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The Shack

Young, William P. Book - 2007 Adult Book / Fiction / Religious / Young, William P 1 On Shelf No requests on this item Community Rating: 3.6 out of 5

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Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Religious / Young, William P
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch

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Adult Book / Fiction / Religious / Young, William P 4-week checkout On Shelf

A confluence of paths -- The gathering dark -- The tipping point -- The great sadness -- Guess who's coming to dinner -- A piece of "pi" -- God on the dock -- A breakfast of champions -- A long time ago, in a garden far, far away -- Wade in the water -- Here come da judge -- In the belly of the beasts -- A meeting of hearts -- Verbs and other freedoms -- A festival of friends -- A morning of sorrows -- Choices of the heart -- Outbound ripples -- After words.
Mackenzie Allen Phillips' 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. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant, "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Fiction Profile
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Thought-provoking submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 13, 2013, 10:26pm This book was thought-provoking, which I suspect was its primary goal.

Internal to the story, it presents itself as a true story told by a friend and ghost-written by the author, which turns out not to be true. The book is a work of fiction. I wish that were clearer, personally. It works wonderfully as a parable, and could be easily left as just that.

But the main point of the story, to Christians, is to call people back into relationship with God, and I think the book invites and explains that in some really neat ways.

On the other hand, I think there are a few things, like the existence of an individual, physical Adam who had a rib pulled from his side that was turned into the first woman, a physical individual woman named Eve, that are pure garbage. There are multiple creation stories in the Bible. Even if you want to be THAT literal about the Bible, you are still picking and choosing... and I don't buy that in the first place anyway.

So, for Christians, a worthwhile, thought-provoking read that definitely does not fit neatly within any particular institutional religion, but just might open your heart and relationships to something new, if you care to try it.

Failure submitted by KidBlue on November 16, 2013, 5:48pm There are no satisfactory answers to the question the book raises, namely the existence of a Divine god of Mercy and Love and also the existence of unspeakable evil and human suffering beyond imagination. The book fails in responding to its own basic premise.

A Good Read submitted by TheHogans on June 19, 2017, 5:00pm It is an inspiring read. Depending on where you are in life is what you'll get out of this book.

Cathartic...if you're already on the inside submitted by terpsichore17 on August 2, 2021, 11:20am The cover blurb says The Shack has “the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his.” Which is both accurate - it’s a big ol’ allegorical dream sequence, whereby an everyman puts down his Burden - and inaccurate: no 21st century book is likely to penetrate the world’s consciousness so as to endure as Bunyan’s 17th century work did. This is partially due to the subject matter, partly because the prose/dialogue wants some polishing, but also because many readers today are impatient with allegorical dream sequences.



Mack’s journey through grief and depression, and his conversations with the three persons of the Trinity address the usual questions of pain, free will, judgment of others, forgiveness, how a faithful life might not be synonymous with corporate religion, etc. Given how the story is framed, this focus makes a lot of sense. However, as one who grew up in the Church, I’m not sure whether the answers to those particular questions will be of much interest to those who grew up outside it (or grew up in it, and have since left it). The plot of the first four chapters was more or less spoiled for me, and the transition to the next portion was a bit rough.



As one who IS moved by the depths and riches of God’s love, I did get a very cathartic cry out of reading this, as well as an increased desire to reread Job, Perelandra, the Narniad, Tales of the Kingdom, and even, perchance, Pilgrim’s Progress.

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PUBLISHED
Newbury Park, Calif. : Windblown Media, c2007.
Year Published: 2007
Description: 249 p. ; 20 cm.
Language: English
Format: Book

ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780964729230
9781455567614

SUBJECTS
Life change events -- Fiction.
Missing children -- Fiction.
Oregon -- Fiction.