Becoming Mrs. Lewis A Novel : the Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis

Becoming Mrs.Lewis centers around Joy Davidman and how she came to know C.S. Lewis and eventually marry him. I have never read a C.S. Lewis book but after reading this and seeing how both of them were Christian and had a strong relationship with Christ. I will be looking for their books at the library from now on. Joy is a fascinating person to read about. She was in a crappy marriage and had a moment with Christ and had so many questions. She wrote letters back and forth with C.S. Lewis until finally being able to travel overseas to England and getting to meet him and they hit it off. Watching them together and how they just fit. They are both so intelligent and had such faith in God. They grew together. They had a romance that wasn’t your typical romance. The author does leave a note that while this book is about Joy and C.S. and some of it is based on their letters and their lives some parts are fictional so this is still historical fiction. But you can easily research and find out certain things if you want to know if they are true or not. While I have mentioned that both Joy and C.S. Lewis were both very much for Christ and I enjoyed that aspect. For those of you who don’t, it wasn’t the center of the book, the love story and how they came together was the center. One part I enjoyed was that the ending gave Joy a voice. She helped C.S. lewis with books and influenced his writing. She also wrote her own books and had so many accomplishments herself, but in that time she was silenced. Overall I loved this story about two people in their walk in faith finding love and writing together. I don’t know about you, but that’s one happy ever after. I’ll admit when i first started this book i initally thought i wouldnt enjoy it, but im so glad i continued because it was phenomenal and its now on my favorites shelf. I do hope you pick it up and give it a chance. also huge thank you to wunderkind PR and Lisha for this physical copy for review

One star because Patti Callahan knows how to string words into sentences in the English language. Two stars because I would have been embarrassed to have finished a one star book instead of DNF. For one brief chapter, Joy, the first person POV, recognized her need for God to fill her needs, but the rest of the book was about her fetish for older academic men, her sensual desires, and the ways she satisfied them (more than once with trysts outside of marriage). "Carnal" is the only word I can think of to describe this book and its characters. Surrender, dependence on God, obedience, and faith are all non existent in this book, so it's curious that the author thinks she's portraying Christian people. This book has moved to the top of my list of "books that disappointed me" and "unpopular opinions."

Recommended for all fans of C.S. Lewis! What a beautiful story :-)

My review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Becoming Mrs Lewis by Patti Callahan appealed to me because of C.S. Lewis. The only things I knew about him before reading this book was that he wrote the Narnia books, which I loved, and that he was Christian, with Aslan actually being God. Whilst C.S. Lewis (or Jack, as his friends called him) is an important character in this book, the main character is Joy Davidman, a Jewish New Yorker, who first writes to Jack (much easier to type than C.S. Lewis, and so I will steal it for this.) whilst she is married, and has two small sons. Joy has a hard life. She and her husband are both writers (he was William Lindsay Gresham), but he wants her to be a 'proper' wife, which during the 1940s onwards means looking after the house, the children, and your husband. Joy is made to feel selfish in her desire to write. Her husband is an alcoholic, who helps Joy to find God when he is out boozing yet again, and she has a spiritual epiphany whilst worrying. Finding God is why Joy writes to Jack, who also found God later in life, and wrote about it. This book is peppered through with quotes from letters and poems, which adds to hearing their voices. Whilst the poems are real, I don't know if the letters are, as we are told that Jack destroys all correspondence once he has replied. Whilst it looks at Joy and Jack's beliefs, I didn't feel like it was trying to convert me, it was just exploring what they believed, and how that impacted their lives. If you enjoy historical fiction, and looking at famous lives, or getting a glimpse more of the Inklings (the writing group that C.S. Lewis was part of, with J.R.R. Tolkien, and others!), then you'll enjoy this! Though, do be warned that Joy's time with William is abusive, which some may find upsetting. Patti Callahan also writes under Patti Callahan Henry, and is a New York Times bestselling author of quite a few books! Becoming Mrs Lewis was published on 16th May 2019, and is available to buy on Amazon and on Waterstones. I've found a link to where you can search for local bookshops, including independent! I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to HarperCollins and Harper Inspire (the publishers) for this book. Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!

I was looking forward to this story and was disappointed throughout,. The writing style at times leaned more towards romance novel than historical novel. When I read historical fiction, it usually feels real to me - more historical than fiction. I forget that quotes and thoughts aren't real. In this case I often rolled my eyes. About 2/3's through the book I was ready for it to be over. I did finish it but can't recommend it.

As a lover of The Chronicles of Narnia, I was fascinated to learn that there was a story written about the life of C.S. Lewis’ wife. I was intrigued to get some insight into the author from someone else’s point of view. To see the inner workings of his life and writing process… and I got it, but I also got so much more. The main aspect of the synopsis that stood out to me was the love story but there was another, and almost MORE, prevalent plot point in the way of discovery of faith. It was not something I was expecting and did cause me to have to wrap my mind around the fact that this story was more about Joy Davidman finding God and, in finding Him, leading her to finding Lewis. Or Jack to his friends. When all is said an done, there really isn’t much of the story where Joy and Jack are even in the same room but he is always on her mind. Becoming Mrs. Lewis follows Joy’s life from a glimpse of her childhood at the start, to learning about her early years after college, to growing her family and living in fear. Joy’s story is one of heroism, of finding her voice in a time where women were seen more as property than as people, of taking ownership of her life and uprooting everything to truly live. I was humbled by Joy’s journey and everything she dealt with. I could not get over the amount of strength that she possessed in light of everything. As a hopeless romantic, I was heartbroken at times but also left hopeful after reading other chapters. It was a lovely story to read and one that I am grateful to learn from. With all of the praise I give this book, I will admit that it did take me some time to get through. It was a good read but a long read. The chapters weren’t written in a way that lent itself to quick consumption for myself in particular. They were short but one chapter did not immediately lead into the next, it was more that each chapter was a snapshot of a moment in Joy’s life. In the Author’s Notes at the end, Callahan does state that much of the story was a fictionalized retelling of the life of Joy Davidman but she also used a ton of works as reference which included those provided by Joy’s children. Some parts of the writing could not fully be ‘known’ but if even half of it is true, I would consider Joy an inspiration to women as she was written so real and flawed but also strong and loving. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading the history of a strong leading woman, historical fiction, C.S. Lewis, literary history of the mid 1900’s (more than just a couple big author name drops), a coming of age story for those later in life… honestly, this book hits so many great points.