The Shack

Just for fun, I've decided to make my own little personal book review everytime I finish a book. So, I decided to start with "The Shack" by William P. Young, which I read back in the summer. Now, I've read a few other books since this one, but I've been seeing A LOT of people with this book. So, I thought I'd give my two cents about it.

If you're expecting a deep, profound review then you will probably be disappointed. Sorry, this is all my weary and tired "mommy brain" could come up with at the time.

I kind of had mixed emotions about this book. It was a great book as far as being profound and inspiraional and such. On the other hand, though, I found it quite boring and repetitive. That might be too harsh of a description. It wasn't repetitive as far as content, but just the format. For example, there would be a whole chapter on the main character's conversation with one of the God heads and then the next chapter would be another conversation with another form of God, and so on and so forth for most of the book. The conversations were really deep and interesting and quite inspiring, but I got so bored with reading through a conversation just to be met by another one in the next chapter. I was like "come on and tell us what happens to the little girl." I'm even getting bored writing about the repetitiveness. (Please keep reading, though.)

The first few chapters of the book really pulls you in with the little girl that goes missing. If the book didn't start this way and just started with the "conversations" I probably wouldn't have finished it sadly. I'm glad I did though because it was really good. The ideas that the author put forth were so thought provoking.

The author did such an amazing job making God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit so personal, and I actually felt closer to all three. I think putting them in the forms that the author did was one reason for this closeness that I felt while reading the book. It was a good reminder that God wants that kind of closeness with us, and I think I tend to seperate myself from Him sometimes.

I think it's really important to keep in mind, though, that this book is fiction because I can see how it would be very, very easy to get sucked into it and forget that it is fiction and really is just one man's thoughts on what God would say, although I do seem to agree with him on a lot of things from what I can remember of the book.

Normally, when I read a good book like this one I would recommend it to many, but I really don't think this book is for everyone. I can see how it would be easy for someone to get pulled into it and claim it as gospel, as many did with "The DaVinci Code."

So, I loved it and disliked it at the same time if that's possible.

The Sixth Sense

First of all let me start by saying I loved The Sixth Sense. It was so unpredictable to me.

So, Monday night we were at home and I was standing in the kitchen talking to Jack, who was sitting on a barstool on the other side of the counter in front of me. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I heard the cat meowing and turned my head to look back at the door and then I turned right back around towards Jack. Then he said, “Mommy, you just scared that man behind you. You turned and looked at him and he got scared and he ran away.” I just thought he was teasing me, but I looked out the back door just to make sure there wasn’t anyone around the house.

The next day, my mom was at home and had taken Jack outside to play. They went over to a fence that divides our land from this land that has a horse on it. Jack tells my mom that he sees a man. My mom questions him about it, and he says that the man is tied up in a tree, and he points to the tree. My mom asked him what the man was wearing and he said it was too far for him to tell.

So, they come back inside and tell my sister and I about it, and we go back out there with him to further investigate and see what he’s talking about. He points to the same tree and says the man’s up there. We walk over there because Jack says the man’s asking for help. When we get to the tree I ask Jack where exactly the man is and Jack tells me that he got scared and got out of the tree and ran away, and that he was wearing a backpack.

I then asked Jack if the man in the tree was the same man he saw in the kitchen the night before, and he says, without hesitation.....yes. Weird, huh? Oh, yeah......and there’s a cemetery very close to our house. Eerie.....just in time for Halloween.

Come to think of it, he’s actually mentioned a man standing outside at night that he’s scared of. I always thought that maybe he was just saying that because he was afraid of the dark.....................or not. Creepy!

Manic Monday: Sun-In

Randomly, I recently thought back to a beach trip I went on with my friend Jamie back in the summer after like 7th grade I think. I don't remember much from the trip, just little blurbs. Like how we rode our bikes all around Seaside and visited all of the places where "The Truman Show" had been filmed. They'd just finished filming the movie and we thought that was really cool that Jim Carey had just been there. I also remember waking up sooo early so we could say we'd seen a sunrise on the beach, only to find out it was so cloudy we couldn't see anything.

There's also a few other little things that I won't bore you with, but the one main thing that sticks out in my mind from that trip was our first experience with Sun-In. Everyone was doing it. It was definitely the "cool" thing to do that summer of '97. I don't remember exactly how it turned out, but I do remember our hair getting a lot lighter (or yellow) and us getting some wide-eyed looks from people, including our parents. It's funny to think back to the junior high years and remember some of the things that were popular back then. I don't think I ever touched Sun-In again after that. I wonder if anyone still uses this stuff. Maybe it will make a comeback.