AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: The In-Between by Jeff Goins

Maybe I set my expectations too high for The In-Between, the new book by Jeff Goins, but I found it to be a disappointing read.  Wrecked, another book by Goins, is an amazingly insightful and raw book about engaging this broken world head-on and dealing with the resulting mix of emotions and struggles (I wrote a review of it here).  In Wrecked, Goins tackles a topic that no one else is talking about with his considerable writing chops.  In The In-Between, he aims to do it again with another topic that doesn’t get a lot of press: how to wait well.

This book has some elements of a memoir, as Goins recounts his own restlessness and how learned to appreciate the small things in life.  If that sounds a little trite, that’s how it often comes across in this book, too.  Part of the problem is that it’s admittedly hard to write in interesting ways about the uninteresting parts of life.  Where is the ability to speak into my soul that Goins exhibited in Wrecked?  Where is the cutting insightfulness?

Well, that insightfulness shows up a couple times throughout the book.  When Goins intertwines the narrative of his grandfather’s deathbed conversion with his own experience sharing the gospel in a Taiwanese retirement home, he demonstrates that he is indeed a very good writer.  Then there’s his harrowing account of his first child’s difficult birth that transitions into the recounting of a weary all-nighter with his fussy infant son.  The move from tense to mundane, an then to rumination on the depth of parental love is truly great.

Perhaps to prove the very point Goins is trying to make with this book, reading it is a fairly mundane experience with rare moments of transcendence.  Kind of like life, I suppose.  I get where he’s coming from, but I just don’t think I can recommend the book without reservations.  That said, the author does a great job narrating his own book for the audiobook version.

Please Note: This audiobook was gifted as a part of the Christianaudio Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.  More information can be found about this and other Christian audiobooks at christianaudio.com.