The Shack: book review

A couple of weeks ago, I checked out this book from our church library. I checked it out not knowing the plotline, the characters involved, even whether it was fiction or not. (I did quickly learn that it was indeed fiction based on where I located it in our library--the fiction section!) I got it based on nothing more than the recommendation of umpteen-million people who all said it was a good book. It wasn't until that night when I posted on Facebook that I was about to start reading it that I learned this book has a bit of controversy surrounding it. Several people pointed me to articles that people had posted online explaining the 'bad' things about the book. It made me really nervous to even START the book because I wasn't sure I'd like it. I decided to plug ahead anyway & read it for myself to see what I thought. I promised those friends on Facebook that I would write a review of the book when I was done. This is that review.

Most of the people who recommended the book told me it was one of those "can't put it down" sort of books. I did not find that to be the case for me. Overall, the book was alright, but it wasn't a suck-me-in sort of story.

If you haven't read the book, you may want to skip the rest of this post because there will be some spoilers!

The basic storyline goes like this:
Mack, the main character, takes his children on a camping trip for a few days while his wife is out of town. On the final day of the trip, his older kids go for a quick canoe ride. He can see the lake & the area where they are canoeing from the campsite, so he feels comfortable with it. He's trying to pack up the site so he watches them while he is packing. Sitting at the campsite with him is his youngest daughter, 6 year old Missy. She is coloring & occupying herself while he packs up. At one point, Mack hears a scream & sees that his teens have flipped the canoe & one is struggling to surface. Without hesitation, he runs to them, dives into the water & untangles the straps of the life vest from the one who is struggling & saves his life. Upon returning to the site, just minutes later, he finds that Missy is gone. Long story short, she is kidnapped. A search party shows up & after several hours, they find a very run down old shack in the woods where a blood stained girl's dress is located. It is Missy's. She is presumed dead & they have a memorial service to grieve her loss. The family moves on & goes on with life, each dealing with the loss in their own way.

Two or three years later, Mack receives a letter in the mailbox (with no stamp or return address) from God, asking him to return to the shack where Missy was killed. He isn't sure if the note is from the murderer, trying to lure him back to hurt him, if it's a cruel joke from someone or if it is really from God. After sitting on the letter for a while, he decides to go ahead & visit the shack because his grief has eaten away at his relationship with God. He'd really like to go & yell at God for taking his child & not protecting her. Still unsure of whether this is a bad joke or a real note from God Himself, he takes a gun along just to be safe.

Upon arriving, the shack looks exactly like it did on the night Missy's bloodied dress was found. He sits in the floor next to the blood stain & cries & grieves all over again. No one is at the shack with him, so after a while, he gets up to leave, assuming that it was all some kind of weird joke. After walking away a short distance, he thinks he hears something, so he looks over his shoulder & finds a completely different shack than the one he just exited. He is not sure if his eyes/mind are playing tricks on him, if he is dreaming or WHAT. He decides to go a little closer & take a look and is met by the book's God character. Soon after he meets the Jesus & Holy Spirit characters, too.

Now, in many other fiction books, I've seen God represented or symbolized in some other character or even an inanimate object. CS Lewis uses a lion to represent Jesus. No one has a problem with this & understands who Aslan represents. Right? In this book, The Shack, God is represented by an African-American woman, Jesus by a flannel-wearing Jewish carpenter and The Holy Spirit is represented by an Asian woman named Sarayu. (Sarayu means "wind"...kinda fitting, huh?)

The truth is, while the three characters are definately not Scripturally accurate, I wasn't offended by the author's choice of characters. They each do a good job of representing their particular symbolic character and giving you a sense of what each one might be like personally if you were to meet them separately. However, I found that each one said some things that are not at all Biblical. There are other things in the book that do not line up with Scripture as well... things that made me stop & re-read to make sure I'd understood it correctly. Those things left me shaking my head & thinking "umm....that's not right", but in all honesty, I really read right over those things. If you're strong in your Christian faith & grounded in the Word, I don't think you're going to be shaken up too much by these things. Someone who doesn't have a stable foundation might be confused, but reading this as a FICTION novel, I assumed & expected that there would be some FICTION in the book. I just didn't find myself getting upset & angry over these things.

The summary of the story is that Mack's character spends time with each of the God/Jesus/Holy Spirit characters & learns much about them and himself through them. Each one plays a very different role in helping him work through the grief and come to terms with the loss of his daughter. The idea behind the book, according to what I read about the author's intentions, was to help the reader (originally only his children) better understand the three members of the Trinity. The author's take on each member was very unique and there was a ton of creative license taken, but it was a distant cry from the Bible. I'm OK with that. It's a book. It's stylish literature. It's not the Bible. Honestly, none of us will ever FULLY understand the Trinity this side of Heaven, but I think the book does a decent job of helping to point out the differences of the characters of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit while still explaining that He is One all at the same time.

There are some things about the book that I really liked, however overall, the story just kinda drug on & on to me. I gave up & quit reading with a few chapters left to go because I already pretty much knew the storyline & I was ready to be done.

Would I recommend the book?
It depends. I would not recommend it to a non-believer as a way to understand God because I think it would just confuse them. I probably would not recommend it to a young/new believer for the same reason. The book was OK, but it wasn't GREAT. If you're looking for a fiction novel, go for it. I've heard many people say you either love it or hate it. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. I just didn't capture my attention & keep me sucked in to the story enough for me to run out & buy a copy to keep for myself & share with others. But I didn't hate it either. It just wasn't "me".

Does it live up to the controversy?
Yes & no.
I think some of the controversy got a little blown out of proportion, but I do see the issues at hand. I guess it just depends on how much weight you're giving the book to begin with. Sure, it's just like Satan to throw a lot of garbage onto the bestseller list...but, really...it's just a book. And there will always be garbage on the bestseller list. Always! There is a lot of interesting stuff in the book, though, and it did help me to understand the three separate persons of the Trinity in a new way, so it's not entirely garbage. Maybe I'm not mad enough about it, but I just don't see that it's all that big of a deal. If you read it & are offended, toss the book & don't recommend it. Seems simple enough to me.

I want to leave you with one of my favorite passages from the book. This is a quote from the God character in the book. Mack was trying to grasp the character of God & the God character was explaining how he'd never really fully grasp Him. This quote is really good if ya ask me. Tell me what you think:

The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness that they can perceive, which often isn't much, and calling THAT God. And while it may seem like a noble effort, the truth is that it falls pitifully short of who I really am. I'm not merely the best version of you that you can think of. I am far more than that, above & beyond all you can ask or think.
Mack replies: I'm sorry but those are just words to me, they don't make much sense.
God says: Even though you can't grasp me, guess what? I still want to be known.