The Shack

Author: William P. Young

One-sentence summary: A grief-stricken father returns to the site of his daughter’s murder because of a mysterious note and has a unique and enlightening experience with God.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8

Our favorite thing about it: We enjoyed the concept of the book and seeing how God was portrayed in various ways as well as the fresh ways of thinking about things we already believe.

Our least favorite thing about it: At times we felt there were contrived parts that led the main character and the reader through a certain experience or metaphor.

Main Topics of Discussion: Relationship, Grief, Love, Judgment, Renewal, Imagery

Our favorite quote: “I am about the process that takes you to the living answer and once you get to him, he will change you from the inside (198).”

Notes: We talked a lot about how this book gave us reminders as well as a fresh look at things we already may have known and believed about a God and our relationship with Him as His creation. We really appreciated some of the vivid metaphors and descriptions of the facets of God and were really engaged by the conversations in the book. We all felt that we had to stop and think more than once about the theology being discussed. We agreed on liking how Papa was personified as well as how the Holy Spirit (Sarayu) looked and acted. We found it hard to read this book with such an emphasis on relationship without examining our own relationships with God. We recognized that such a story takes on a great task of explaining things that we often don’t want to delve into thinking about or explaining. As a result, it takes on a great responsibility as a book because so many people of varying experiences with God will be reading it and processing it in different ways. Ultimately we believe it is a good thing. Some of us read this book not knowing that it was entirely fiction and that colored the interpretations and reading of the text, which was interesting to discuss. By constructing the book as a true story even when it is not, the author asks whether or not the reader believes something like this could happen. This book made us all think a lot about how humans relate to God, the limitations that we have to overcome as humans in that relationship and ultimately a glimpse of the beauty of a perfect relationship with God.

Memorable Meeting Moments: We celebrated Dara’s birthday month with birthday books and Lindsay made a wonderful and memorable sweet potato soup.