Published: 2014, virago Genre: fiction Themes: poverty, childhood, survival, faith, love, theology My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ So, this is the fourth of the novels in the Gilead quartet written by Marilynne Robinson. The first two books, Gilead and Home, explore the lives of two elderly preachers from Gilead in Iowa and this one extends the story of the second wife of the Reverend John Ames. There is a different tone in the writing of Lila as Marilynne Robinson shifts slightly from a philosophical style to something more fundamental and earthy. Before she met and married Ames, Lila had lived a life of neglect and poverty, and had only survived childhood because she was stolen from where she was living. There is no mention of parents at the start of her life, and as a 4 year old she was in a shared home for migrant workers where she was forced to spend most of her life under a table, unless she cried, when she was pushed outside onto the stoop....