That I couldn't finish a book that's only 115 pages (roughly) long says something, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't. The writing starts off jumpy, and it felt like reading a college student's essay where quotes are thrown in to stretch page length. What the author needs/needed was an editor to say "Make this readable."

The title of this book reached out and grabbed me right around the heart. How many times in the past several years have I thought to myself that very thought: I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS. I didn’t sign up for finding out that I’m really not crazy for the chosen profession for which I spent nearly six years in college. I didn’t sign up for not getting married until much later than I expected. I didn’t sign up for miscarriages and difficult pregnancies. I didn’t sign up for becoming a special needs mom. I didn’t sign up for autoimmune health issues. I didn’t sign up for becoming a care giver for my elderly mother. I didn’t sign up for a lot of things…and yet, here I am.

This book is all about what to do when life doesn’t meet one’s expectations. Using engaging storytelling, both the author’s own experiences and the experiences of others, along with solid application of Scripture from the Bible, the author encourages the reader to be realistic about one’s situations, strengths, weaknesses, and one’s place in the bigger scheme of God’s plan. I liked how the author talked about how he had for years believed that once he got his life all together, then the adventure would begin. He finally realized the whole mess – his struggles and successes together, combined with allowing Jesus to be the Lord and Leader of the journey – IS the adventure. He proposes that learning those truths are the secret to having hope in this life.

This book is not a quick rah-rah fix for life’s problems. Rather, it is a gradual focus adjustment from what *I* expect (success, happiness, all the good things of life) to what God wants to bring about in my life through various situations, both good and bad. Ultimately, His goals are to draw me closer to Him, teach me to depend on Him, and make me more like His Son, Jesus, and He uses challenging situations in my life to bring those goals about. This book helps me understand that process and stop fighting against Him in the process. In essence, this book helps me understand that the greater things of God – learning to depend on Him and becoming more like Jesus – are things that I *do* want to sign up for, even if they mean going through the pain and heartache of this life. That’s a much harder premise to convince the reader to accept, and the author does an admirable job of doing so.

I gratefully received this book as an eARC from the author, publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.

For some reason, I was expecting this book to be slightly different than it was. I don’t entirely know why because when I read the book description after finishing the book, it still fit with the contents. Even though my expectations were different than what I got, it was still a decent book. Westfall had some good points and it was written in understandable language. He shares of himself yet always points back to God and how the lessons he’s learned in his own life and continues to learn could help us. With that being said, I didn’t find it much different than many of the books out there on Christian living. It didn’t stand out in my mind as a book people must read.