It's Not That Complicated: The Introduction

While my brain continues healing after my car accident, I grabbed an easy to read book to discuss.

 I picked "It's Not That Complicated: How to Relate to Guys in a Healthy, Sane and Biblical Way" by Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin.

The Botkin Daughters interest me.  Based on their website, Anna Sophia was 16 in 2001 which means she's about 30-31 while Elizabeth is two years younger and 28-29 years old.  I'm 34, so we're contemporaries; all roughly members of the older end of the Millennial Generation or more specifically members of the Oregon Trail Generation.

Yet, there are so many differences.

The Botkin Daughters have written two books.  I've never written a published book.  I have a Bachelor's degree in science and education; they don't have advanced education.  If you saw pictures of Anna Sophia and Elizabeth along with a picture of me, reasonable people could expect that both of the Botkins would have married before I did.  I'm a pretty enough woman, but the Botkin sisters are gorgeous.  But I was engaged at Elizabeth's age and married at Anna Sophia's age while they are single.

So, with that introduction, we shall wade into the breach.

Overarching Themes:

1. The authors show 'modesty' by detailing why they wrote the book in spite of their life experiences.

• "A book about boys, romance, and relationships was not a book we ever thought we would write" (pg 1).    This is the opening line of the book, FYI. 

•  "Though the fact that we're young women makes us uniquely qualified to say some things, it also means that there are certain things we're not qualified to say. (...) We're not married...so we're not going to be talking about how to get married.  We're not parents ...so we're not writing to parents.  But most of all, we're not men...which disqualifies us from telling all the young men how to do their part or get their own act together "(pg 2). 

2. Bible verses should be cited, but not actually quoted.
 Here's a fun game!  I'll list the Bible verses cited.  Give yourself however many bonus points you want if you know the verse before I list it from BibleGateway.

• Jeremiah 17:9 (The heart is devious above all else;  it is perverse—who can understand it?)
• 1 Timothy 2:12 (I permit no woman[a] to teach or to have authority over a man;[b] she is to keep silent.) 
• Philippians 2:3-4 ( Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.)
• 1 Timothy 5:2 (2 to older women as mothers, to younger women as sisters—with absolute purity.)
• Exodus 20:12 ( Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.)
• Ephesians 6:1 (Children, obey your parents in the Lord,[a] for this is right.)

3. Unmarried young women should be infantilized and overly sheltered even while reading this book.

• "How to Read This Book:      

          1. From Beginning to End  This book was written to be read from (front) cover to (back) cover.  The stories and ideas in this book develop chapter by chapter, so you will get the most out of it if you start at the beginning and keep going until you come to the end.  Then stop."  (pg. 3)    This is the most condescending paragraph I have ever read.

• "We encourage parents to read this book before their younger daughters do.  There are some somewhat mature topics in here (such as the concept of emotional pornography and the characteristics of the Proverbs 7 woman), though we have tried to handle them in a tasteful and non-defiling way, even for girls who have been more sheltered.  And although we tried to avoid unnecessary descriptions of evil, we did not avoid the fact of evil, or the fact that it wells up in our hearts, or the ways that it can come out in the lives of even a very conservative girl." (pgs. 3-4).  What is emotional porn? Is it like the 30 Rock episode where women can get pay-per-view of a handsome man who "listens" to them?  How young of girls are you expecting to read this book if they can't handle reading Proverbs 7 which warns against adultery?

4. Be like a Bereans! Read the verses we tell you support our ideas!  

• "Acts 17:11 tells us of the "noble" Bereans, who "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so."  Please don't take our words for any of the ideas in this book - study them out of Scripture to see if they are so.  (We've included Scripture references for many of the ideas and statements we make so you can do just that.)  (pg. 4)   I'm guessing that the Bereans read the whole of the Scriptures, not random verses detached from others.

Well, this should be fun.