The Mending String - Coon

I finished my first book of 2007 yesterday, "The Mending String" by Cliff Coon. I thought this year it might mean more if I wrote a short little review of the books that I've read, so here goes my very rough first try: (I haven't done this since grade school, so work with me here)

The Mending String was an uncomplicated story of a man and his daughter. Despite Coon's attempts at making the relationship seem strained and difficult, the characters and their relation to each other seemed typical and commonplace to me. The youngest daugher, living alone with her Pastor father after her mom dies, stubborn as the day is long and a father, leading a church in his old-fashioned ways, has a hidden past secret that is not nearly as tantalizing as the author wanted you to originally believe. Through a series of misadventures and bad choices (placed to provide the assumed Christian reader with a life lesson, I suppose)the daughter and father are forced to address their strained relationship and to share their hidden secrets.

The book was a quick, easy read. It was everything you expect and nothing you wouldn't. There were no hidden surprises or twists of plot that kept you guessing, just an easy flowing storyline that wrapped itself up neatly at the end.

The Mending String epitomizes what I don't like about many Christian authors and that is the assumption of innocence and morality of the readers mirrored in the characters. Of course we know what the right thing is, and of course we SHOULD be doing that, but we don't always, as humans we make bad choices sometimes very bad choices, and yet we are forgiven for those and we learn from them before moving on. To tell a good Christian story, it seems to me, an author need not depart from the complexities that face us in real life, the struggles we go through just as non-Christians. The difference is in how we respond to those choices, and how God responds to us. Things don't always wrap themselves up neatly. Happy endings aren't the normal, and good moral behavior isn't always rewarded.

This book didn't captivate me and perhaps won't stick with me past next week. I didn't walk away learning anything or feeling as though I related well to the characters and came out somehow changed (for the better) at the end. It's a nice read. I'd recommend it only if you pick it up cheap at a used book sale.