A good biography, of course, requires two things: An interesting subject and an interesting writer. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but while Metaxas' biographies are good, there's nothing in there that makes them great. But that's especially true for this collection: I expected a book about "the secret of their greatness" to mean that we'd have more than just a brief -- how much can you report in 20 pages? -- summary of these women's lives.
Life is story -- and that's especially true for theological stories. And good short stories -- like good brief biographies -- have to be focused, directed, and condensed in order to tell those stories well. I think Metaxas missed that lesson in writing class. Because all we really have here is an assemblage of facts passed off as dynamic discussion of those facts.
Perhaps I came to 7 Women with unrealistic expectations. Either way, I left disappointed.
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