Review of Always Before Me

[Priya Priya 3]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Always Before Me" by John Servant.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Always before me by John servant is a biblical fictional novel. This book includes stories of many people belonging to church or prison, mainly it focuses on three people: Father Paul, Father Anthony, and Matt.



Father Paul was a catholic priest. Once he heard the confession of a double homicide criminal, so some policemen came to ask him about that. But he did not break the seal of confessional due to which he was sent to prison but still he had immense faith in God.No matter how many miseries he had, he chose the path of God. He was kind and patient. He was a man of God in the true sense.



Father Anthony was also a priest. He was wrongly accused of sexual misconduct, so he had to give up his dream of teaching and was assigned as a prison chaplain. Initially, he was tortured by his failure and sufferings caused by false accusation but he overcame that with the help of father Paul and headed to the path of God.



Matt was also accused of sexual misconduct in High school. Although he was not prosecuted he was guilty. This caused him to lose his family, friends, and teaching job. At last, he was assigned as a psychologist in prison. He did not believe in God.


The story begins with the wake of father Anthony. Father Richard had come to attend the wake. He was sitting alone in the room reminiscing the memory of Father Paul and Father Anthony. Both died in prison. Father Paul was stabbed to death by another prisoner while Father Anthony died of lung cancer. John Daly, who was nephew to father Anthony, had also come to receive Father Anthony's worldly possessions. John did not know much about Father Anthony so Father Richard narrated some of the stories of his life.



This book perfectly illustrates how to keep faith in God in spite of failures and sufferings. All the three main characters, the Saint, the sinner, and the man, like many other men, suffered from terrible tragedies and in this process learned obedience, patience, sacrificial love, and complete trust in God. This book shows how sometimes suffering can strengthen a man's faith and sometimes it can drive it out of him.



What I like most about this book is that the author has used many short stories to demonstrate the various ideologies and various beliefs. The story of Jesus shows that we are not only suffering, we are not only abandoned but Jesus was also abandoned and he also suffered.



This book is well edited and the content is presented in a very impressive way. It is presented as flashbacks of memories and they all connect to each other very well.


I would like to give this book 4 out of 4 stars. The reason is that engaging the audience in this kind of genre is quite difficult but this book has perfectly done this. The author has presented catholicism as itself without comparing it with other religions, which is quite apprehensible for everyone.


I would recommend this book strongly to those who believe in catholicism. Others should also read this book as this book teaches many life learning lessons.

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Always Before Me
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