You can download free copy of Ian and Larissa Murphy’s audiobook Eight Twenty Eight from ChristianAudio during the month of July.
I read this book last year and here’s what I wrote about it:
I knew very, very little about this couple before this book showed up on my doorstep from the publisher. Honestly, I’m not sure what I think about it. I didn’t particularly care for the writing style as it kept jumping back and forth between different time periods making it feel disjointed. I also don’t know what I think about marrying someone who was just your boyfriend and you’d only known for 10 months before the traumatic brain injury.
I get why Larissa (his now wife) would want to stay by his side, because she genuinely loved him, but the book just left me feeling unsettled and hurting for her. That said, I don’t know them personally and it’s not my place to question decisions they’ve made. You can watch a video of Ian and Larissa here.
Davonne says
I read this book last year too and I felt the exact same way about it. I felt very unsettled as I read because yes, we’re to take our commitments seriously, but they weren’t married. It seems that she spent a lot of time grieving who her boyfriend “used” to be and I wondered if it may have been more fair to let him go. If he was going to marry, someone who didn’t know him before and who wouldn’t have grieved the “what could have been” may have been a better fit, while she would have been free to marry someone who she wouldn’t be sad about on a daily basis. On the other hand, I don’t know them personally and don’t feel that I should judge their decisions. Plus I know that God is the redeemer of ALL of us, and He can bring beauty from our ashes so even if she had made a poor choice at the time, God can use that too. This was a very thought-provoking book if nothing else and I appreciate your honest remarks about it.