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Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Series
Review: All three books in the Surprised by Truth series highly recommended. These are personal stories of conversion, and these converts describe the struggles they had with the claims of the Catholic Church. Various backgrounds here: Anglican, former Catholic "reverts", Baptist, Reformed, etc. The apologetics was a little stronger in the first book of the series, but all three are great books. For books with stronger apologetics content get A Biblical Defense of Catholicism by Dave Armstrong, or Steve Ray's book of conversion Crossing the Tiber.To see and hear many of these converts in person, you can check them out on the Journey Home program from EWTN. Wonderful and impressive given all they had to go through to find the truth. Phil Porvaznik
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but not particularly convincing
Review: Before I begin, let me state that I have not read the first two books in this series, so I cannot compare this one to those. This book contains testimonials from ten Protestants who converted to Catholicism. The stories are very interesting to read, so from that perspective, I would rate this book as a 4. But when dealing with a topic as major as changing one's faith, it needs to go beyond just interesting to be convincing. I am a Protestant who is not considering the Catholic faith but just read the book out of curiosity. While the stories were emotionally compelling, after reading them all, I ended up feeling, "Okay, but nothing in here convinces me that the Catholic Church is the only true church." Sure, the people in these testimonials made it clear that they spent years thinking, praying, and studying about the issue before making the decision, and I believe them when they say that God was the one who was leading them to Catholicism. But there are also people I know who have come out of the Catholic Church to a fresh faith in God, and I think that is where God led them too. Of course, the book is not meant to be a point-by-point proof of why the Catholic Church is the one true church; it's a testimonial. But still, a good portion of it contains these persons' descriptions of the struggles of their theological beliefs in their journey to Catholicism. The most interesting stories to me were: 1) The couple who believed only two groups could be the true church--the Anabaptists or the Catholics. They left their professional, wealthy careers and went into an Anabaptist community (it sounded nearly Amish, though they didn't use that word), but got disillusioned from the experience and determined that it was then the Catholic Church that was the true one. 2) A woman whose brother is well-known for his forceful writings condemning the Catholic Church...what she had to suffer by becoming a Catholic! 3) A Baptist man who became interested in Catholicism by dating a Catholic woman. (Most of the people were fundamentalists or evangelicals in their Protestant years.) The common theme I saw in all these stories was that they began to struggle with the ways the various Protestant denominations all said they believed solely in the Bible, yet they didn't agree. If the Bible is true and the Church is one under Jesus, then how can they read the same things and disagree with each other? It was at this realization that most of these people began to search and finally settled on the authority of the one historical church, the Catholic Church. One of the authors said of such a discussion among twelve learned evangelicals, where there ended up being nine different interpretations of the scripture regarding divorce and remarriage, "This diversity [of viewpoints] bothered me, but what bothered me more was that no one but me found it to be a problem." And I'd have to agree with the twelve--I don't find it to be a problem either. And that's the main reason why this book is unconvincing to me. Time and again, this is the crucial breakdown point that begins their search which ends in conversion to Catholicism, but as a reader who doesn't see a problem with that, I fail to be convinced by the other theological arguments for the Catholic Church being the one true church. Something important I did get out of the book was how many of the authors pointed out that once they began studying the early church fathers, they were surprised at how CATHOLIC they were! Protestant churches imagine the early church being quite fluid and informal--most Protestant churches say their goal is to imitate the church found in the Acts Of The Apostles--so this is very intriguing indeed. So now I want to read things from the early church fathers to find out what the scoop is on this. I suppose Patrick Madrid would consider that a purpose achieved from his book. P.S. The book contains an annotated bibliography of 26 books for further research, plus a list of addresses & e-mail addresses of the contributing authors. Very helpful!
Rating: 
Summary: This is an insult
Review: How dare the authors of this book declare that Christ's truth is found ONLY in the Catholic Church. What narrow-minded, ignorant people you are.
Rating:
Summary: Very disappointed
Review: I couldn't wait till this book came out but after reading it I wish I would have saved my money. It lacks any convincing arguments that the other two books contained. Atleast one or two of the stories in this book have been circulated all over the internet so much I practically knew them by heart before I read them. Plus, the story by the lawyer is so dry and impersonal it read like an apologetics text book. Patrick, WHAT happened????
Rating:
Summary: A Must for Catholics and Prospective Catholics
Review: Like the first two - this is a very moving book. Born Catholics will be amazed at how difficult it is to make the final step. Moving and inspiriational.
Rating:
Summary: A Must for Catholics and Prospective Catholics
Review: Like the first two - this is a very moving book. Born Catholics will be amazed at how difficult it is to make the final step. Moving and inspiriational.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful and insightful
Review: Of the ten wonderful and insightful testimonies of Catholic converts, I discovered two to be particularyly moving. (coincidently, the only two written by women)"Lookin for Truth in all the Wrong Places" above all and Patty Bond's "Freed from Anti-Catholic Bonds"It is stories like these that remind me of the incredible gift I've been blessed with--The Catholic Faith!These women went from zealous Protestants to zealous Catholics! Fantastic and uplifting!
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