Book Reviews: The Book of Longings and Other Books by Sue Monk Kidd
- Elaine R Kelly
- Jul 16
- 5 min read
In reading what has been written by Sue Monk Kidd, we can trace her spiritual journey, and if you like, you could follow it.
I read many inspirational stories and essays by Sue Monk Kidd in Guideposts Magazine, where she was a writer from 1978-1990, eventually becoming a contributing editor. Guideposts is a non-denominational magazine with Christian writers telling personal stories of their spiritual and life experiences. My parents gifted me a subscription for many years, and I read most of the monthly issues in full.
After I left my financial career and began writing articles and novels to show how the Bible empowers women, I returned to Sue Monk Kidd's writing. In 2002, she released her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, a young-adult novel exploring female power, racism, and the civil rights movement. It is set in South Carolina, where Kidd has also lived. The novel has won many awards, but I have not yet read it.
The Invention of Wings
In 2023, I read The Invention of Wings, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was already a fan of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, two sisters in the 1800s who spoke publicly and powerfully for the abolition of slavery and for a woman's right to speak. They admonished the clergy of the southern states in a public letter. This novel is a biographical fiction of Sarah Grimke and the fictional Black slave given to Sarah as a birthday present. The Grimke sisters were raised in South Carolina and later moved to Pennsylvania. I loved how Sue Monk Kidd used two voices, showing two perspectives: the white woman of privilege and the Black slave. Both were finding wings to fly free of either internal or external bonds. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It showed the way Christianity supported white male hierarchies and the early voices that opposed these beliefs. The sisters converted from Presbyterian to Quaker.
The Book of Longings
When this book came out, I was in the midst of writing Forgotten Followers in 2021, a fiction set in the Gospels and telling about Jesus from the view of female disciples. My novel was released in 2022, and in 2024, I read The Book of Longings.
It is set in a similar era, with the bulk of the novel being placed prior to Jesus beginning his ministry, or placed in a separate location from where Jesus was doing his ministry.
The Book of Longings starts when Jesus is in his 20s. Our novels are similar in being feminist and female main character, but different in the portrayal of Jesus.
Jesus marries in his 20s, discusses his revolutionary ideas with his wife and leaves her with his family when he pursues his call to teach. She longs to write and to pursue her own goals. For safety during his ministry, she is in Alexandria
presents jesus as a man, not a risen lord
Jesus is portrayed as a man with a vision, not a deity. Religion appears to be man-made, with women and men seeing visions and creating religious doctrines and policies.
I had high anticipation for this book since I admire the author and knew she used fiction to fill in a period of Jesus's life that had no historical record (ages 12-30). It is within the historic culture and religion that a man would be expected to marry in his early 20s. Jesus is portrayed as kind and warm; he and Ana, the fictional wife, seem to have empathy for one another and their longing to bring forth what they each hold inside.
Ana's longing is for reading and writing, and she marries him to get out of a sticky situation, not telling him that she does not want children until after they are married. She put her own needs ahead of the needs of her parents, brother, and servant. As a Jewish woman, I was surprised that Ana would pray to Sofia, the feminine personification of wisdom.
Jesus's longing is for God to establish a new kingdom, and it made sense to see Jesus praying fervently, advocating for the poor and discussing his ideas before he began his ministry. Though I knew the author portrayed the fully human side of Jesus, I was disappointed that no crowds in the novel discussed him performing any miracles, raising Lazarus, or Jesus's own resurrection. After his death, when Jesus appears to Ana, she says it is a vision of her imagination. It is an interesting idea that Jesus may have had a wife before his ministry; this novel gives her a voice.
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Having seen a change in Kidd's writing from the more traditional or conservative Christian beliefs to a place that honours the Female Divine or calls on the Goddess, I was interested to find out more about her spiritual journey.
This work was first published in 1996, and may explain why Kidd no longer works at Guideposts.
I listened to the audiobook of the 20th Anniversary edition in 2025. In it, she says that honouring the divine feminine simply means worshipping the Christian God in female form.
Readers journey alongside the author as she seeks to bring wholeness and healing inside herself. Her journey encompasses myth, dreams, visions, contemplation, and the creation of new rituals to mark the changes within herself. The book encourages women to awaken and reflect on their own experience of who they are and how they came to be that way. She discusses a feminine wound from women being treated as "less than". Now, twenty years since its release, Kidd states that there is still a feminine wound within religion, but it is being slowly healed as more people wake up to the harm of patriarchy and hierarchical power and express their voices.
This is a memoir filled with images that I relate to in my life. It is a read that can challenge you to wake up to what is happening around you and in you. It forces you to look at yourself in the mirror. Read it if you have the guts.
Conclusion
If you are a person who is questioning the evangelical faith in which you were raised, you will relate to Sue Monk Kidd. She questioned the racism and sexism of traditional Christianity back in the 1980s and 90s. It was before the internet, and she had few people to discuss ideas with, but through leg-work and creativity, she found ways to worship God in a new way that healed her feminine wounds.
Her 2025 book, Writing Creativity and Soul, is not a fiction but a combination of memoir, philosophy, and advice to writers. I follow Kidd on social media, and last winter she revealed that she has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and she shares how she is managing and how she is working to maintain strength and gratitude. I wish her the best.
Elaine Ricker Kelly Author is empowering women with historical fiction about women in the Bible and early church and Christian blogs about women in leadership, church history and doctrine. Her books include:
Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, Book 1 (2022)
The Sword: A Fun Way to Engage in Healthy Debate on What the Bible Says About a Woman's Role (2023)
Because She Was Called: from Broken to Bold, Book 2, A Novel of the Early Church, imagines Mary Magdalene's trip to testify before the emperor (2024)
Walk with Mara on Her Healing Journey: 21 Steps to Emotional Resilience (2024)
Finding Her Voice, from Broken to Bold Book 3, Acts of Early Female Apostles: A Novel (2025)
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