Finished The Shack!
2 years, 10 months By Allyson
In: Books
Wow it took me a looooooong time to finish reading this book. Which is incredibly sad considering it's not that thick of a book. But again like I said, I have all those pesky obligations like a job, and family, and children, and art commissions, and trying to get better because I was sick.
Anyhow, what are my feelings on this book. Well, first I found out that it is definitely FICTION. However, the author based the story off of the death of his niece and trying to find a way to get over the pain of her dying in a tragic accident (not a murder). I also found out from the author that the forward of the book is entirely fictional and that the main character Mac does not exist but is rather based off of the author William P. Young aka Paul.
It was actually a story that the guy had written as a Christmas gift for his children. He was going to go to Kinko's and have the thing printed up for them and bound with that sprialy binding and give a copy to each one. And then I guess one thing led to another, he gave a copy of the manuscript to some friends who were interested in reading it and it just kept getting passed around. And then the next thing he knew people were requesting it be made into a book. Yahda yahda yahda.
So, now that I have that out of the way...How I feel about this book:
Be prepared I might do some spoilers here. So if you haven't read the book and you want to read the book but want to be surprised - Stop reading now. Ha.
The beginning of this book according to a lot of folks including Kathy Lee Gifford is a "tough read." Mainly because this father decides to take his three children on one last camping trip in the mountains before they have to start back at school. The two eldest children ask if they can do one more canoe ride in the lake before leaving which the father allows. Something happens, the kids lose their footing and the boat tips. One of the kids gets his vest caught on something and he can't get out from under the water's surface.
So the youngest child is sitting at the picnic table coloring, while the father jumps into the lake to help the other two kids out. When he does that, and everyone is back on land, he realizes that his youngest girl is missing. She's been abducted and later it's deduced that she's been murdered.
That right there is the first 70 pages of the book. Normally I would not have found this a difficult read. I tend to like stories about abduction. No idea why, they just always intrigued me. However, realizing that the victim involved here was 5 years old and that I have a daughter who is 5 years old made this difficult for me. And I even wound up having a nightmare or two about it. Not to mention that a couple of days after I had read this part of the book Riley and I were at the grocery store and she decided to play a trick on me and while I had my back turned she hid behind a food display.
That moment was probably the scariest moment of my life, turning around calling out her name and she wasn't popping out or responding or anything. I had a loooooonnngg talk with her and she was grounded from watching television or movies for the next two days.
Anyhow, back to the book. I liked the beginning of this book, and I liked the last third of the book. I didn't really care much for some of the middle parts of the book. Mostly because there was a lot of conversation between God and Mac and trying to "explain things" or saying "you can't begin to imagine why God does this the way he does because you are only seeing a small portion of it all." I don't know, to me it just seemed like trying to define God again. And I really don't care for that. Although I did enjoy the author's take on the trinity, although it did take some swallowing at first. God the father was a fat black woman with some attitude, Jesus really was an arab looking carpenter type fellow, and the holy spriti was an asian/indian woman with ephemeral qualities. But then when I did some analyzing, I realized why the author had set it up that way in the first place. I'm not going to give that away because it was fun discovering it in the reading.
I did like the part about being in the realm of the Holy Spirit or the spiritual world as well. And the restoration that occurred between Mac and his father.
I can definitely see how reviewers of this book would tote it as a modern day Pilgrim's Progress.
In the end I had to send the book back and simply download the audio version. The book is incredibly popular on OhioLINK and there were no other available copies to borrow. And the copy I had, already had another hold on it, which meant I couldn't renew the darn thing. I'm kind of glad that I got the audio version. Sometimes I think that helps you see a book in a new light as well. It would have been really difficult for me to pay attention while reading all the conversations between Papa and Mac. I didn't mind the ones with Jesus or Sarayu. But the Papa ones seemed a lot like trying to define God and so many Christian fiction books try to do that. I don't think it's necessary to explain everything. Sometimes just showing examples is sufficient. Plus I got to hear an interview with the author done on a radio show.
If you read through this and haven't read the book I still think it's worth reading. It's not on my list of favorite books, but it was not a disappointment. It is probably one of the better Christian fiction books that I have come across. Though like I said that number is low, because I don't generally do Christian fiction books. So for what it's worth, there's my opinion.
~Allyson
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