William Paul Young - The Shack

REview by Ro Bennett on show 6th May
I am ambivalent about this book. I found it heavy going and tedious in parts, but there were other parts which made me glad that I’d stuck with it. Sometimes it was very dry and like reading a Bible commentary and I found my mind wandering and thinking about what I was going to have for tea, but there were also some touching parts. It was very much a christian ‘preaching the gospel and spreading the good news’ book. You can imagine the author thinking: How can I tell the world about Jesus? I know, I’ll write a novel!’ So we have this laborious effort. It’s about a wholesome devout American family in a wonderful devout community with wonderful devout friends. Evil attacks and then we are led along the road of christian suffering, love, forgiveness and redemption.

From the back page: 'Mackenzie Allen Philip’s youngest daughter, Missy has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later, in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.
Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his deepest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack’s world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant THE SHACK wrestles with the timeless question, ‘Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?’ The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You’ll want everyone you know to read this book!'

Well I certainly wouldn’t want everyone I know to read the book - lots of it made me cringe - but there were parts where he built up the suspense and you wondered how it would pan out. I won’t tell you who was at the shack or what happened in case you want to read it, but there were some surprises.
It’s a thoughtful book, and thought provoking to a certain extent. The author has tried very hard and it’s obviously a labour of love. But the key word is labour - I found it laborious ploughing through it and couldn’t wait for it to end.

There is a website you can visit called theshackbook.com. On it you’ll find ‘Willie’s personal journey’, which is written by the author. He writes:
The Shack will tell you much more about me than a few facts ever could. In some ways my life is partly revealed in both characters—Willie and Mack. But an author is always more...
That about sums up my life. For me, everything is about Jesus and Father and the Holy Spirit, and relationships, and life is an adventure of faith lived one day at a time. Any aspirations, visions and dreams died a long time ago and I have absolutely no interest in resurrecting them (they would stink by now anyway).
The book is a reflection of this person.

Some other reviews I agree with:
1* One of my main issues with the book is that it chooses a serious and painful matter (abduction and murder of a child) to spout americanised religious clap-trap

Unmitigated drivel.

As for this review:
'The Shack is the most absorbing work of fiction I’ve read in many years. My wife and I laughed, cried and repented of our own lack of faith along the way. The Shack will leave you craving for the presence of God'.

Well that review made me just cringe - and cringe just about sums up much of my reaction to the book.
This review by Ro.