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this is a very incredible story of a girl who stood up for what she believed in. We need more young people like Rachel ( )

It's difficult to give a book like this a low rating due to the subject matter.

Rachel Scott who tragically died in the Columbine school massacre, has been heralded as a martyr in this book. The author, Rachel's father, paints a picture of an almost saintly girl who inspired everyone around her and spent her time reaching out to the waifs and strays in American society. Some of the portrait may be true, there are certainly testimonies from those who were impacted by Rachel's life and witness. It is also clear that she had a sincere faith in God and was seeking to live her life according to His Will. We can be confident that she was a Christian and that she has gone to be with Jesus now.

It is really her parents and other people that let the side down somewhat. Their theology is questionable, and worrying as her father was a pastor...Having read the extracts from her diaries, I don't think Rachel herself would have wanted to be made into a saint. She was a normal teenage girl who was working out her faith on a daily basis. Her father claims that one of the gun-men asked her whether she believed in God and then shot her when she stood up for her faith. Other accounts have questioned this and suggested that she was smoking on the school field with a friend when she died.

Another friend suggested that Rachel wasn't trying to imitate Jesus or follow Him but was rather allowing Jesus to live through her and that this is what we should all be doing....I don't think this can be reconciled with Scripture. Her father also expresses some odd views about forgiveness stating that he would kill the offenders if he had the chance to get his daughter back. This might be an understandable emotional response for a parent, but from a Christian? There were other strange views expressed as well.

I found it difficult to really get into this as only one side of the picture of Rachel's life is presented and there is a lot of repetition as the parents give their own accounts of what happened and they are similar.

This book was okay, but not very objective. Rachel's diary entries alone may inspire some and challenge them, but maybe without the parents comments running alongside. We can all agree that it was a terrible tragedy for this family and others.

There is no overt bad language, but the author often uses the first letter of various swear words with the correct number of letters blanked out to allow a reader to figure out the word. This isn't helpful as a reader will hear the word in their mind. There are obviously violent scenes although they are not graphic and there is no graphic sexual content.
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Amazing book. Review to come! ( )

A moving story of a beautiful young girl whose life was tragically cut short during the Columbine High shootings on April 20, 1999. ( )