Book Review – Lev Tahor by Ana Waters – #BookTwitter #LevTahor #InspirationalBooks

Waters’ book inspires, helps trauma victims heal

Lev Tahor is the fourth installment in Ana Waters’ Beauty for Ashes series, which is all about overcoming, surviving, and thriving after abuse. So please know that it can be disturbing for many readers. If you are or have been a victim of abuse by family or others, please take care of your mental health.

About the Book

Carly Miller loves reading the triumphant memoirs of her friend and co-worker, Poppy Levine. Having survived a tumultuous upbringing with her hyper-religious mother, Carly is happy for Poppy’s story of healing and faith, but she believes her own sin is unforgivable. Equally inaccessible to Carly is Poppy’s former suitor, Joe Trautweig, whose story from Poppy’s book captivates Carly. When she encounters those jade green eyes in real life, the lines between the printed page and the man himself begin to blur. Joe has his own painful secrets, but Carly fears her past will be too much for their mutual attraction to overcome. Can Carly accept the idea her own heart could be made clean (lev tahor) and that both she and Joe can embrace what forgiveness truly means?

My Thoughts

Waters is incredibly talented at tackling complex, difficult subjects with grace and dignity. Her characters have all been through immensely harsh situations, surviving things that many people can’t begin to imagine.

The fourth installment revisits one of the love interests of a former heroine that didn’t win her heart. The main female character in this story, Carly, while young, has experienced a great deal of pain and heartbreak. An absent father, an abusive mother and church, and a bad relationship rife with bad decisions have left her full of baggage. She is alone and vulnerable when she meets Joe Trautweig, the man of her dreams – literally. She has dreamed of him for so long because she’s read about him in memoirs written by his friends. Now that they’ve met, they feel drawn to each other and have to see what is real and what is fantasy.

Waters’ books are extremely focused on spirituality. Some people may be made just as uncomfortable by this as they are by the trauma discussions. Both of these are very intertwined in her works. Many of the characters are both Jewish and Christian, and much of the storyline involves discussion of faith, loss of faith, and attempts to find one’s way back to faith. So, if that is something that makes you uncomfortable, it is something to be aware of when you consider this book. Having grown up in the church, and now being a Unitarian Universalist, this is very interesting reading to me. I enjoy reading about the blending of the two faiths and seeing the different ways that people interpret their faith journeys.

I enjoy the characters. Joe has been one of my favorite male leads in Waters’ series so far. I am so happy about his story arc in this series. Though, I’ll admit he seems a little too good to be true. He has his flaws, which I’ll admit, but darn, Joe is so good! Last time around, I said Poppy, who is a huge part of this book as well, was the character I related to the most. That was true then, but now, Carly is the one I relate to most in Ana’s stories. My life has been very similar to hers. There were differences, large ones, but there were important similarities that left me with similar baggage and pain. Which is why what Waters is doing is so important. She is on a mission to tell her own stories, to help people heal from trauma, and to know that they can heal from trauma.

It bothered me just a little how many times people told Carly she looked like an angel. Once might have been okay, but it happened just a few too many times. It made me feel like people were too focused on her looks. I believe Waters was trying to emphasize to us how much her mother messed her up, that she couldn’t see her own beauty, but focusing on her physical beauty made me a little sad. Unless I misunderstood something, and the “looks like an angel” was a metaphor for her personality shining out with angelic beauty, at which point, I love it.

I am so excited that I stumbled upon Waters’ work several years ago on Instagram, and that each year around my birthday, she publishes the next installment in the Beauty for Ashes series. I’ll keep checking them out as long as she publishes them. If you’re up for a difficult, but ultimately uplifting and inspiring ride, check it out too! I’d recommend you start at the beginning!

Who’s It For?

If you enjoy inspirational tales of people overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, you will enjoy this and all of Ana Waters’ works. This is the fourth in the series, so I would personally recommend starting with the first, Tabula Rasa. However, they can technically all be read as standalone novels. You might feel like you’re missing some context, but you won’t be completely lost. These books are incredibly heavy on religion, both Christianity and Judaism, but they also take a step away from organized religion – so it is possible that both those who don’t like religion and those who do may find offense in the book, just to be warned.

Content Warnings: Religious ideology, child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, suicide, suicidal ideation, abortion, dieting/weight loss discussions, pregnancy loss, pregnancy, childbirth, difficult conceiving, abuse of power, parental abandonment/absent parent, infidelity

Question of the Day:

Have you ever known anyone who didn’t celebrate birthdays or holidays?

About the Author

Ana Waters is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia with a B.A. in Religion and specific emphasis in Judaic and Biblical studies. She penned her first romance novel at the age of twelve, and she has never stopped writing the same books she loves to read. She lives outside of Atlanta, GA with her brood of precocious children and survives on a steady diet of Scripture, chocolate, and laughing at the absurdity of life and motherhood.

There are six completed novels in the Beauty for Ashes series, and Ana is now toying with the idea of #7 and what to do once the series is done. Follow her on social media for updates and upcoming events!

Instagram @anawatersbooks

Facebook @anawatersauthor