ARA Review by TheDinosaurLawyer of The Message?

[TheDinosaurLawyer]

[Following is an OnlineBookClub.org ARA Review of the book, The Message?.]

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4 out of 5 stars

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The Message – 4 out of 5 stars
Summary – a woman is injured by a drunk driver, three weeks later, she wakes up completely healed, where she regretfully admits she was in the presence of God. God asked her to send a message of caring out to the people. The book then has a collateral plot line of a professor teaching philosophy, they kind of merge, but not as well as would be expected. The book gets repetitive without a lot of plot or reason why so many people would be after the woman for spreading that message, yes it conflicts with certain religions and with atheism, but I was expecting more. That more didn’t come.

This book really started for me in Chapter 2. The philosophy professor class was fascinating in the first few chapters. The discussion from Socrates to Einstein and the singularity raised my hopes for the book, especially considering that a patient was injured going into a brief coma, thinks she met God, and was healed coming out of the coma. But then I felt let down a bit.

The author has an unfortunate habit of telling us a lot of background material of characters, in Chapter one at a board meeting, there were so many names and titles and mini backstories being told that everyone blended together and I never really feel like I cared for the characters.

If I’ve got so many bones to pick with the story, why do I give it 4 stars, a high rating and not 3 or less? Because I enjoyed it overall and would easily recommend it to others who would have an interest in philosophy. If you can make it past the first chapter, you’ll be rewarded with the second, but then a bit let down after that.

Some other reviews say the book wasn’t edited well, I’m not sure if it has been updated or if I just glossed over all the typos, but it read very clean to me. I thought the language was well written, the author a good writer, but the author did a bit too much telling and didn’t give his characters unique enough voices. If he would have thrown in a few more inciting incidents, this book could have been 5 stars for me, and I hope the author writes more, the research was there, the writing was there, just a few missing tips to make this a great story. Overall, quite good.

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