The Shack

If you were on a journey and needed a place to spend the night and came upon a desolate dilapidated shack, your instincts would warn you, "unsafe, uncomfortable, unclean, structurally unsound" and you would pass by.

What is reading a book, if not a journey? We travel on the storyteller's flying carpet through the lands of his imagination. The Shack by William Young is that dilapidated shack. Viewing it, you can see the possibilities but mostly, it is full of holes, unsafe and uncomfortable. It is full of disdain for organized religion and for 'rituals' such as the Eucharist.

It had some potential. There was a scene where the main character is asked to pick which of his children are going to hell. He begs, he pleads, he offers himself instead because he does not want his children going to hell. This would have been an excellent place to talk of God's divine mercy but all that is said is just as the main character does not want his children to go to hell, neither does God want any of His children going to hell.

I think this book will appeal most to those who want a new-agey, feel-good, everyone is going to heaven type of faith; especially those who don't want to be told what to do by some guy in Rome wearing a funky hat, for dissenters and the uncatechized.