Eve

I love sci-fi. I love sci-fi because I think it exposes the truths about humanity. Sci-fi shows that even in extraordinary and different circumstances and settings, the emotions and feelings are still as they are in our reality today. That being said, I love sci-fi and theology mixed together because it shows the truths and reality of Jesus, the Bible, and God in a spectacular setting...yet, they are still truths in our reality.

For that reason, I really liked the premise of this book. I liked the truths about Jesus and the character of God shown through the main character being able to experience Creation. I liked the tempting of the devil personified into a character of the book, and the almost seduction that occurs. I also really liked the Main Characters growth, her history, and people caring about her and loving her helped her overcome some of it. That was cool and I liked her development.

However, parts of the book definitely dragged on, and I found the Lilith and “It's really all Adam's fault in the end” (along with the random addition of Adam's Fall really starting way earlier) to be a little too far from the Creation story in the Bible and too many inferences were made.

Eve tells the story of a woman, Lilly, who has been trough a lot of suffering, who has a supernatural encounter that transforms her life. It is an imaginative retelling and interpretation of the the story we find in Genesis about the first temptation to sin and The Fall. In doing this it falls somewhere between fantasy and spirituality/theology. (And it is very important for people to treat it as a work of fiction. Often, when Christians get bent out of shape about this kind of thing, it's because they don't understand literature and fiction.)

I like Young's conception of sin as a disease that needs to be healed as opposed to a breaking of law that will be punished. God is portrayed as healer instead of judge.

Young is most known for his first book, The Shack, and like that one, this book is a re-imagining of God/the Trinity, and God's relationship with human beings. Both show that God as Love and Healer of humanity's brokenness. I must confess I liked The Shack a lot more than this one. But I will probably read this one again too.