Seven Women {a BookLook Blogger review}

Eric Metaxas has done it again.

Seven Women and the Secret of their Greatness is an incredible book.

I had reviewed his book Seven Men a few months ago.  I loved that book, and the fairly short biographies of seven really great men from history.  So of course I was interested in Seven Women.  Only I thought that since my teens are all male, I'd probably just read this one myself.

Don't think so.  My teens need to read this as well.

From the publisher:

In his eagerly anticipated follow-up to the enormously successful Seven Men, New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas gives us seven captivating portraits of some of history's greatest women, each of whom changed the course of history by following God's call upon their lives-as women.

Each of the world-changing figures who stride across these pages-Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie ten Boom, Mother Teresa, and Rosa Parks-is an exemplary model of true womanhood. Teenaged Joan of Arc followed God's call and liberated her country, dying a heroic martyr's death. Susanna Wesley had nineteen children and gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn-writer, her sons John and Charles. Corrie ten Boom, arrested for hiding Dutch Jews from the Nazis, survived the horrors of a concentration camp to astonish the world by forgiving her tormentors. And Rosa Parks' deep sense of justice and unshakeable dignity and faith helped launch the twentieth-century's greatest social movement.

Writing in his trademark conversational and engaging style, Eric Metaxas reveals how the other extraordinary women in this book achieved their greatness, inspiring readers to lives shaped by the truth of the gospel.

Did you see the women that Metaxas chose for this book?  Women who did things that maybe only a woman could have done.  Not the first woman to do whatever some men had done before.

Like he did with Seven Men, Metaxas has these women placed chronologically.  That means you start off by reading about Joan of Arc, and you finish up with Rosa Parks.  In between are some totally fascinating women, including two I had never heard of:  Hannah More and Maria Skobtsova.

Those two may have been my favorites, simply because I knew nothing about them until I read this book.  It's easy to name my two least favorite biographies from this book for the same reason.  I have read quite a bit already about Corrie ten Boom and Mother Teresa, so I didn't love these short bios of them.

However, these make perfect length lessons for my teens.

Dare I hope that Metaxas comes up with some sort of Seven More Men and Seven More Women titles?  I simply love the length for my own reading, and for enrichment for the kids too.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this ebook free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”