It’s Throwback Thursday! Today I’m resharing my review of On The Edge, the debut novel from Teresa Santy, and winner of the FaithWriters 2013 Page Turner Contest. This review first appeared at Iola’s Christian reads in April 2016.
On the Edge is one of the best debut novels I’ve read in a long time.
Okay, it takes a while to find itself at the beginning and not everyone will enjoy the first person present tense narration (and that could by why I found the beginning difficult), but it’s worth the effort.
Kristen Craemer is an LA interior designer who is running. She can no longer run in real life, so now she runs in her dreams, and the dreams always turn into nightmares and they always lead her to water—the magnificent Pacific Ocean. Her life is slowly unravelling: she’s making mistakes at work, therapy isn’t helping, and nor is the liquid diet of drugs and alcohol.
Then she meets Jesus-freak Ethan Adams, and soon finds two awkward things: she likes him (as in, really likes him) even though he’s a Jesus-freak, and their mothers are in the same addiction therapy group. So this is a story of a woman whose messed-up childhood is still affecting her adult life, and meeting a guy with a messed-up childhood who seems to have it all together.
One of the difficult parts of writing a review of a book isn’t what you put in to the review, but what you leave out. Readers and authors, quite understandably, don’t want book reviews to include plot spoilers. But some readers also want to be warned about certain aspects of the book they might not want to read. Some reviewers call these trigger warnings: content that might act as a trigger for some readers.
And here’s the problem. I want (need?) to include some trigger warnings for On the Edge, but to tell you any more would act as a spoiler. So be warned: if you read reviews to find out if there’s anything in the book you want to avoid, you might be best avoiding On the Edge.
But you’d be missing out. The plot and characters are outstanding. The writing is outstanding—I loved lines like this:
On the Edge isn’t typical Christian fiction (too much alcohol, too many drugs), but I think this is what Christian fiction should be: real. Telling difficult stories, and showing Jesus in the lives of characters. Not preaching. Basically, the whole book was outstanding, and you should read it. Unless the triggers . . .
Thanks to Breath of Fresh Air Press for providing a free ebook for review. Although I’ve now bought the paperback as well. Yes, it was that good.
About Theresa Santy
Theresa writes and publishes e-newsletters for a women’s Bible study ministry, and for Beacon For Him Ministries, a multi-service center for the homeless, where she serves giant God-portions of love, offers connections to community and resources, and picks up trash. Theresa lives with her family on the sparkling coast of Southern California. She loves Jesus, laughter, long walks, flip-flops, and fiery sunsets. She’s a big fan of the written word and her favorite book ever written is the Bible.
You can find Theresa Santy online at:
About On the Edge
For as long as she can remember, Kristen Craemer has been running from something. In high school and college, she ran competitively, until her Olympic dreams were shattered. Now, she runs to escape—from her past, from intimacy, from reality, and from the cold, black mist that haunts her nights.
Desperate to stop running, she turns to therapy, alcohol, and pills—anything to dull the fear—but her struggle intensifies with every passing night. Gradually, the nightmares encroach on her days, until everything she holds dear slips further away.
Kristen’s fears increase when she meets Ethan, a bronze-eyed Jesus freak. The claims he makes about God are too unbelievable to be true, and to Kristen they are more terrifying than her recurring dreams. She can’t open her heart to Ethan, and she won’t open her heart to his faith. Instead, Kristen keeps running, and every time she runs she finds herself standing at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, glaring into the crashing waves and fighting the urge to submerge herself beneath the turbulent water forever.
On the Edge is the powerful story of a “girl next door” who struggled to make it out of childhood alive, only to drown daily in shame and fear . . . until she finally dives over the edge and into redemption.
