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Mackenzie Allen Phillips' 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 judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest 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.… (more)
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Dear Sweet Merciful Almighty Whatever, is this book ever a load of excrement!
I really don't where to begin. Every piece of it -- plot, pacing, prosody, polemic -- is excruciatingly bad.
All things being equally bad, let's start the writing: Young uses "career" as a verb (and not in the sense of "to rush" -- no, he means "to profession"). He uses "adrenaline" as an adjective. He doesn't know the difference between "affect" and "effect." He spends an entire chapter proving that he can't tell a verb from a noun. I don't know whether he ever passed grade-school grammar, but he certainly hasn't given it much thought since then.
There's the characters: You've probably heard that God turns out to be a motherly black woman, but it turns out that God is actually a hat trick of racial stereotypes. But never mind God: consider the book's main character, Mackenzie Philips.
Young opens the book explaining that only Mackenzie's closest friends call him "Mack," and that everyone else calls him "Allen." Apparently everybody is Mack's close friend because in the next 240 pages nobody calls him "Allen"-- not the postmaster, not the police, not the park ranger. Apparently the world is full of Mack's close friends.
One incident may shed some light on this. Mack has been seriously depressed since he lost his daughter three years ago. But he is not just depressed: he has named his depression. He has capitalized and italicized it: "_The_Great_Sadness_." This depression and a plot gimmick convince Mack to go into the backwoods of Washington to meet his maker. Mack calls his "close friend" Willie to explain his plan. Now, Willie knows about Mack's depression. Does he offer to go with Mack or beg him to reconsider? No, he offers Mack a gun. We now know why Mack has so many close friends: with friends like Willie, who needs strangers?
Don't get me started on dialect: The first rule every writer should learn is, "If you're not Mark Twain, don't write dialect." Young hasn't learned this rule, so he delights in stuffing his characters' mouths with painful stock phrases like the "Midwestern" postmaster's "Now don't be goin'" and "Don't ya know" to the "Sho' nuff" and "Aw honey" of the Aunt-Jemimah-God (who calls him "Mackenzie.")
Then there's the philosophy. Apparently God sort of disapproves of people who torture little girls to death, but it's not like he/she/whatever can do anything about it. Well, he/she/whatever _could_ do something about it, but now honey don't you go askin no questions about things you got no business knowin'. Apparently it's comforting to know that even though the little girl was tortured, God was right there with her. And we're supposed to be happy knowing she's in a better place.
Honestly: _this_ is what passes for life-changing theology? What exactly have this book's fans been reading for the last several thousand years? Is it somehow more convincing now that the same old theodicy comes from the mouth of a stereotyped Black Auntie? What does this say about race and popular religious discourse in this country? No, scratch that: I don't want to know.
Even the math is bad. One chapter is inexplicably titled, "A piece of π." It has nothing to do with pi, which is one small blessing I suppose. Alas, Young can't leave the math alone: in the next chapter he has Asian-Princess-God explaining that her garden appears chaotic from the ground, but "from above it's a fractal." No, no, no: a fractal is a structure which has self-similar structure at every level of resolution. If it's a fractal from above, it's a fractal on the ground, and even at the microscopic level it's a fractal.
For a better example of "fractal," consider The shack: its structure is bad, its pacing is bad, its characters are bad, its plot is bad, its prose is bad: at every location and every level -- book, chapter, paragraph, sentence, word -- the book is bad all the way down, and is not recommended.
I'm the mother of two beautiful daughters and two equally lovely grand daughters, thus reading about nasty predatory men somehow illicits a
But, my good friend the local librarian raved about the book and started a book discussion group and asked me to join.
Here are my comments:
The writing was tedious, repetitive, monotonous and preachy. The theology was hokey, and much like a shimmery present tied up in a pretty red ribbon. Maybe this theology works for some. For me, God is a lot more complicated.
I give it 1/2 star.
absolute garbage
Now the bad news: the book is
Now the other bad news: the book presents faith as a form of comfort against suffering through the childish idea of a faith that God will provide a happy ending. This notion is a set of training wheels that allows those who are unable or unwilling to grow spiritually to muddle through. However it is an impediment to spiritually mature faith that accepts, embraces, and rejoices in the rightness of what is, no matter how personally painful.
Now the other other bad news: the writing left me cold. I'm willing to cut the author a lot of slack as someone who is not a professional writer but still has something he wants to say. However, the book could use a lot of editing, particularly of the events that occur before and after Mack visits the Shack. In fact, I can't help thinking how much better the book would be if these portions were reduced to a few paragraphs each, like the prologue and epilogue in the Book of Job. That in itself would earn an additional full star in my rating.
The Shack is less interesting for what it says per se than for what it's popularity says. Apparently, many traditional Christians want a more-liberal God. Those who find this book more acceptable than, say, Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" might benefit from a refresher course in the faith they claim to follow so devoutly.
Although the book was obviously written to answer the "why does God let bad things happen?" questions, I pulled out more of the relationship issues--I love the idea of an African American woman as "PaPa' --and being able to spend a weekend with this trinity of personifications of the deity would be an absolute delight.
I think we go thru stages in our life where we have different perceptions of (and therefore relations with) God, religion, sacred scripture, etc. In fact, this book and some of it's theories (and its vision) came up for discussion several times in a Lenten scripture study I just finished at my church. I found it a thought-provoking read and will probably recommend to several people I think will like it.
For me it was a 4 star, for others it will be trash. For a few it will be a life-changing event. I think most books in this category will have widely ranging ratings depending on the reader's background and reason for choosing the book to begin with.
"The Shack" aims to be a contemporary equivalent to the ancient book of Job, seeking the presence of God in this violent, destructive, and painful world. It offers the story of a man coping with depression after the violent death of one of his children. Some years later, he receives a mysterious summons, apparently from God, and spends a period of time in the divine presence.
The story is unfolds dramatically, albeit at times with a little verbosity. Young skillfully establishes the characters, particularly the central character of Mack, who has almost become debilitated by his grief and depression. Young also imaginatively (and I think this is what many people are drawn to) creates the divine encounter, giving voice to Mack's questions and offering some answers.
Many will find the representation of the members of the Trinity to be almost mind-blowing; God in particular is no grim, aging, white bearded man. But as the theologian Thomas Aquinas realized centuries ago, offering positive attributes of God is a dangerous and impossible thing because you leave out more than you include and, even if careful, add things that shouldn't be there. Young, unfortunately, falls into this trap. For the creativity of his divine characters, they also feel lacking, particularly Jesus, who seems almost like a misplaced commune-living hippie.
Similarly, the answers that Young offers to this most challenging question of faith -- why does God allow the worst things to happen? -- are at the same time truthful and yet ultimately contradictory. Many of the conversations between Mack and God are powerful explorations, and they suggest some reasons why bad things happen under a loving God's watch. The climax of the narrative, however, radically undercuts these theological conversations, offering a vision that is meant to be comforting but is profoundly disturbing. Here the wisdom of the book of Job applies: at the end, God praises Job in his questioning, but chides each of Job's three friends who offered definitive answers in God's name. If there was a satisfying answer to this age-old question, it would be common knowledge. In fairness, Young does not offer answers to all of Mack's very real questions, recognizing this. But for me, Young offered one answer too many.
Many others will disagree. They will be moved -- to tears, to questioning, to imagining God's love in new ways, to comfort that God really does care -- and will encourage others to read the book. I appreciated the author's continued efforts to think outside of the box as he approached the tough questions, but found that his thinking still was not radical enough to encompass all of God in this painful topic.
I couldn't get through the book's
Its theology, while expressed in a heartfelt way, was muddled. The book lacked subtlety of any kind. With sentences like "One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview," (p. 17) I found it difficult to take seriously. I did slog through it and am not terribly unhappy with having taken a couple of hours to do so, but it really wasn't well-written. Plus, Young espouses a kind of new-agey Christian theology, that I don't personally embrace. The theology it espouses, though, is dubious at best.
It did have one sentence that I liked--namely, "Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again." (p.237).
Pros: The setting seemed well drawn; I felt as though I walked in Oregon.
Cons: Everything Else.
Starting with a sad premise, some say that this book will help you deal with grief, or bring you closer to God. If you are looking for God, I would recommend Christianity. If you do have a religion, there will be recommended books that would help you deal with grief. This story is nothing but a mishmash of warm-fuzzies and greeting-card platitudes that the author tried to put skin on. There is no substance. The anti-Biblical ramblings bothered me too much to be able to “enjoy” the book.
This isn't even what this story is about, this story is about redemption, education,compassion. A craftsman of the highest order takes you on a trip of discovery without letting you forget what has already occured, so even as you venture forward, eager to see what happens next, you look down to notice you're dressed like Johnny Cash. It took a serious second wind to finish,but reaching it was most gratifying.
The writing is poor. The plot is cliche. The theology
For a better book on forgiveness, read How to Forgive When You Don't Feel like it.
For a better book that deals with the theology of the trinity, try the classic Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.
First things first. The concept of this book is great. It addresses the nature of God, and why God allows evil to exist, and how forgiveness can be achieved. It's very thought-provoking stuff.
However, the writing is downright atrocious. If I'm reading a forward and I have the need to reach for my red pen and start editing, that's a very, very bad sign. The voice is inconsistent. The forward and afterward don't fit the voice of the rest of the book. There are info dumps, including several pages that read like a tour guide to Oregon. For me, though, the most frustrating thing was the dialogue, especially the dialogue of God in all His facets. I see what the author was trying to do. He wanted to make God friendly and approachable, but he does so in a melodramatic matter where God! Constantly uses! Exclamation points! He also laughs constantly and even speaks in chuckles/laughs in dialogue tag (an amateur writer's mistake). Therefore, the dialogue felt forced and fake, which is a shame since the subject matter was compelling. It feels like when this book was picked up by a major publisher, they didn't have anyone edit, and that's to their discredit.
I can see why this sold millions of copies. I can also see why I found my copy at Goodwill.