Review: The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly by Stephanie Oakes

The Sacred Lies of Minnow Blye

By Stephanie Oakes | Published June 2015

4 out of 5 stars

Check out my review on Goodreads

This Bitch is going to Heaven.

Unhelpful One (ish) Sentence Summary: Minnow Bly lost everything when her family joined a religious group in the wilderness, and lost it again when she manages to walk away. After a brutal attack lands her in Juvenile Detention, she finally has a chance to start again.

Things I Liked:

• I loved Minnow’s voice. She was angry and curious and really funny. She felt so real and complicated and I loved reading her.
• Despite covering some really heavy issues, this was such an easy read – I finished the whole thing during a train ride. I really enjoyed Oakes writing style and I think I’ll check out some of her other works.
• Angel!!! I love her so much! Despite it all she was such a kind, thoughtful, loyal and beautiful person. I was fully expecting the book to pull a cellmate from hell kind of story line but her relationship with Minnow was so good and probably my highlight of the book.

Things I Disliked:
It’s a very personal thing for me but I try to avoid books that deal with real religious issues. Give me a high order of fantasy Gods and I can handle it but because of my own experiences and life books about real world religious stuff really makes me uncomfortable but I really liked how this book dealt with it. So while I was a bit funny in the tummy about it, I felt like it was approached really beautifully. So not really a dislike but ‘this part of the book made me feel a bit uncomfortable but I loved how it was explored’.

Recommend for: Fans of true crime, female friendships and explorations of existence and religion.

Find it:

Goodreads | Buy it here!

(Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash)