“When the Day Comes” is like nothing I’ve ever read.  It’s sort of like Christian historical fiction meets “Back to the Future” – if you can imagine that!  One description I would use in reference to this book is mind-bending.  The concept of time-travel is, of course, difficult to grasp.  It’s interesting to think of all the implications that would come with time-travel if it were actually real.  One of the biggest take-aways from this book is how much our choices matter, and how even small choices have the potential to change the course of history.  But most importantly, no matter our actions, God is sovereign over it all.

I had to get used to the uniqueness of this book before I could really “get into it”.  Once I got used to the fantasy/time-travel aspect, maybe about a third of the way through, I did enjoy it.  While at first I felt as though the story was a bit un-relatable because of the time-travel element, it soon became a story that I could connect to on an emotional level, just like any other novel that is as well-done as this one is.

As our main character is forced into circumstances she doesn’t want, she suffers greatly at the hands of those around her, specifically her husband after their arranged marriage.  This part of the book is one of the biggest plot-changers of the entire story, so it is brought up often.  I am glad, therefore, that the author does not include too much in the way of inappropriate details, but it was still difficult to read at times, and it did take away from my enjoyment at some points.

As a big fan of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and other fantastical stories, I feel like sometimes the stories that are impossible in our own real world are sometimes the best ones to give us a new way of looking at our personal lives.  At least for me, the challenges and realizations of the characters in fantastical stories sometimes are more thought-provoking and perspective-shifting than if the story had been in real-world circumstances.  Perhaps it goes back to my description of this story as “mind-bending”.  The fantastical elements and “what-if” factors make your brain and heart think and feel in ways that are otherwise kind of foreign, making “When the Day Comes” something of an adventure to dive into.

“Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.”