Known and read of all men--literally

It always totally weirds me out when people write books based on their own lives. I know that it’s totally their prerogative, but that whole write-what-you-know thing seems like it might not be best for your family, the way I see it. Not to mention any names, but doesn’t Ted Dekker’s daughter feel a little awkward knowing that the whole world (the whole Ted-reading world, anyhow) knows about her life mistakes? I personally haven’t read The BoneMan’s Daughter, but Ted wrote all over his blog about how the mistakes his daughter made caused him to write this book. Not only that, but I didn’t realize until I read his blog that his daughter’s name was Rachelle. Coincidence that one of his characters in the Circle Trilogy was named that? Uh, most likely not.

And I guess it’s not a trilogy now that he’s writing Green, but I never know what to call four books. A quartet? A square? Maybe just a plain ol’ series.

And that brings me to another good, but apparently unoriginal author. Karen Kingsbury. Has anyone else noticed that most of her books mirror her own life? Wasn’t it enough that her Redemption series features the Baxters, which is secretly code word for her own siblings and herself.  Four girls and a boy? Check. And then the Flanigans, featured in the series spin-offs, are her current family. Girl, boy, three adopted Haitian boys, and a younger, much loved, nearly-died at birth boy? Check, check, and check. And she named them so closely after her own children that I desperately hope (for her children’s sakes) that they (the children) got to at least choose their own alter-ego names. And then there was the “This Side of Heaven” book, which was pretty much about her brother.

And I’m sure there are many more times where her life and books juxtapose again. And this isn’t to say that she’s not a good author, because she is. I’ve read all of her books, and enjoyed almost all of them. And that’s saying a lot, because she has written a bevy of books.

It just makes me so thankful that my mom doesn’t write books about me. In fact, nobody writes books about me, and somehow? Well, somehow, I’m OK with that.