Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Book Review: Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl by N.D. Wilson

Book Description:
What is this World? What kind of place is it? 
"The round kind. The spinning kind. The moist kind. The inhabited kind. The kind with flamingos (real and artificial). The kind where water in the sky turns into beautifully symmetrical crystal flakes sculpted by artists unable to stop themselves (in both design and quantity). The kind of place with tiny, powerfully jawed mites assigned to the carpets to eat my dead skin as it flakes off . . . The kind with people who kill and people who love and people who do both . . . 
This world is beautiful but badly broken. 
"I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn't stuck in one place. It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story, a world of surprises and questions to explore. And there's someone behind it; there are uncomfortable answers to the hows and whys and whats. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him were all things made . . . 
Welcome to His poem. His play. His novel. Let the pages flick your thumbs."
My Thoughts:
I really wanted to like this book. But holy cow, reading it was like stabbing myself in the ear with a toothpick. 

There were a few lines and paragraphs I enjoyed. I loved the entire chapter on Hell. But the rest of the book I found painful. It reminded me of "one thousand gifts" by Ann Voskamp, another very flowery, Christian book that goes on and on without ever coming to a point. 

Actually, Wilson does make a point in his book. He makes several. But I found him condescending, repetitive, and irritating. The low point was in the chapter about "Beautiful and Cute," and his attitude toward inspirational posters. Honestly dude? Get over it. I understood where he was coming from, but by this point in the book I was so sick of him and his writing that I started to really hate him. He just came off so snotty and... argh. Yikes.

So. Do you like flowery to the point of painful prose? Then this is your book. Otherwise, flee for your lives.


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