Jesus loves you, everyone else thinks you are a cupid stunt! (The Shack - William P. Young)

Member Name: sparkymarky1973

Product:	The Shack - William P. Young
Date:	22/07/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reaffirms your faith inThe Lord and provides spiritual reassurance (apparently)

Disadvantages: Waay too heavily religios for my liking and stretched even my imagination to it's limit

As per normal, it seems I must disagree with my fellow Dooyooers once again. I am very sorry to report that I found nothing emotional or redeeming about this book whatsoever and instead found myself being asked to suspend disbelief beyond even my humble ability. I am very surprised that the book has garnered such rave reviews both here and on Amazon but suspect that much of it's success lies behind the enormous amount of hype that has been thrust upon it....

I had been wanting to read this book for a few months ever since I first saw it on the shelves at all the big book-shops so when I saw it offered as a swap on Readitswapit, I thought I should give it a go. The book claims to help you (re)discover your spirituality and your faith in GOD and answer some of the eternal questions mankind has always pondered such as why if GOD is all good does he allow atrocities to happen but I am very sorry to say I achieved no such epiphany and instead walked away more confused than ever. Not over mankind's eternal questions but more over who would recommend this to others to read?

The book follows a weekend in the life of McKenzie Allen Phillips who loses his youngest daughter to a notorious serial killer whilst out on a camping vacation. Four years later, still struggling to cope, he recieves an invitation to return to the shack where they found his daughter's bloodied clothing addressed to him by the family's name for GOD, whom they call Papa. He decides that either it is a cruel joke or some kind of trick but goes anyway. And it is here that he meets his own version of The Holy Trinity and undergoes a very spiritual and emotion-ridden journey that the reader is invited to go along with....

Most reviewers will not tell you what or whom Mackenzie encounters at The Shack but I do so here not to spoil anyone's enjoyment but to give a clearer picture of what the book is about so that others, less religious than I, don't make the same mistake I did and pick this up thinking it will be something it is not. Unless you are a very devoted catholic or christian, and maybe not even then, I don't think you will enjoy this book! I am not religious in the sense that I refuse to follow any one organised religion because, amongst other reasons, of the atrocities that are carried out all across the globe in the name of GOD but I am agnostic and do believe in something. I always say that part of me believes in The Divine Creator but that I prefer to keep my own counsel with GOD and that a person's faith should be their own business. This book attempts, for me, to be some kind of christian recruitment manual and, as such, is marketed at it's close with heavy hints and brute forcefulness that readers should pass the book on, buy family members their own copies and spread the message far and wide across all the Internet and beyond to better share it's spiritual spoils. If nothing else, this puts me off a little as I feel as though I am being brow-beaten into spreading a message I am not sure I believe in ~ and that is that this is nothing but an experiment in religious hype!

I do not want to take away anything from those who have read and enjoyed this and consider it a book that can be read and enjoyed but I do wonder if they read the same book I did! As soon as Mckenzie reaches The Shack, I found myself really struggling to come to terms with what was happening and there was no belief, on my part, in any of the remaining story whatsoever! GOD if he exists, speaks to me I think in my own way but never once has he invited me out to his holiday home! Maybe I am just beyond redemption and condemned for all eternity to remain a sinner....oh well, better get on and enjoy it while it lasts then... :)

Like I say, I do not want to take away anything from those who have enjoyed this and believe me when I say I can understand (just) how reading this might reaffirm a person's faith in what they believe in but you would have to be a better man than me than take anything away from this in my eyes and I am sorry but I cannot recommend this in any shape and form and still come back here with a clear conscience.

Summary: Don't believe the hype ~ DO make up your own mind. I am, after all, in the minority...