Faith and Other Flat Tires Book Review

Back Cover:

At age twenty-one, Andrea Palpant Dilley stripped the Christian fish decal off her car bumper in a symbolic act of departure from her religious childhood. At twenty-three, she left the church and went searching for refuge in the company of men who left her lonely and friends who pushed the boundaries of what she once held sacred.

In this deeply personal memoir, Andrea navigates the doubts that plague believers and skeptics alike: Why does a good God allow suffering? Why is God so silent, distant, and uninvolved? And why does the church seem so dysfunctional?

Yet amid her skepticism, she begins to ask new questions: Could doubting be a form of faith? Might our doubts be a longing for God that leads to a faith we can ultimately live with?


My Thoughts:


   Faith and Other Flat Tires is the story of one woman's journey to find the Lord.  From her earliest years in the jungles of Kenya, Andrea Palpant Dilley was raised to know and love God, but life got in the way.  Her parents, as Quaker missionaries, were subjected to episodes of harsh reality (death, guerrilla soldiers) and this also impacted the family.  Somewhere along the way, Andrea began to question her faith.  Why does God allow suffering?  Why does God seem so distant?  When their family moved back to the U.S. school, friends, jobs, etc. only managed to draw her further away from church.  The search for answers became a quest that almost threatened Andrea Dilley's very existence.  
   Faith and Other Flat Tires, Andrea Dilley's memoir, was an engaging and introspective story of a young woman disillusioned with life.  The pages flowed easily as she visited the past that made her who she is today.  Reflections are so perfectly described- it was like a movie running in my head.  At times I could almost feel her sadness, emptiness and frustration (trying to recover her faith, find love) but I also experienced her joy, love and sense of belonging.   Her life experiences are honestly and very intelligently shared with her readers.  There are parallels to Pilgrim's Progress throughout the book and she holds nothing back in an attempt to show the road she has traveled.  There are no lectures, just the reality that we all question and search for answers at times.  


*Read the first chapter of Faith and Other Flat Tires here.

Andrea Palpant Dilley grew up in Kenya as the daughter of Quaker missionaries and spent the rest of her childhood in the Pacific Northwest. She studied English literature and writing at Whitworth University. Her work as a writer has appeared inRock and Sling, Geez, and Utne Reader, as well as the anthology Jesus Girls: True Tales of Growing Up Female and Evangelical. Her work as a documentary producer has aired nationally on American Public Television. She lives with her husband and daughter in Austin, Texas.


*I was given a copy of Faith and Other Flat Tires from Zondervan and Handlebar Marketing in exchange for my honest review.  No other compensation was received.*