July 28, 2013

Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve, and a Network of Miracles

~ July's theme is biographies ~

Author: Raymond Arroyo
Genre: Biography
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group, 2007
Pages: 416
Rating: Do Not Recommend
Synopsis: In 1981, a simple nun, using merely her entrepreneurial instincts and $200, launched what would become the world’s largest religious media empire in the garage of a Birmingham, Alabama, monastery. Under her guidance, the Eternal Word Television Network grew at a staggering pace, both in viewership and in influence, to where it now reaches over a hundred million viewers in hundreds of countries around the globe.

Raymond Arroyo combines his journalist’s objectivity and eye for detail with more than five years of exclusive interviews with Mother Angelica. He traces Mother Angelica’s tortured rise to success and exposes for the first time the fierce opposition she faced, both outside and inside of her church.

Review: My children and I are temporarily staying with my parents this month because our home sold, but my fiance and I didn't find another quickly enough.

One evening after the kids were in bed I was perusing my mom's bookshelf and came across this book. I really enjoy reading memoirs so I decided to give this biography a chance.

I've only heard of Mother Angelica in passing, and based on the book jacket and the first few pages she sounded interesting enough to me.

The beginning and the end of this book was good. The middle part was highly detailed and dry reading. I hung in there though.

Mother Angelica's story would have been been better told in memoir format.