Atheists Who Kneel and Pray – Tarryn Fisher

Genre: Romance, Contemporary

Yara Phillips is a wandering muse.

She dates men who need her, but always moves on to something new, never staying in one place for very long.

David Lisey is in need of a muse.

A talented musician lacking lyrical inspiration. When he first sees her, he knows he’s found what he’s been looking for.

Yara believes she can give David exactly what he needs to reach his full potential:
A broken heart.

David’s religion is love.

Yara’s religion is heartache.

Neither is willing to surrender, but religion always requires sacrifice.

Atheists Who Kneel and Pray is an all consuming self-discovery and romance. Yara is a frustrating character who discovers who she is, how she loves, and what she wants from life through falling in love hard and not knowing how to deal with what that means for her. 

I loved everything about this novel, except the pacing. The beginning of the novel is slow and took a bit to interest me. It wasn’t until Yara’s flaws are fully on display that I really started to enjoy what Fisher was doing with the story and characters. 

Yara is a frustrating character because of the specific flaws she has relating to the story. She’s flawed in all the ways you don’t want a character to be flawed in a romance. She holds herself back from truly feeling and experiencing by creating a narrative about the typical progression of her relationships that she believes to be true. Yara is a complicated character that the reader gets to know intimately to the point that she becomes predictable. This predictability isn’t a flaw, but a testament to Fisher’s writing.

 As with my review of Mud Vein by Fisher, I’ve been purposely vague about Atheists Who Kneel and Pray. I went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about the plot or what to expect. I truly believe that that is the best way to enjoy Fisher’s novels. Her characters remind me of Gillian Flynn’s characters in that they are deeply complex and showcase undesirable traits.

 Overall, Atheists Who Kneel and Pray was a fantastic novel despite the few pacing issues. It’s a character driven story about a young woman who discovers who she is through falling in love despite the narrative she’s created for herself.