Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Earlier this week, I received an unsolicited copy of this book in the mail. I have received other unsolicited books before because of my role as a book reviewer, so I thought this might be the case. Now, having seen others' reviews, this seems to have been a mass mailing to an unknown demographic, and I am definitely not the one it was intended for. Changed is a short, autobiographical read about one man's (self-centered) wish to "cleanse" himself and find peace with his past. That sounds pretty standard, even if uninspired, until you realize that it's also a thinly-veiled conversion tale about a man who becomes a Christian after being Jewish in an attempt to not feel dirty about his wife's rape and subsequent pregnancy by an attacker. While they experienced this situation back in 1970, when responses to sexual assault were definitely different and less supportive, this book was published in 2020 and one would hope that Cantor could have changed in the past 50 years. But no, the book repeatedly refers to his wife as being impure and "defiled." To quote: "My idol was shattered when from her lips I learned that she had been robbed of her purity and was pregnant. Impure, she was no longer better than I. No longer could she rescue me from my own impurity. What was worse about the rape of Cheryl and the pregnancy was that it forced me to have to be reminded of my own sexual defilement. Her pregnancy was a glaring reminder of my own acts of defilement" (pp.74-75). Yes, folks, even fifty years after this occurrence, he still centers the rape of his wife around his own feelings of inadequacy and how it made *him* feel. Equally appalling, a few pages before that, he talks about how he had to forgive her rapist because he, too, was guilty of sexual defilement -- thereby equating a violent act with a sexual one -- and then never speaks of forgiving his wife (not that she needed it) or letting go of his ill will toward her. The book concludes with him talking about all of the financial success he's had with a biotech company and how he worked so much and how God had his back, etc., and this makes it clear that this is likely a self-financed book he put out because he felt God wanted him to do so. And from a literary perspective: It was short. It was repetitive. It didn't expand on is arguments well. It needed better editing and formatting. Overall, not a read I would recommend to anyone, including those who might want some religious encouragement.