[.ca] Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood (ISBN 0312180543)

From Amazon.com:
Frequently caricatured as the religion that rejects medical treatment, Christian Science gets a balanced, nuanced appraisal in this memoir by a writer who grew up within the faith. Barbara Wilson appreciates Christian Science's unusual openness to women, who gained self-respect and status as its practitioners and healers, but she bares its inadequacies in a wrenching account of her mother's battle with cancer, suicide attempt, and eventual death. Her precise, unsentimental prose delineates a decades-long journey toward self-knowledge and peace with her past: it's a very American saga, sensitively told.

absorbing, sensitive, and true-to-life:
I could not put this book down. Wilson gives an absorbing account of growing up in Christian Science that matches fully with my own experiences and those of other former-CS friends. Living in a sectarian environment, in which believers strive to "deny the evidence of physical senses," powerfully affects your life. Wilson manages to give a fully nuanced account without being unfair to her former religion, and without getting lost in abstract detail. She accomplishes all of this while telling a dramatic human story. This book is a wonderful memoir from a literary standpoint, and the best CS memoir you'll find. Well worth buying.

Reviewer in Japan:
Though I understand the authors misunderstanding, that is exactly what it was. Christian Science has improved my life ten-fold and NEVER in my 29 years(I was born in the religion) was their any condemnation if a memeber of the church went to a doctor, it was always a persons choice. It was the authors mother who made the decision she made it is not Christian Science that does this it's the person, not the relegion. Christian Science cannot be blamed for someones misconception of it! Never does the relegion teach one not to mourn, but to try to see the spiritual truth in mourning and to be able to go on living spirtually and truthfully. At least this is what I was taught in my family, who always have been very loving and STOUT Christian Scientists. My parents never told me I was never to go to a doctor. They taught me about prayer and God's healing power and to have great respect in Mary Baker Eddy, but the choice always was mine! Too many people have misconceptions about Christian Science because they don't do a THOUROUGH study of it, they only look at the Surface instead of Diving deep within it MANY facts of TRUTH and SPIRITUALITY. People will state that Mary Baker Eddy wrote this or that, but when I see this it sorrows me to realize they obviously did not read Mary Baker Eddys works enough, one Reviewer says Mary Baker Eddy mentions Happiness 90 times, well in Science & Health alone she actually mentions it 132 times! In all her works and poems she mentions it over a THOUSAND! So I actually was very disappointed in this book that gives a very sorrowful and wrong misconception of Christian Science. I am sorry to say that the death of her mother was not the fault of Christian Science but her faith in it and her misconceptions of it's teachings.

It makes you think:
My father was raised in a household of three women. His mother and aunt were CS, his grandmother was not. He respected women all his life and at a time (the 50s) when few men did. Long after he abandoned his childhood faith he respected the CS determination, optimism, and power of both sexes to achieve worthwhile goals. Wilson's book helped me understand why he was able to do that.

Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood:
Barbara Wilson's writing style is brilliant. She tells a profound and sad story that is probably more common than we know. I had to laugh when I read the review from the 29 year old man whose life has been improved "ten-fold" by Christian Science. I too was born into the religion. Luckily I had the "presence of mind" (CS Lingo) to insist upon medical care beginning at a young age. I am all for religious/spiritual freedom of expression. But Christian Science is not about freedom of expression. It is about denying the existence of ANYTHING unpleasant. There is nothing scientific about it. It's followers have a strict and paranoid code of secrecy about their beliefs which seeps into their daily lives and affects all relationships. Wilson's book is a must-read for anyone trying to understand a friend of loved one's negative experience with Christian Science.

Another scarred C/S child - New twist to same sad story:
I hated to see this book end. I felt like I was saying goodbye to a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, only someone brought up in a C.S. home will be able to fully appreciate what this book has to say. How many needless deaths & wrecked lives will it take before someone in our government gets the message? Thank you to this author for having the courage to tell her story.