JOURNEY TO CALVARY BY JUDSON McCAWL This is the hardest type of book to review, because I cannot recommend it based on the quality of the fiction, but I love and admire its faithfulness to the gospel. What is a reader/reviewer to do?
The Book Rundown
This is the first book of a series. At the time of this review it was being offered free in e-book format. 324 pages. The author is staunchly Gospel minded. The description on Amazon promised to include "plenty of sermon and Scripture." To its credit, the book upheld that promise. Let's look at the Fiction Story/Christian Story.
Fiction Story
It pains me to say, but there almost wasn't one. (a fiction story) Ouch, right? Of course I'm exaggerating. In actuality, the story is a character driven arc in which the main character, Tim, struggles with, resists, and ultimately believes in Christ as his savior.
If you ask me, that is a great story! The problem is the fiction. The writing, and the story-telling fell short.
In order to move Tim through his journey to Calvary, the story relied on a string of long conversations in various mundane settings. The conversations came one after another, in different forms, including preaching, apologetic, witnessing, and what amounts to debate style.
Unfortunately this drives the story line. I say unfortunately because it consumed all room for story-telling and made the book hard to read.
The best section of fiction comes near the end when Tim is bitten by a snake and rushed to the hospital. Now his physical AND spiritual safety is in jeopardy, one having an effect on the other.
Sadly, there just wasn't enough of a plot to compliment Tim's progressive conversion. Add that to the problem of weak writing and I have to give the Fiction side of this book a frown.
Here are a few frustrations I experienced while reading
In all the dialogue, no one “said” anything; they exclaimed, they remarked, they responded, they even grinned things. I can’t recall if “said” was used a single time because said is an invisible speech tag, like speech tags should be.
Characters told each other things they should have already known, just so that the reader would know them too. The reverse was also true; characters told each other things they did not know, even though the reader already knew it. Reader stands by.
The dialogue was highly repetitive.
Christian Story
Finally, I get to say something nice. I've been wanting to laud this book's faithfulness! There was a definite reason I picked it up; it is about a young man being drawn to the gospel. In that regard, the book was superb, though a bit on the nose.
This conversion of Tim's is where this entire story is focused. Every scene was set to draw Tim to Calvary. Every character, and I mean every single one did their part in sharing the Gospel with him. In "real life" it would be a beautiful story! I mean, the theology was spot on, and the gospel was complete and accurate.
I believe Judson McCawl did a fine job with the gospel, and with answering some questions that people like Tim might ask. Some times I get the impression that people haven't had enough trouble in life to drive them to Christ, like Tim, they need that proverbial snake bite.
Truth is, there is a very real snake out there called death, and so many Tims who are living their lives in Jeopardy. Calvary is a journey that we all MUST make, and we all know, time is always shorter than we think.
Recommendation
As a fiction reader I cannot recommend this book, but as a christian reader, I hesitate to tell people NOT to read it, after all, 51% of reviewers gave it 5 Stars. 24% gave it 2 or less. It ranks very high in its categories. I can only assume that the high ratings are a response to the author's faithful responsibility concerning the gospel. Such faithful fiction is hard to find. Christian Readers breath it like fresh air.
Let me know if you have read, or plan to read this book.
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