I like this one, too, as it brings to mind the impact of fiction. Yes, it's "just" fiction, and you cannot sit there and extract your life principles from a quick reference to the Table of Contents.
However, if you've had any experience reading the Bible, for instance, or reading classic literature (such as Shakespeare's plays, Hemingway, Thurber, Steinbeck, and many, many others) you have a sense of how you can reflect back on examples of both good and poor human behavior, including the consequences that often follow those life decisions.
In this Bookfession observation the author is noticing how a book both affirms your own sense of good, better, best, and plain old bad relationship decisions. The story may even encourage your own sense of worth, the value of good-quality relationships, and the need to maintain high standards for yourself.
I heard from a speaker this past weekend that, while the national average of destroyed marriages hovers somewhere around 50% (for those in the Christian church as well, sadly enough), the average in California is (he reports) around 75%! I was amazed to hear it. I am still amazed by the 50%. But 75% is almost beyond belief. I mean, even if you carry reservations for marriage in a general sense, and you agree that the social contract of exclusive fidelity to another, whom we assume you also love, this statistic represents a boat-load of brokenness, sadness, pain, long-term struggle with self-worth, and both immediate and long-term crises of trust in nearly any relationship afterward.
Imagine how a dozen really good books that included healthy relationships, ones that made the reader say, it "made my standards for a relationship higher," might impact the world? It's encouraging to know there are still such books being written. Debbie Macomber and Nicholas Sparks both come to mind. My wife has read almost everything these two have written (she's still working to find the rest of Macomber's material).
As an author interested in portraying good relational choices among young adults I hope that my books rise to that level for readers. I hope my readers might someday reflect on my novels the same way the Bookfessions author does. Something like, "Trident's Flame made my standards for a relationship higher." A very cool thought. Kudos to Bookfessions!
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