Fiction Break

Recently I've been looking for a great fiction book to just "take me away" and I've had a hard time finding what I was looking for.  Sometimes I'm in the mood to learn and be challenged, other times I'm in the mood to ponder, other times I'm looking for a break from real life.  Ideally, a fantastic fiction book will do all these things for me.  As I escape into a fantasy world I can still be challenged to think and grow and apply lessons to my own life.  Unfortunately, I haven't managed to come across that ideal fiction book in my recent foray into fiction.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was very well-written and sucked me right in to the storyline.  My final verdict is that the characters were completely psycho and the ending quite unsatisfying.  I can't whole-heartedly recommend it because the language is quite rich and there is simply too much information given, but I have to confess once I started it I didn't want to put it down as I wanted to see what happened.  Believe me, it was NOT what I expected!  It accomplished the "escape" factor, but not much else.

I already talked about The Eyre Affair and since I had to make myself finish it, I certainly can't say it accomplished my goal.

Then I read The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan.  I'm purposefully not linking to it because it definitely had "adult content" so I wouldn't really recommend it.  As the cover of the book states, however, it is "compulsive reading".  In a nutshell, it shows the lives "twenty years later" of several classmates who graduated from Harvard and not one of them is pursuing a life of godliness--all are selfish and worshiping various worldly idols and ideologies while experiencing betrayal and misery.  At the same time, I don't regret reading it because it is a painful, painful book and sometimes I need reminded of how miserable sin's consequences are.  Not that I don't experience it in my own life, but the magnitude of these character's pain is so great it makes me want to run harder in the other direction, to guide my children closer toward the Lord and pray that they will be able to escape the sin that so easily entangles us.  Reading this book provokes me to share the Lord and attempt to help others escape from the cares of the world so they can attain the hope and peace and joy that only the Lord can give. 

Illusion by Frank Peretti was a nice break from thinking very hard and it was a little closer to what I was looking for:  an intriguing, well-conveyed story featuring fleshed-out characters and containing an underlying message that edifies.  Illusion tells the story of a man whose wife of 40 years was killed in a car crash, but then he meets a young woman who is eerily similar to the 20-year-old version of his wife.  It plays with time travel, experiments with scientific ethics, and romanticizes the concept of destined love.

I also appreciate Peretti's summary of the symbolism and thematic elements:

• Being lost in this weird and sinful world, trying to discover who we are and where we belong;
• The deception and lure of this world that we overcome as we reach for heaven, our home;
• Our longing and lifelong quest as the bride of Christ to be united with Jesus, our bridegroom.

Overall, it provided the escape I was looking for--a book good enough to keep me up until 2 am and I hadn't done that in a while.  Now I'll go back and finish some of the non-fiction books I have started.