Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.0 AVERAGE
3.0 AVERAGE
I read this book before, in middle or high school, when the only author I knew was Madeline L’Engle, and didn’t like or understand it. As a straightforward mystery novel, it doesn’t work.
As an adult, though, who has heard Walt Wangerin and Luci Shaw speak and has read more deeply, it’s hilarious.
And that’s the secret to enjoying this book: you have to understand that the authors were lampooning each other and the Christian publishing industry. It may even help to create a list matching up which character is which author and refer to it throughout.
Hence 3 stars: it’s bad as a straightforward novel, but great as satire if you know what they’re satirizing. Decide to read, or not, accordingly.
As an adult, though, who has heard Walt Wangerin and Luci Shaw speak and has read more deeply, it’s hilarious.
And that’s the secret to enjoying this book: you have to understand that the authors were lampooning each other and the Christian publishing industry. It may even help to create a list matching up which character is which author and refer to it throughout.
Hence 3 stars: it’s bad as a straightforward novel, but great as satire if you know what they’re satirizing. Decide to read, or not, accordingly.
Three is probably generous. A lot of inside "jokes" and ridiculousness. And it was both boring and confusing. The end, talking about the dangers of a "Christian industry" and the vices inherent in such gave it a star back.
The mystery is not great but the writing and pot shots at each other are hilarious.
This is one of the suggestions I wrote down 10 years ago. Good theory, nice idea, but this book needed a much stronger editor than it had. It just didn't hang together well; I couldn't even keep track of who was who in the book, partly because I was also trying to figure out which character was supposed to be representing which author on the list. Anyway, considering what he had to work with in the preceding chapters, the last author did a pretty fair job tying everything together.