By Aaron Calvin

The initial premise of “A Man’s Wrong to Choose?” is a potentially intriguing one: if it’s the woman’s right to choose, then what’s the purpose of the man? However, this potentiality is crushed beneath the weight of the author’s penchant for preaching and poor writing.

The book concerns a group of well mannered and career-minded Christians who are happy living their lives beneath God’s sun, especially the main protagonist, Chubert Davis. His exceptional name mirrors what an exceptional character Chubert has. He is charismatic and just an all around nice guy. All seems swell in his faith filled world until the unthinkable happens: Chubert’s girlfriend gets pregnant. Thus follows a model anti-abortion debate, as staged by author Tony Medina’s static and predictable characters.

From the beginning of the book, the story is dishearteningly difficult to read. The story itself is prefaced by an unneeded and didactic poem, which sets the tone rather well for the entirety of the book. The characters in the book, all of Chubert’s friends and relatives, are laid out in a painful, telling-not-showing sequence with two-dimensional characteristics.

If this weren’t dissuading enough, the writing itself is base enough to make any reader grimace. The sentence structure is widely unvaried with word choice that is as overtly simplistic as the book’s message. To top it all off, there are typos abound. Just because a book is self-published does not warrant such a pervasive amount of errors.

The final nail in the coffin for “A Man’s Wrong to Choose?” is it’s own overdose on the overt. Had Medina truly wanted to stimulate debate and critical thinking concerning the issue of abortion, he would have been wise not to write a book so replete in such good old fashioned Christian bias that  would make Jesus himself cringe.

    So if you need some reading material to bring with you to your Elementary Grade Sunday School for everyone to sit and nod their heads to, look no further. If you are looking for something well written, with smart commentary on a complex issue, “A Man’s Wrong to Choose” is the wrong choice to make.