I finished reading Lynne Spears book, “Through the Storm” a couple weeks ago. I posted a review of it on Facebook, but got busy and forgot to post one here.
While “celebrity autobiographies” aren’t something I’d normally pick up and read for myself, I did find myself enjoying the book and I kept coming back to it to continue reading Lynne’s story.
As I read it, I did feel like the book and the stories it contains do tend to jump around a bit but it was a good easy read and I finished it rather quickly.
One quote in particular stood out to me in beginning of the book and stuck with me throughout. Spears tells the story of her father giving respect to a man that she didn’t exactly think deserved it – but her father responded, “He’s had a hard life.” He then continued with his point that when we take the time to understand where people have come from we’ll have a much better understanding of them and be able to extend grace and mercy a lot easier.
Thought that was a great explanation of this book.
When you understand where Lynne and her family (including her 2 celebrity girls) are coming from you naturally get a better picture of how they got to where they are.
As someone else pointed out on Facebook, Lynn’s “father was an alcoholic, she killed a little boy with her car and her mother was a straight-up Londoner.”
You don’t get these background stories in reading the tabloid headlines. You don’t see how faith has impacted Spear’s family (and or hasn’t impacted some of the family).
These background stories go beyond the tabloid headlines, beyond the paparazzi (which you can quickly tell Spears has absolutely no love for), and beyond the basic surface story we hear so many times.
Throughout the book Spears often spends time explaining her mindset while things around her occurred — especially in relation to the careers of her two celebrity daughters. Sometimes she admits the decisions were not the best and other times she still holds to the decisions. Like anyone’s story, it will be up to the reader to cast (or withhold) their own judgement.
Overall, I was glad I had the chance to read it. I’ll be passing my copy along to my mom next time I see her. And I hope that if nothing else, it helps me extend grace to others a lot quicker as well.
For added insight, take a moment to read why Thomas Nelson decided to publish this book.