FICTIONAL BOOK REVIEW by C.S. Lewis
Title: Start Strong: A Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Christianity
Author: Krisan Marotta
Reviewed by: C.S. Lewis
If I may begin with a confession, I am always a touch wary of books written for beginners. Too many approach the task as though Christian faith were a series of positive affirmations, fit for embroidering on a tea towel. Thankfully, Start Strong is not that kind of book.
Marotta writes as one who has lived inside the questions. She does not hand the reader a polished creed and expect blind assent; she walks alongside them, torch in hand, gently illuminating the terrain of Christian belief: sin, grace, the cross, faith, and sanctification. It is not merely a book about Christianity—it is a book that believes.
She also understands something essential to the beginner: the difference between unfamiliar and unintelligible. Start Strong avoids both the vague syrup of popular religion and the dizzying abstractions of academic theology. Instead, Marotta offers analogies as sturdy as a kitchen table and prose that sounds like a teacher who has no need to show off. I dare say, she reminds me—at moments—of my friend Dorothy Sayers.
What distinguishes this work is not novelty, but clarity. She has done what every good apologist and teacher must do: taken ancient truth and re-presented it without distortion or dilution. The result is something both lucid and warm. The chapter on R.E.A.L. faith is especially admirable—faith not as a vague optimism or doctrinal checklist, but as a lived trust in the person of Christ.
If Nietzsche were to sneer at this book—as I suspect he might—I should thank him. His contempt is often a backhanded compliment, proof that the author has struck a nerve. It is precisely the sort of book Nietzsche would hate: unashamed, precise, and persuasive in its insistence that there is a moral order, that grace is real, and that God does not merely exist but speaks.
New believers will find in Marotta a trustworthy guide; mature believers will find a worthy resource for discipleship. And skeptics—if they are honest—will find a thoughtful opponent who listens before she speaks.
In short, Start Strong is not merely a manual for the newly converted. It is a quiet trumpet, sounding the first notes of a long and glorious march.
Highly recommended.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5 stars, though I rather suspect Marotta would prefer the crown laid at Someone Else’s feet.
“Start Strong is the rare sort of book that speaks plainly without ever speaking down. It tells the truth about Christianity—not the sentimental version, but the real thing: costly, beautiful, and alive. If I were introducing a friend to the faith, I’d hand them this book—with gratitude that such a guide exists.” — C.S. Lewis, author of Mere Christianity.
This work contains fictional commentary. C.S. Lewis never read Start Strong (for obvious chronological reasons), and I have no way of knowing how he would truly respond. All quotes, comments, and endorsements attributed to him are creative fabrications generated by ChatGPT for illustrative or entertainment purposes only. This review is intended as lighthearted, imaginative engagement—not theological endorsements or academic citations. In other words: no dead authors were consulted in the making of this material.