The Shack by William P. Young

So many people (well, OK, one or two, but that's unusual) have asked me about it I thought I should get a copy and read it.  As usual I read it mainly on the bus to and from work.  The loss of a child is a difficult subject to think about and read about.  The emotional reaction that results is not really suitable for the bus.  There are plenty of those too if you follow the story through. 
The book attempts to provide personal answers to the problem of human suffering caused by other humans.  To meet its purpose the author provides various characterisations of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and uses the parent-child relationship to explain what is going on.  Humans have standard reactions to situations, so for example, when they are wronged they want revenge.  God, it seems does not have the same reactions, but loves us all - all the time. (This is of course an unreasonably short summary - but it is precisely what I was struggling with as I arrived at work one morning, 5 minutes after getting off the bus.)
Some of the images of God are helpful, some are not.  There are a few other books where you can check the theology that The Shack proposes and provide some biblical comparison.  Two longer reviews with more on this are:
http://www.challies.com/articles/the-shack-by-william-p-young
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001788.cfm

I nearly stopped at the start.  The forward and early chapters are technically too difficult for a story.  Things improve once we get to the centre of what's happening - the encounter with God.  The ending is also difficult and the plot device used to 'cover up' God's intervention into his world is not dealt with particularity well.  There is a lack of detail and a paling of characterization in the last chapter as we try to understand the visible effects that the encounter has had on the main character and his relationships.  For me this should have been the bulk of the story.

After reading it and reacting to it, remember that it is FICTION, and doesn't make a claim to be anything else. The god described in the pages bears a resemblance to the God that I know, but sometimes not a very close one.  For me, at the end, it could never be transformational, but it is (mostly) a good, well written story and very thought provoking.