The Dance of the Dissident Daughter

Rating:
Summary: One Womans Journey
Review:
This is one womans journey, but could be the journey of many of us. The book is well written and insightful. Full of knowledge,and extrememly poignant. I am a fan of memoirs, and especially like the writings of Sue Monk Kidd.
As Memoirs go, I would also like to point out Nightmares Echo,Beauty For Ashes and Lucky:A Memoir....as well as and not the least of Sue Monk Kidd's other wonderful book The Secret Life Of Bees


Rating:
Summary: A woman shares her spiritual journey with others.
Review: "Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before." Sue Monk Kidd writes these words and holds up such a mirror in this thought-provoking account of her gradual disenchantment with the traditional, patriarchal Christian Church that was at the center of her personal and professional lives. As she becomes open to questions about feminine images of the Divine, she develops a feminist religious perspective without becoming anti-male or anti-church. She researches the subject extensively, and one of the great delights this book offers is the many voices of women--poets, theologians, and feminists--echoing through its pages. Kidd's story is a traveling companion both for those already in the midst of such a journey and for those who have yet to begin. It is well worth reading and reading again

Rating:
Summary: A woman shares her spiritual journey with others.
Review: "Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before." Sue Monk Kidd writes these words and holds up such a mirror in this thought-provoking account of her gradual disenchantment with the traditional, patriarchal Christian Church that was at the center of her personal and professional lives. As she becomes open to questions about feminine images of the Divine, she develops a feminist religious perspective without becoming anti-male or anti-church. She researches the subject extensively, and one of the great delights this book offers is the many voices of women--poets, theologians, and feminists--echoing through its pages. Kidd's story is a traveling companion both for those already in the midst of such a journey and for those who have yet to begin. It is well worth reading and reading again

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking narrative of spiritual/intellectual growth
Review: A friend grabbed me and thrust this book into my hands - it was changing her life, she said, and she needed to discuss it with someone. Kidd's naievete and trust in institutions tried my patience at the start of the story, but the path she takes is interesting, and brings her to conclusions that are honest, consistant and heartfelt - even unsentimental. Even when I disagreed with the author, the book led me to consider questions - the authors and my own - deeply and unsparingly. An interesting book for a discussion group.

Rating:
Summary: spirituality for the young feminists
Review: Although Sue Monk Kidd talks mainly of her experiences in mid-life spirituality, this book was an awesome guide for me and I am a college student. This book put a whole new dimension on combining a feminist spirituality and Christianity. It was definitly not the same old "submissive and happy with it" Christian woman's perspective. She is powerful and truely inspired. I think men and women would both benefit from this book.

Rating:
Summary: Not my journey.......
Review: As a Christian woman, and a spiritual woman, I read Ms. Monk's book with hope for insight into another woman's journey. I was disappointed that her journey to wholeness required her to leave Christianity, to give God another gender, to abandon her husband as he tried to understand her struggle. She made her journey exclusive rather than inclusive. I'd guess and hope that eventually her journey will take her full circle, back to her Christianity, back to her family, and richer for the experience.

Rating:
Summary: A Father Cries For A Daughter
Review: As a retired male mainline protestant pastor, who has long been uncomfortable with the obvious (to anyone who really looks) male orientation of just about everything in the church, this book has brought tears to my eyes on many pages. Through it I have pictured my own daughters' disenchantment with, seemingly, the only alternative for a living faith available to them without divorcing themselves from the shelter and nurture of those they have loved and been loved by. Sue has articulated for me what I wished I could have found the words to say to them over the course of our lifetimes. She speaks from the pain of her experience without lashing out; always in dialog, as opposed to reaction. She discovers and shares viable alternative experiences of heart-centered faith, and seems to wait for you to respond with discoveries of your own, which she acknowledges may be different from her own. My one disappointment in this book is that it seems to have been marketed so excusively for women. Sometimes I think the only hope for men to rediscover the joy of really intimate relationships with women, is for the women to draw us into the kinds of discoveries which they are making for themselves. And it seems to me that this will happen so much more quickly if we can be sensitive to the pilgrimage they are on. And Sue says it so openly, non-abrasively, and so well.

J. Kent Borgaard [e-mail] 61235 Maplewood Dr Elkhart, IN 46514 [phone]

I believe she

Rating:
Summary: Buy this book and share it with every woman you know!
Review: As a woman with shelf full of women's studies and spirituality books, I can say this is the best I have ever read. My copy is making the rounds among my friends and is sure to be a future gift for many, including my nieces. Sue Monk Kidd inspires me and fills me with a sense of empowerment. The tale of her journey of faith is filled with elegant prose and engaging anecdotes. Time well spent!

Rating:
Summary: A Book To Share
Review: As a young woman trying to establish my own contact with the spiritual in the world and in myself, I highly recommend this book. I immediately went out and purchased a copy for my mother. Wherever you are in the search, or if you just want a better understanding of the feminine spirituality (men, pay attention), this book can be helpful, and possibly life-changing.

Rating:
Summary: Kidd's disclosure of her inner feminine journey is profound!
Review: As the author walks us through the stages in her inner journey toward healing the effects of a lifetime of patriarchy on her, the reader becomes aware of the profundity and significance of this event. She gives voice to the painful injustices that mark a life lived within male-dominated systems, especially as she finally arrived at the point where those injustices became clear to her. Her questioning of her religion, her marriage, and her work are only a small part of the larger realm that she needed to deal with as she struggled to uncover, liberate, and take ownership of her female self as well as embrace the Divine Feminine. It has been truly enriching and liberating just to enter into this journey, and recognize that her voice is an echo of what is the common struggle of women everywhere. This is an excellent book for women to read! At times I identified so intensely with what I was reading that my deepest emotions overwhelmed me.