so I had an idea

LOL yeah, always the ideas, rarely the follow through! but susan got me thinking with her friday fun day [what do you call it again???] I love books, I love reading so maybe I should do a biweekly, unscheduled book review. although i have a HUGE stack of books by my bed that I was suppose to read this summer, there are a few that I have, and that I'd love to share. SOOOOOO, here we go. the first review!

The Shack, by William P Young



[we'll see if the graphic worked or if I'll be cursing this grand idea!]
well, this book was recommended to my by my friend erika. we were killing some time at the mall in SLC and we decided that the book store was a safe place to cool off and hang out. she saw this book on the front display and told me it was a good one and that I should read it. to be honest, personal recommendations can go either way...what I love may not be what you love and vice versa. and being an ex-employee of a well-known christian bookstore here in town, I am very skeptical of most all christian literature. however, I have a few exceptions and so since not all is bad, I bought the book. erika was telling me how many people who have read it have claimed that it was life-altering [totally didn't help the cynic in me!] so as I began to read, the skeptic/cynic needed a boff in the head for her bad attitude!

so, I read it twice. not the whole thing, but parts. let me explain.

this book is totally cool. really. it's fiction/theology/realism all rolled up into one. it is the story of mac, a man who has lost his youngest daughter in an act of extreme violence. then one day, he gets an invitation to go back to the place where his daughter was murdered - and the invitation is signed "papa", the name his wife uses to address God. I don't really want to give too much away, just in case you decide to track down a copy and read it, but mac has an encounter with God, in the shack, that changes his life. I couldn't put the book down when I first read it, mainly because whenever I read a book for the first time through, I just want to know how it ends. I had to go back and re-read just because there were theological parts that hit me deeper than I had imagined. there is a section in the middle where mac is having a conversation with someone [can't remember if it was papa, jesus or sarayu] about the human need for hierarchy. in return, the term "circle of relationship" is used - a concept that I am wanting to explore further [when I read it again after I get it back from my dad!]. it also talks a lot about trust [something I have big issues with]. anyways, it got me thinking about things that I rather not think about.

but, I digress. I thought this book was exceptionally written. it is thought provoking and interesting. it may just sit in my top 5.