William Paul Young

Despite the intensity of the subject matter, this book turns out not to be particularly deep or creative.

For many people, the idea of a God you can actually talk to and relate to is shocking and inspiring, and it is that idea that is powerful, not this book. Young didn't invent any of the actual good ideas in this book, and he's not that good at writing about them.

To take just one example, if you want feminine images of God, plenty of books have done and are doing it much better, with more show more depth and less emotional manipulation. They range from the mystical writings of Julian of Norwich in the 14th century to the lovely children's picture book Mother God in 2022, both of which would be a better use of your reading time.

Religious matters aside, the scenario is just too on-the-nose, too obviously a parent's worst nightmare, to feel real or authentic. If you want your readers to feel really big feelings, you need to earn that, and Young doesn't even try. My major emotional response was irritation at being told how to feel.

It's hard to care about the faith crisis of the main character when you are too busy being annoyed at the author for constructing it the first place. "Your fictional child was killed so that I could inspire people!" might as well be the message. That's manipulation, not depth. show less

The Shack is one of those books that ended up being far more than what I was expecting, although I have to admit that precisely what I was expecting, I'm not sure. I knew that this book was billed as Christian literature, but I also knew that it was highly controversial. However, I wasn't entirely certain whether it had caused upheaval in non-Christian or Christian circles. Turns out it's apparently both, which in my estimation means that it has done a good job of hitting its mark. If both show more sides are simultaneously criticizing and loving it, then the book has struck a good balance in my opinion.

I've mentioned several times in my reviews of other “Christian” books that in spite of being a Christian myself, nothing will turn me off faster than a book that is preachy, which is why I approached The Shack with a certain degree of caution. What I found in it was something that I never would have imagined. It is a deeply moving, spiritual story of a man seeking answers to some very tough questions. I wouldn't call it a religious book, because it doesn't seek to moralize. It is more of a journey in faith to a richer understanding of who and what God is and is not, and how God relates to the human race as a whole. I know that it has challenged me to think of God in a new way which is something that I've been trying to do for a while now, but I often find myself being held back by the strictures of religion. The story in The Shack succeeds in breaking down those barriers to give a look at a God who many people, Christian or not, may never have encountered or even considered. The message here is one of a God of love, gentleness, patience, and goodness, rather than one who is angry, wrathful and ready to smite us at the slightest provocation.

As I read The Shack, I sometimes found myself trying to label it, but it doesn't fit neatly into any one category. It contained elements of apologetics and elements of allegory, but it is difficult to stamp it as having been born out of any one literary device. Instead it is very much rooted in the author's own faith journey. The beginning and ending chapters, as well as the foreword and after words give the uncanny feel of a non-fiction story. It is definitely written in a more factual tone and style. I'm apparently not the only reader who wondered if Mack was a real person who actually had experienced the events detailed in the book. The author states elsewhere that The Shack is a work of fiction, but rightly implies that there is a little bit of Mack in all of us. Pretty much anyone who has experienced difficult or life-changing circumstances or have struggled with their faith could be a Mack.

The Shack definitely left me with a great deal of food for thought. I'm not sure that I'm even doing it justice in my review, because there are so many wonderful messages to be gleaned from its pages that I have a feeling I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come. I loved the imagery in the story. It spoke volumes to me, as did Mack's struggles with understanding God and His mysterious ways. I, without a doubt, related to him in a very profound way. The only reason I didn't give this book the full five stars is because I felt like it was a bit slow in places and the philosophy, no matter how hard I tried to understand, occasionally eluded me. However, I'm willing to admit that when this happened perhaps my spirit just wasn't ready for that particular message yet. The rest of it though made absolute perfect sense. The Shack is definitely a book that will be worth coming back to over and over, and I'm sure each time I'll find something new and exciting within its pages. There are many spiritual truths housed in this simple yet elegant story that I know I will need to be reminded of time and time again which is why it is going on my keeper shelf. I highly recommend The Shack to anyone who wants to be challenged in their faith and understanding of God or anyone who might be looking for a different interpretation of God than what many churches are offering today. show less

I wasn't inclined to read this, but a friend repeatedly insisted that I _must_ read it, and I finally gave in. Like many others, my enthusiastic friend had found this book enlightening and comforting, so all I can say to him is that it wasn't my cup of tea. So _this_ is where I record my honest response to the book:

Dear Sweet Merciful Almighty Whatever, is this book ever a load of excrement!

I really don't where to begin. Every piece of it -- plot, pacing, prosody, polemic -- is show more excruciatingly bad.

All things being equally bad, let's start the writing: Young uses "career" as a verb (and not in the sense of "to rush" -- no, he means "to profession"). He uses "adrenaline" as an adjective. He doesn't know the difference between "affect" and "effect." He spends an entire chapter proving that he can't tell a verb from a noun. I don't know whether he ever passed grade-school grammar, but he certainly hasn't given it much thought since then.

There's the characters: You've probably heard that God turns out to be a motherly black woman, but it turns out that God is actually a hat trick of racial stereotypes. But never mind God: consider the book's main character, Mackenzie Philips.

Young opens the book explaining that only Mackenzie's closest friends call him "Mack," and that everyone else calls him "Allen." Apparently everybody is Mack's close friend because in the next 240 pages nobody calls him "Allen"-- not the postmaster, not the police, not the park ranger. Apparently the world is full of Mack's close friends.

One incident may shed some light on this. Mack has been seriously depressed since he lost his daughter three years ago. But he is not just depressed: he has named his depression. He has capitalized and italicized it: "_The_Great_Sadness_." This depression and a plot gimmick convince Mack to go into the backwoods of Washington to meet his maker. Mack calls his "close friend" Willie to explain his plan. Now, Willie knows about Mack's depression. Does he offer to go with Mack or beg him to reconsider? No, he offers Mack a gun. We now know why Mack has so many close friends: with friends like Willie, who needs strangers?

Don't get me started on dialect: The first rule every writer should learn is, "If you're not Mark Twain, don't write dialect." Young hasn't learned this rule, so he delights in stuffing his characters' mouths with painful stock phrases like the "Midwestern" postmaster's "Now don't be goin'" and "Don't ya know" to the "Sho' nuff" and "Aw honey" of the Aunt-Jemimah-God (who calls him "Mackenzie.")

Then there's the philosophy. Apparently God sort of disapproves of people who torture little girls to death, but it's not like he/she/whatever can do anything about it. Well, he/she/whatever _could_ do something about it, but now honey don't you go askin no questions about things you got no business knowin'. Apparently it's comforting to know that even though the little girl was tortured, God was right there with her. And we're supposed to be happy knowing she's in a better place.

Honestly: _this_ is what passes for life-changing theology? What exactly have this book's fans been reading for the last several thousand years? Is it somehow more convincing now that the same old theodicy comes from the mouth of a stereotyped Black Auntie? What does this say about race and popular religious discourse in this country? No, scratch that: I don't want to know.

Even the math is bad. One chapter is inexplicably titled, "A piece of π." It has nothing to do with pi, which is one small blessing I suppose. Alas, Young can't leave the math alone: in the next chapter he has Asian-Princess-God explaining that her garden appears chaotic from the ground, but "from above it's a fractal." No, no, no: a fractal is a structure which has self-similar structure at every level of resolution. If it's a fractal from above, it's a fractal on the ground, and even at the microscopic level it's a fractal.

For a better example of "fractal," consider The shack: its structure is bad, its pacing is bad, its characters are bad, its plot is bad, its prose is bad: at every location and every level -- book, chapter, paragraph, sentence, word -- the book is bad all the way down, and is not recommended. show less

"He looked up into the open rafters. 'I'm done, God,' he whispered. 'I can't do this anymore. I'm tired of trying to find you in all of this.'" (pg. 82)

William Young's The Shack made its way onto my radar because it was given as an example of successful self-publishing, but I decided to read it because of its compelling premise. Though I was wary of the dorky "Christian rock" vibe I got from it, the idea of a man confronting God in the disused shack where his young daughter was abducted and show more murdered was irresistible. It promised a dramatic confrontation that would tackle the age-old question: Where is God in a world of such pain and brutality? A question asked by a man with more right to know than anybody. That premise is surely, regardless of its source, to be considered literature.

So does it succeed? Yes and no, though more 'no' than 'yes'. I should state that I am not a practising Christian, nor have I ever been except in the broadest cultural sense. Therefore, the criticisms of the book that it is undogmatic or disrespectful to church teachings, perhaps even heretical, hold no weight with me. I am, however, interested in Christian theology and open to spiritual questions, and even though I am nowhere near the middle-America church-going audience that the book was targeting, I was keen to see what the book was about.

The Shack, however, doesn't have the bandwidth to answer its forbidding philosophical premise. It does create a few thought-provoking responses to 'where is God in a world of pain?', not least the argument that humans have free will and we create the pain in the world, including the murder of the man's young daughter, and that God then uses "every choice you make for the ultimate good and the most loving outcome" (pg. 127). Like lemonade out of lemons, the more cynical among you might be thinking (and the lemons are increasingly sour…), but despite some scepticism it's a legitimate interpretation of the world. A sort of Order Theory rather than Chaos Theory. A hurricane in China causes a butterfly to flap its wings, or something.

The Shack is at its best when it stays on topic with this dangerous philosophical dilemma posed by the murder of the young girl. The first part of the book is particularly affecting, as we share the father's anguish at the abduction, the police investigation and the heartbreaking acceptance that Missy, the beloved precocious girl, won't ever be coming home. When Mack, the father, approaches the titular shack with a loaded gun in his pocket, preparing to confront God, we share his visceral yet impotent hatred at this unspeakably cruel world.

From that point on, however, the book goes off the rails. Whereas up to this point it had been an agreeably benign story, sort of like a Hallmark adaptation of a Stephen King book, from here on in it starts to get a bit kooky. I was excited by the prospect of a dramatic standoff between a desperate Mack and a pensive, patient God wringing his hands, as they trade blows across a table in a grotty shack where a frightened little girl was murdered. Instead of a shack, however, what we wander into is a sort of Sunday School classroom hijacked by a New Age teacher.

God, you see, is a trinity in Christian teaching, and the God that Mack encounters in the shack is in fact three characters. God is a black woman who likes to bake. Jesus is (of course) an Arab carpenter making stuff in the back room, and popping his head around the corner every so often. The Holy Spirit is a small Asian woman who likes to collect tears in a jar. All speak with big smiles and exclamation marks and Mack responds with "Wow!" at the end of the didactic and undramatic passages of dialogue. Self-esteem and understanding the nature of the Trinity appear to be more important than the Gordian knot of a question that bad things happen to good people. The focus and energy dissipate.

It's not all bad though, and even in the narmy moments I still found plenty to interest me. The book's short and pacey enough, even in the didactic dialogue, to retain the reader's goodwill. The author, thank God, has a sense of humour about his story ("I can just see you scaring the living daylights out of some poor hiker," one of Mack's friends says before the trip to the isolated shack, "asking him if he's God and then demanding answers" (pg. 75)). His theological arguments are delivered honestly, not by sleight of hand.

However, as I said, the bandwidth isn't there to match the premise. The question is too weighty for a limited storyteller; though plot holes naturally emerge in a story that tries to tackle a personified God, a better dramatist would have found a more robust reason for God to invite Mack to the shack in the first place (or perhaps avoid the trap entirely by having Mack just go there and stumble into Him). Instead we have "this is special", that 'we don't normally do this' but Mack was hurting so much they just had to (pg. 114). Not only is this not consistent (why had God not appeared in person to anyone else who'd lost someone?), but the intervention doesn't track with this God's rationale for why Missy wasn't saved: 'we don't intervene'. It becomes even more peculiar when the events at the end only come about because God had intervened. And yet God also says he/she didn't intervene to save Missy "for purposes that you cannot possibly understand now" (pg. 224). The sense of what God's plan might be remains as obtuse as it was when we first opened the book.

Ultimately, though, I never went into The Shack expecting to find a satisfying answer to such a profound question, so I wasn't too disappointed when I didn't. It would have been rather a surprise if the unassuming Young had found something that countless generations of artists, novelists and philosophers had failed to discover, that he had an answer to a question that stymied Dostoevsky, Shakespeare and Kierkegaard.

Where I was disappointed, however, was in the story itself. The concept is remarkable, and I couldn't help but imagine (perhaps ungratefully) what a great writer or dramatist could do with this premise if he or she had thought of it first. Mack and God speaking across the table – something like Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited, though with a roaring and vulnerable actor like Liam Neeson. I mentioned the book as being like a Hallmark adaptation of a Stephen King story – but imagine what even a writer of the second-rank like King could do with this material. When I reached the final chapters of the book, and the pages returned to the narrator who frames the story, I half-expected it to be revealed that the narrator was Missy's killer, or that Willie was. Not as a cool but shallow plot-twist, you understand, but because such a framing, especially if revealed at the end of the journey, would have tied in brilliantly to the 'forgiveness' theme that emerges.

Then I realised that, ambitious as it is, the story was not going to be – and never had been – of that calibre. Certain moments of The Shack carry emotional weight – such as Mack's temporal meeting with the departed Missy near the waterfall ("she signed the words – 'love you'… Mack wept for joy" (pg. 169)) – but rarely any literary weight. Such moments show that whilst we can be touched by The Shack, we can never be fully grasped. show less