Mondays With My Old Pastor Review

I'll be honest, it was kind of a fluke that I chose to review Mondays With My Old Pastor by Jose Luis Navajo. There weren't any other books I felt like reviewing, and seriously... I loved the book Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and I wondered if this was a rip off.

That being said, I will admit that I was prepared to hold a grudge against this book. If you have ever read the Mitch Albom book you will certainly see the similarities (starting with the title) but obviously these are two totally different books and two totally different conversations. There are also a few things that are quite confusing and unrealistic to me. For example, Navajo states in the very beginning of the book that he would take a pen and paper to each visit with his pastor. Even keeping that in mind, this book is written in extreme detail. It just seemed to me that he wouldn't be able to write down every word his old pastor said, so there must have been some blanks he had to fill in on his own. He never states that any of this at all is fiction, though. Another thing that confused me is a rose bush he talks about in the book. He meets with his old pastor over a dozen weeks, and each day that he goes to visit it just so happens that a rose bush outside the pastor's house has had one more rose bloom. That seems a bit unrealistic to me, and certainly made me roll my eyes more than once. It seems like something added in just for effect. Also, he writes in the book constantly that his wife's name is Mary - but in the author's biography it states that her name is Gene. These things add up to a lot of confusion for me.  But the fact is, there is still a LOT of wisdom in this book. It just wasn't put into a book the best way possible perhaps.

This book is a must-read in my opinion for pastors, as long as they can get around all the flowery words used by the author, and just absorb the nitty-gritty wisdom from the old pastor. Some of what he says is absolutely awe-inspiring and really must be paid attention to. I would recommend this book to others, as long as you don't get caught up in these things I pointed out earlier. There is so much to learn from the words of this old pastor.

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.