The Shack
Genre: Fiction, Religion
Original Publication date: May 2007
Book Description (from Good Reads): Mackenzie Allen Philips' 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.
Thoughts:
This is hard to rate. As I was reading the beginning I loved it so very much, the story was alluring and it was giving the message I have always wanted people to actually accept.
*God does not control everything there is really no reason to say that when someone dies or something bad happens it was because God wanted it so. What happens to people on their day to day life is usually a consequence of the actions of other people and that's it.*
Accepting God does not mean you will be 100% free of harm, our life on Earth is not meant to be heaven, we can live the best we can but not everything will be glorious happiness.
The way Mack struggles to accept that reality and then the way he is forced to see himself and realize the judgemental and selfish way he is behaving, the lessons about love and forgiveness he faced. It is an amazing book but unfortunately, it felt very heavy or long I can hardly find a proper way to describe. It was not overly long but it was not something you can consider a quick read maybe not due to the number of pages but due to the emotion, it awakes on you as you go along and internalize what it is being shared. In some parts it felt like it dragging and then in others, it felt like it jumped ahead too much.... Though really.
The writing style might not be the best and at some point the reaction Mack has seemed a bit just too convenient, a weekend and he suddenly is a completely changed man, I cannot describe it without spoiling but there were several things related to the way he was living that he suddenly realizes he was wrong about and that he can really love! That was a bit too irrealistic even considering that he was spending a weekend with god. It lacked the development that would make his change of mind more understandable.
Also, this is not a religious book, it does not touch on the bible and it does quote anything... This is really a work of fiction. I am not a religious person, therefore this sort of fiction works are actually my favorite, the try to use logic, a nice touching story with a little of the authors opinion about what he thinks God's purpose is but again this is not a religious book.
This book was picked to try to read outside of my comfort zone and I can't say that this was an amazing book, it was an ok read.
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