You know when you finish reading a powerful book, how it continues to hold your head and heart in thrall, even after you've closed the final page and returned it to the shelf? How it changes the lighting on your perspective, and it takes time for your eyes to adjust?

I am still grappling with myself after reading "Fall On Your Knees", a historical novel by Anne-Marie MacDonald. I am still wondering if I should recommend it.

MacDonald is an artist, no doubt about that. Language listens to her and does what it's told, even if it means seducing you only to break your heart again and again and again.

But is it good? There are so many lies in this novel, masquerading as the truth. So much perverted goodness and evil upheld. I need to think about it more.

What have I taken from it? A reminder of the treachery of good intentions divorced from true love and integrity, and the ease with which one can slip into the groove of sin and not realize it. I needed to be reminded of that.

I may end up turning this knowledge against even this beautiful upsetting book.