Although Ellen Vaughn has written multiple books, I've only read her most recent two. These are Becoming Elisabeth Elliot and Being Elisabeth Elliot, the authorized biographies of Elisabeth Elliot.
I enjoyed her writing style in the first book, but the sequel was slightly disappointing. Becoming Elisabeth Elliot is all about Elisabeth Elliot's early life and the struggles she had on the mission field. The book emphasizes her struggles and her triumphs, her failures and her successes. We are given a deeper look at the life she lived through various letters and journal entries.
Personally, as someone who has read two of her books about her and Jim's early lives, The Shadow of the Almighty and Through Gates of Splendor, I already knew a decent amount about her early life. The book helped me to see more internal struggles and trials she faces.
The second book, however, is much different. First, the formatting used by the publisher is slightly different, not that that detracts from the book, but I think they could have used a bit more effort to make the two books more similar.
As I read this book, I didn't really find anything wrong with it, except for the fact that Vaughn takes the focus off the internal part of Elisabeth's life. We learn some things that make us wonder why she is such a hero and sought after role model.
But then, I came across a comment stating how the reader didn't like the sequel as much as the first book. I wondered why this was so I went and looked up the negative reviews for the book. What I found was mostly true things about the book that I hadn't realized while reading it.
The most prominent one is probably the uneven spread of the details of the years of Elisabeths's later life. The last 35 or so years of her life are depicted in two or three chapters that are not very informative. These years are the years that Elisabeth was married to Lars Gren, which was a very difficult marriage for her.
This fact makes me think that Ellen Vaugh could have possibly written a third book on the last years of Elisabeth's life instead of leaving us in the dark about much of her later years.
Even though I didn't like some things about the sequel, I believe it is still a good book to read. I believe this, first of all, because in reading about her many mistakes, we can realize that Elisabeth was human just like us and that her life was not perfect, like some believe.
We can realize through this that all people make mistakes and that just because someone is idolized doesn't mean that they are perfect. We are all human and we all make mistakes. That's why Jesus came to die on the cross and why He was resurrected on the third day.
Even though I might have given you some misgivings about reading these books, I still highly recommend them both. They are a testimony to both how to be strong in the face of discouragement and fear and why we still need Jesus.
