The Gift of Friendship
Edited by Dawn Camp
The Gift of Friendship is a collection of blog posts from
various authors, speakers, and bloggers on the topic of friendship. Centered around topics like “Building
Community,” “It Takes a Friend to Be a Friend,” “Friendship on Purpose,” and “Vulnerability,”
each essay Camp gathered follows the typical Blog formula: easy to read, a few
lines of self-deprecating humor, and a quick message. None of it gets too deeply, but much of it makes
you smile. And none of them will take
you more than five minutes to read.
Reading this compilation made me arrive at three
realizations: 1) I have a handful of really great, really deep, and really true
friendships; 2) This may not be as common as I originally thought; 3) I don’t
really like this Blog format of a book. I
found myself and my circle of friends in a few of the pages. I was reminded to tell two of my closest
friends how deeply connected to them I am and how grateful I am that they know
me so well and still choose for some crazy reason to keep coming back to
me. And how amazing it was to spend the
weekend in their company . . . all alone, no kids, no husbands, just these
beautiful women and a few others from our circle. Those are gifts you find in
some corners of your world, and Camp calls you to remember them and cherish
them.
I didn’t love this book. It was fine. Good, even, in some
parts. But I feel richer for the friendships, not for the words I read in the book. Except for the nuggets Camp included in
between some of the essays. She quoted
Scripture (which is always good, even in this case where it sometimes seemed a
stretch to fit the topic), and she quoted other books on friendship. The C. S.
Lewis quotes she included from The Four
Loves are the real gems in this book.
And while I probably won’t pick up The
Gift of Friendship to read again, I will definitely be borrowing The Four Loves. From a friend.
Disclaimer: I received this book from Revell through the
Revell Reads Blog Tour program in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive
review. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC guidelines.
