Rough & Rugged Lily (Young Women of Faith: Lily Series, Book 9)

Rating:
Summary: A Good Book with A Good Idea
Review: "Rough and Rugged Lily" is the second book I've read where the author points out how secularized Christmas in America has become. ... In "Rough and Rugged Lily" Lily and her family prepare for Christmas...so they think. The last straw comes when Lily and her brothers hand thier extra long Christmas lists and Lily's father overhears Lily and her friends commenting on how they'll get everything they hope for during the holiday season. For Lily, its camping gear so she can go on the Junior Youth Group Camping trip in the mountains, where she hopes to camp and learn about how Jesus and his disciples lived back in the Bible times. But Lily and her brothers are in for a surprise: their parents have different Christmas ideas in mind. First, there will be no tree, no fancy feast, no church candlelight service, no store bought presents. The Robbins family is headed out to an isolated cabin...free of the world, but with stipulations on what every family member can bring. Lily and her brothers are angry at their parents for "ruining" Christmas, and their parents become surprised at how selfish their children have become. But God has other plans for the Robbins family, whose van is run off the road during the worst snowstorm to hit North Carolina in years. The Robbins family ends up stranded in their van until help comes. But the help isn't what they expected: A school gym full of other stranded motorists, hardly any food in the place, and the nastiest person Lily has ever met in her life. Lily and her brother Art befriend a girl named Torie and her sister named Angel. Between the power outages, the lack of Christmas anywhere, the lack of food and so forth, Lily and her family experience a Christmas different from any they have ever known. Lily and her brothers learn a secret about Torie and her mom that causes them to rethink some of their morals. But Christmas for the Robbins family couldn't have been better. I won't tell you if they end up at the cabin or not. This book will offend you at first, leaving you to think that the Robbins family is doing something bad. But throughout the book, Rue explains the story very well, and it is easy to feel what Lily feels thoughout the story. Lily almost seems real, as do everyone else, which is one of the things I like about Nancy Rue's work. ... I higly recommend the two books [this and the companion]together...one for easy reading, the other to explain what Rue is talking about ...