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Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World

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I don't recommend reading this in public because you'd have a hard time getting past the lump in your throat to explain just what it was that evoked that level of emotion in you. I'm not exaggerating. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be emotionally moved when you read Scared. The entire time I read this book I was in Africa right along with the characters. That's great writing.

While the abuse and poverty were disheartening to experience through the story, the way people who loved God reached out with the little they had was truly uplifting. Evocative and intense, Scared cuts deep into your heart as you read along. Healing fills the pages, yet there are no easy answers given, and it shows how each day is a struggle for the people of Swaziland to even survive. That's why the orphans and the widows need people who care. I loved how Scared showed that many of the sick and dying were truly victims of AIDS through no wrongdoing of their own. This book should be an award winner for the message alone. Seriously.

I've rarely experienced this level of realism in a novel, especially in the CBA. It's so realistic, it's downright edgy - but to the extreme. Like the Holocaust, there are some awful things that happen in this book. Unspeakable things. But it also shows how God holds those who suffer close to His heart. You see that in this book in a way that is rarely portrayed in Christian fiction. All of the ugly stuff is not smoothed over, nor is the God-given compassion. I was moved to tears so many times I lost count.

When the people who were starving literally danced with joy when offered a meager ration of food, it really touched me. We have so much in this country, yet we are so ungrateful. Gratitude is definitely a missing element in most people's lives in the United States. We'd be so much kinder to each other if we were truly grateful for the gift of salvation we've been given, and for the many undeserved blessings that God has granted us. One way to thank Him is by showing love in action and not just in our words. Scared shows love in action.

One caution, though. I'd be careful about reading this novel if you have a weak stomach or if atrocities like rape will give you flashbacks. It's graphic and harsh in some places, but sooo worth reading. I highly recommend it.

I LOVED this book. It is an incredibly sad story but has beautiful glimpses of hope. I found Davis' writing gripping. I was hooked into this story from page 1... if I could have read it start to finish in one sitting I would have. Unfortunately those pesky parenting duties got in my way ;)

This story made me cry and it made me want to jump up off my chair and DO something... ANYTHING to help the oppressed in our world. I really think every single person in North America should read this book... maybe it would help us all get a little bit of perspective. We are blessed. We should be caring for those less fortunate than ourselves. We should stop being so darn selfish. I'm telling you I was reading this story, weeping and wishing I could scoop up those starving babies and bring them all home.

But please don't misunderstand me- this book is not written in some sort of preachy condescending way. It is also not one of those books that leaves you feeling so overwhelmed that it seems pointless to care. It is a story filled with grim reality, yes, but it is also filled with hope and a do-able call to action. I promise you Scared will move you.

Read this book. By yourself. With your spouse. With your children. With your bible study group. With your entire church. Pass it around to all your neighbours. You really must read this book.

Author, speaker and activist Tom Davis recently released his first novel, Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World. Tom pinned a gripping book that deals with the haunting reality of the life that is lived by those who have been swallowed by extreme poverty. Issues of hunger, aids, and other injustices are all too real in our world, and Tom allows the reader to enter into the narrative and grasp what life is like through the eyes and heart of a Swazi child, the good, the bad and the ugly!

The story is gripping, fast paced and heartbreaking. Yet filled with hope in the midst of tragedy, Tom paints a picture of reality, but also pens a pathway of change and hope.

My prayer for this book is simple, that the rest of the world would somehow realize that if we choose to love and care for those who live in extreme poverty, we can make a difference, life can be better, extreme poverty can be eradicated. I feel like this book is vital as it can help us see humanity beyond the issues the global poor face. These are real people who are desperate and deserve a better life. Hopefully, through this story, it will cause a movement of compassion and service.

Just like Jesus told stories and parables to illustrate difficult ideas, Scared tells a beautiful story of suffering and redemption that won't leave your heart the same.

Poverty and suffering seems like an abstract concept for so many -- something Jesus tells us we should surround ourselves with -- but that we find elusive. And, when we do find it, it's laden with Sally-Struthers-Style guilt that is difficult to find Jesus in.

Yet, walking with the poor and mourning seems to be a great source of blessing according to Jesus. Matthew 5 tells us things like, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," and "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy."

In Scared, Tom Davis takes the real world of suffering away from the abstract and guilt-ridden TV spots, and he makes it real. In fact, you find out in the afterword that many of the characters are based on real people Tom has worked with his work with a Christian orphan relief agency.

The book rings true with the kind of details that make you feel like you are there. The adventure he paints keeps you turning each page, desperate to know what happens next.

Simply, this is the best novel I've read in years. Read it.

This was my first experience of reading Mr. Davis' books and was so moved and touched by this story, that even as I went about my day, I still would catch myself reflecting on the story, especially Adanna.

This story guided me to write a report and lecture about it in my college Ethics class on AIDS in Africa. I was able to quote passages from this book during my lecture. My fellow scholars were so touched by the plight of this epidemic in Africa, that after class, they were asking me how they can get involved. It was amazing! God is so good.

This book was beautifully written and I am so thankful that Mr. Davis was obedient to God when it was layed on his heart to bring light to this issue.

I can hardly wait to read his other books.

I read this last night till 1:30am. I have not recovered. I cried and cried and cried. It has left me undone. I know God is using this story. It's fiction based on real lives, real people that Tom Davis has encountered in Swaziland.

What's crazy is, Dean has said many times that he would move to Swaziland and work at the Healing Place Church Dream Center that is being built there if he was asked too. He's been to Swaziland, last year on a missions trip. He said the best part of the trip was going to the Care Points and helping the GoGo's feed the kids (the Care Points and the Gogo's are talked about in this book) he also talked about how beautiful the country is yet so filled with parentless children due to AIDS. But even though I have friends Ben and Susan Rogers, that are there leading the HPC Campus, and even though I have a place in my heart for an AIDS Orphan there named Peppe, after going to Ethiopia, I felt like that was where I wanted to eventually wind up living one day. So, my heart was in Ethiopia and Dean's in Swaziland. But God has used this book to pull my heart more to Swaziland.

The story this book tells is the story of millions of Orphans around the world, I know this to be a very sad reality. Tom Davis does a great job of sucking you into the lives of these characters, making you feel like you are walking through their life with them and since all of the people are based on real people, sometimes it's almost too painful for me to read.

Also, having Abel home now makes reading about AIDS Orphans even more heart wrenching. Just in 5 months I have come to know how much children suffer and are abused when there is no parent to care for them. Loving parents that don't abuse. I think of what Abel's live would be like right now, had we not adopted him and I think of all the boys, living on the streets in Ethiopia, that have no family, no parents, and ARE living the unthinkable life of abuse and abusing, drugs, stealing, death. Oh how I wish that every person feeling the tug to adopt and older child, would do it and not fear. These kids need us.

But besides adoption, there is also what C Thomas Davis talks about as the Big picture. How do we help places like Swaziland heal? How do we help Orphans stay with extended family? Prevent more kids from being Orphaned by AIDS? This book, even though fiction, really does a good job at showing how local pastors, Care Points, advocacy for the children, etc. can and is helping. We must do more, everyone must do more.

Sure, I am passionate about this issue, I know everyone cant adopt or should adopt but everyone reading this blog can send $5.00 a month to an organization like Children's Cup, or Hope Chest, organizations that are providing education, medical care, emotional and spiritual support.

I hope and pray you read this book.

http://scaredthebook.com/

As a busy mom of soon to be 5, I don't usually get to read fiction. After reading Tom Davis's non-fiction though, I decided to make time. I am so glad that I did. From SCARED I got a good dose of perspective, and for the sake of the "Adanna's" of the world, it is perspective that I am choosing not to lose. This is a novel to read and take personally. I won't be passing on the other side of the road. I see the need, and my family is taking action.

Here in America it's easy to hole ourselves up in our cozy little houses with our laptops and iPods, oblivious to rest of the world. Our knowledge of foreign affairs comes from Twitter. If the AC goes out, the coffee burns, or the car won't start, our day's ruined. But the truth is that even the poorest in our country would be considered rich in some parts of Africa. What if a bad day wasn't the barista getting your order wrong but going hungry . . . for five days in a row? What if instead of lying in bed worrying about that presentation on Monday, you worried who would provide for you because your mother was dying of AIDS?

At the forefront of Tom Davis's novel is Stuart Daniels, a washed up New York Times photographer who's thirty seconds of fame came from a photo of dead bodies he shot during a rebel militia raid in Congo. He barely escaped with his life and sometimes wishes he HAD died with the rest of the massacred village. He's lost his drive, and his editor knows it. Which is why his next assignment in Swaziland could seal his fate. If he doesn't produce the goods this time, he might not have a career to come home to.

Scared also features a twelve-year-old Swazi girl named Adanna, and it's her story that is the hardest to read. Not because Davis's writing is poor. Exactly the opposite. The writing is so good we feel every moment of the girl's pain; we hear every longing of her heart. Adanna personifies the emaciated faces we've all seen on those tv commercials for relief organizations. How many of us have changed the channel rather than acknowledge poverty, hunger, and disease? Reading Adanna's story brings the reality front and center. Here, right now, in the 21st century, children like her are suffering through horrors we can hardly fathom.

A powerful eye-opener, Scared isn't an issue novel meant to guilt us into action. This is a compelling story first, and I believe Davis meant for Scared to challenge, not condemn. As Americans we're extremely blessed, but our priorities need to be re-calibrated. Scared is the hand adjusting our blurry lense of the world. It also addresses the major question of, "Why does God even allow this type of suffering?" Says Davis, "It's my firm belief that God has already sent the answers to solve the world's most difficult issues, and the answer is people like us getting involved."

Davis is best known for his nonfiction books Red Letters and Fields of the Fatherless. He's also the president and CEO of Children's HopeChest, a Christian-based child-advocacy organization which helps orphans in Easter Europe and Africa. With all these irons in the fire it's amazing how well he pulled off writing this work of fiction. You'll visit Africa while reading Scared. And once you finish, a little piece of Africa will remain with you. Hopefully the Scripture, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world," will remain with you too.

--Reviewed by C.J. Darlington for TitleTrakk

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am not, generally speaking, a fan of (current) Christian fiction. So much of it is shallow, self-congratulatory moralizing in a quality not always worthy of print. In the case of Tom Davis's "Scared: A Novel On The Edge Of The World", this hardly the case. In fact, finished the book last night (this morning) at 4 am, glued to every page.

This book is not for the faint of heart, portraying a reality that is graphic and heartbreaking. As someone who has travelled widely for missions & relief work, I can attest that this book does not overstate the harsh conditions people live with worldwide, many of them easily remedied through responsible, compassionate relationship. Though written as a work of fiction, Tom's own first hand experience with poverty, AIDS and other human suffering add an authority and authenticity to the story that is much needed.

I would highly encourage you to purchase copies today- yes, I said copies, as you will want to give a few of them away. This is a critical read for those who live in the comfort of our Western affluence, but genuinely seek to know God's heart for His children worldwide. Tom provides clear and helpful direction at the end of the book for getting involved responsibly. I stress responsible involvement because, as those who have travelled to this regions know, well-intentioned Western involvement is not always helpful. Tom & Children's HopeChest are very aware of these dynamics, working to act with responsible compassion for lasting change.

While perhaps rough around the literary edges (as would be expected of any first time novelist), the raw emotion and realism of this tale will keep you turning page after page. Please, buy it today.

Wow.

Maybe it's because I think I left my heart in Africa, in the northern regions of Ghana. Maybe that's why I loved this book. Or maybe it's because I am deeply saddened by the state of children and women in some of the poorest nations on earth. Or because sometimes I don't feel like I do enough and I need a swift kick in the pants to jolt me out of my American complacency to remember the marginalized. Despite the why, I'm thankful I read Scared by Tom Davis.

Davis holds nothing back. The reader feels the blow by blow atrocities through the eyes of a reporter who has his own soul issues. We see poverty. Crime. Sexual exploitation. Evil. Hunger. Disease.

But in the midst of that, we also see the uncanny grace God lavishes on those who suffer, yet bend toward His ear. We see humanity at its best, helping each other, vying to love. And we see sparkling hope in impossible places.

Such is the reach and scope of this book. Written with sparse, direct prose, Davis is a keen storyteller whose heart for the widow and orphan bleeds onto the page.

Don't read this book unless you're willing to be haunted, then changed. I promise you both things will happen. And in the midst of that, hope. Blessed hope.