Scotland and a potential new love interest help launch an exciting new chapter in her life, and lead Paige to discover that God's plan for her promises to be more than she ever imagined. This latest release in the Getaway Girls collection delivers a smart, funny, and warm account of one woman's challenge to reconcile who she is - a dutiful Christian daughter - with the woman she longs to be.

Laura Jensen Walker's book are always fast read, page turner, hard to put down stories and this one was no exception. I enjoyed reading about Paige's journey to self discovery and finding out her true self. I was afraid at first that this would be the same old story where the child is guilt tripped by the parent to always give in to them. It always pains me to see adult children sacrificing their own lives just to make their parents happy and unable to enjoy their own life. It's one thing for a daughter to be respectful and helpful to her mother. It's quite another thing when she's over 30 and her mother still controls her life. I always hate it how the parent always makes the child feel guilty and that they are being disobedient by not helping out the parent. Luckily this book takes a different spin on the situation and even surprised me with an ending that I had always hoped for and never expected!

The trip to Scotland was a dream to read as I have always wanted to go visit. I really felt like I was in the country and experiencing everything Paige was. I was a tad bit disappointed that the book club didn't accompany her as they did in the first book to the France with Chloe. I also appreciated how the book showed that even though Paige was divorced, she was allowed to date again. Sometimes in Christian fiction it seems that once you get divorced, no matter what the circumstances were, it's the kiss of death for any future relationships.

Walker's stories are chick lit at their finest. Fun stories that are light, entertaining, and escaping yet thoughtful and provoking at the same time. I wish that I could be a part of the Getaway Girls book club as they seem like the type of friends I would love to be around. I can't wait to see what and where the next book in the series takes us!

Turning the Paige by Laura Jensen Walker is published by Zondervan (2009)