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Spell Roma Backwards
Spell Roma Backwards is Debbie Barrow Michael’s tender, grief-soaked continuation of her family’s story with Roma, the spirited Russian boy she adopted after what she describes as a direct call from God. The book follows Roma from his magnetic childhood into the turbulent years of young adulthood, through rebellion, rehab, radiant faith, reunion with his birth family, and finally his devastating death after a fall. What begins as an adoption memoir becomes something larger and stranger: a meditation on obedience, motherhood, divine mystery, and the way love keeps speaking after loss.
I was moved by how unwilling the book is to flatten Roma into either a miracle child or a cautionary tale. He’s charming, maddening, funny, impulsive, tender, and impossible to contain. I kept thinking about the boy who forgives Rocky again and again, inviting him to play baseball even after being bullied, and then the young man who can turn a punishment into “a nice adventure” after walking to practice in the rain. Those moments make the later darkness hurt more, because the reader has already fallen for him. Michael writes motherhood with an aching honesty I admired. She doesn’t pretend that faith made parenting simple. Her “tough love” is full of trembling. Her prayers are sometimes brave and sometimes desperate. That felt true to me.
The writing has the intimate, gathering quality of testimony, and at its best, it glows with lived-in detail: the lonely basketball hoop, the pink roses blooming where they shouldn’t, the eerie repetition of the number seven, the taxi in Georgia filling with Beatles songs while two families, divided by language and history, sing through tears. This is about a mother trying to make meaning without reducing pain, trying to keep hold of God and her son at the same time. The idea at the heart of the book, that Roma spelled backward becomes amor, lands not like a clever title but like a hard-won benediction.
By the end, I felt less as though I had read a neatly shaped memoir than as though I had been entrusted with a family’s sacred archive. Spell Roma Backwards is sorrowful, searching, and unexpectedly bright, a book about a son who could not be managed, explained, or forgotten. It closes with grief still breathing, but also with gratitude strong enough to stand beside it. I’d recommend it especially to readers drawn to Christian memoirs, adoption stories, testimonies of loss and faith, and books that treat grief not as something to solve, but as something love learns to carry.
Pages: 307 | ASIN : B0DPDX3Q4Y
The Race of Your Life: A Spiritual and Mental Battle Against an Incurable Disease
The Race of Your Life is a Christian memoir and practical faith guide that follows Stacy Kincer’s journey from athletic Marine and teacher to a woman living with interstitial lung disease and multiple autoimmune conditions. She walks through life before the diagnosis, the shock of hospital stays, the long grind of tests and labels, and then moves into chapters on emotions, community, prayer, obedience, and hope. Each chapter pairs story with Scripture, reflection, and prayer, and the book ends with a leader’s guide that turns her experience into a small-group resource with discussion questions and action steps.
The writing is simple, vivid, and very direct. Scenes like trying to shower with a chair or gasping in the ER hit hard without feeling dramatic. I liked the way she breaks big ideas into concrete moments: socks that feel like a mountain, a student sent to fetch the nurse, a driver’s license handed over when she cannot speak. That style kept me grounded. The spiritual language stays clear and everyday. She quotes Scripture a lot, yet it feels woven into the story, and the short prayers at the end of sections read like something you could actually say yourself–genuine and relatable.
I also appreciated her honesty about anger, grief, and counseling. She lets herself be scared, lonely, and frustrated, and she talks openly about therapy and medication as part of God’s provision, not a lack of faith. That felt refreshing. There is a lot of helpful reinforcement in the middle of the book, especially in chapters that return to core themes like fear, surrender, and trust. The leader’s guide material, with its summaries, key takeaways, and reflection questions, builds on that by revisiting each chapter’s main ideas to help them really sink in. I didn’t mind it too much, since this kind of book is often read slowly or in a group.
By the time I reached the closing pages and her final prayer for the reader, I felt a mix of heaviness and encouragement. She does not offer a tidy “happy ending.” She points to a God who stays present in the mess, and she writes out of weakness, not victory speeches. I would recommend this book to Christians who are living with chronic or incurable illness, to spouses and caregivers who want to understand that inner storm a bit better, and to small groups that want a gentle, structured way to talk about suffering, faith, and mental health. If you want a real person sitting across the table, telling you “you are not alone” and backing it up with story, Scripture, and practical prompts, this book more than fits that need.
Pages: 168 | ASIN : B0G4V4MH4S
