Synopsis:
Mackenzie Allen Phillips’s 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 this 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 wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change his life forever.
Review:
Books have many purposes. Some are meant to entertain. Some are meant to make us reach deep inside ourselves and uncover buried emotions. And if we’re lucky, once in a great while we come across a book that is meant to do both AND stay with us for a very long time. It touches us in such a profound way it becomes part of our fabric.
I read such a book this week. It began with tragedy, sadness. But as is true in life, the sadness was necessary to help reveal the good that is worked through it.
The Shack is a book that I cannot do justice in a simple review. To write and relay the type of emotion it evoked in me is something writers around the world struggle with daily. I’m not too proud to say I cried through parts of it. Although it began with sadness, the beginning was not the part that brought out the richest emotions in me. But even more importantly, I related to it. Not the details of Mack’s life as much as the feelings, emotions, and inner turbulence he experienced. There isn’t a person alive who hasn’t experienced much of what he experienced as far as emotions go.
I read a review where the reader said they had a hard time with it because it was in contrast to their beliefs. I get it. Not everyone shares the same beliefs. Even people of the same denomination disagree with certain aspects of their own religion. But this book isn’t about beliefs in terms of who is right and who is wrong. It isn’t about religion of any denomination. It’s about what is right and what is wrong. It does not delve into the story of the Bible. It deals with the human condition: judgment, forgiveness, anger, etc.
The Shack is brilliantly written. I am not going to go into the actual story as I would not want to ruin a single scene ahead of you reading it, and the synopsis gives little away, but I highly recommend it. It has been made into a movie, which I have not seen and probably won’t. I tend to like the book better than the movie and I wouldn’t want seeing the movie to alter what I took away from the read. If you’re not much for reading, then I might recommend the movie as opposed to nothing at all. I doubt it’s exact in its adaption, but one would think it maintained the essence that made the book as wonderful as it is.
With almost 13,000 reviews on Amazon with a 4.7 average rating, I couldn’t agree more. This was one of the easiest 5-star reviews I’ve ever given. This is a book you will find yourself wanting to re-read.
K.E. GARVEY 