Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs

In Bad Girls of the Bible, Liz offers a clear-sighted, life-changing approach to understanding those "other women" in Scripture—Delilah,  Jezebel, Rahab, Lot's wife, and six more.  Liz combines a contemporary fictional retelling of their stories with a solid, verse-by-verse study of their lives and the lessons we can learn from them.

The Review:

My Ranking: 10 out of 10

Ages: 13 & up

Bad Girls of the Bible was a spectacular book that I absolutely loved reading. Liz Curtis Higgs has written a keeper here! I loved her writing style. She had the perfect balance of serious tone and humor that allowed me to study and learn lessons while at the same time brought laughter to my lips. The idea to take the mistakes that past Biblical figures made and learn from them is brilliant and I commend Higgs for pointing it out.

The way Higgs wrote the book - first giving a fictional, modern retelling and then doing a more in depth study verse by verse of the story in the Bible - really made it an enjoyable and captivating read. I was a bit worried at first that Higgs would simply retell the stories in a long drawn out way and then shake a finger and say "don't do that", but my fears were put aside as I dove into the first chapter. I am very picky about my non-fiction, and Higgs has written one that I really loved and will definitely be keeping.

Naturally, there is a bit of subject matter, but I was pleased with how Higgs handled things. I will simply point out a few things, such as Higgs does the stories of Potipher's wife, Rahab, The Woman At The Well, and the Sinful Woman, and if your daughter doesn't know much about the stories or what they mean, it would be over her head. I thought Higgs handled it excellently and was very vague, going into little detail. The retelling of Potipher's wife was probably the most edgy one, and it was actually pretty clean and only had a woman purposefully wearing her night gown and telling a guy who worked for her husband to come get something for him so she could seduce him. It does talk a bit about how she was longing for a man's company and she invites the man to her bed, but really, Higgs did an excellent job with it. It was brief and to the point, and none of the retellings were worse than the actual story in the Bible. She also had Eve, instead of desiring the fruit, desiring love and is kissed passionately briefly.
As I said earlier, she does also deal with Rahab, The Woman At The Well, and The Sinful Woman, but it was all handled very well and was no more described than it was in the actual Bible story.

All in all, this was an excellent book that I recommend for ages 13 & up, and I also think it would make an excellent mother/daughter read. You will not be disappointed with this book.

I received this free book in return for an honest review from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.