Reviewer: Annabelle Bok

Plot summary: Mackenzie Allen Phillips' youngest child, his daughter Missy, is kidnapped during a family holiday. It is later found that she was brutally murdered and the family, especially Mack, are traumatised. Mack falls into a "great sadness" and it finally takes a truly out-of-this-world encounter with God-- at what ostensibly is the scene of Missy’s murder-- to bring him "back to life" again.

If you take the plunge into The Shack, be prepared to meet the Trinity in forms that you probably never expected. At once shocking and warmly familiar, Young's personifications of each member of the Triune God will reach into your soul in ways that smack of true divine inspiration.

Reading The Shack was a journey of discovery and rediscovery or myself and God, as well as a challenge-- a call to adjust and realign several perceptions that I have held to for many years. And in my opinion, Young’s use of fictional prose, despite what some other readers (who are the minority) have said, makes it easier to contemplate and work towards an acceptance of the points he makes in his book.

Love it or hate it, Young's protagonist, Mackenzie Allen Philips, reflects parts of every Christian's journey. At one point or another we have all questioned the issue of pain and loss: Why God allows it, how we should respond to it, where He is in the midst of it. The Shack confronts these thorny issues in a manner both compassionate and forceful, and it was impossible for me not to pause several times in my reading to cry, pray, repent or just contemplate the things that Young throws up for consideration.

Take a chance with this book. Read it, enjoy it, ponder it, and let God speak to your heart in ways that you may never have thought possible before. And if you're an artist, you'll surely appreciate the fact the many more lessons can be gleaned from this not-always-elegant yet genuine work of fiction than from a typical Bible study companion or devotional.