William Sirls, the Reason, Review

 

Hi readers, thought I’d do a review of one of my favourite books, The Reason, by William Sirls.

“Only Believe.” That’s a main caption of the story, and sums up story in one sentence. Let me elaborate.

The story is complex and involves several characters all centered around one anchoring object that holds the story together, a cross. It begins with a bang as a bolt of lightening strikes the cross in half. It’s then this mysterious carpenter appears in town and begins to do things that aren’t normal. Who is this guy? That’s for you to find out.

The characters involve a mother whose son is diagnosed with leukemia, a doubting doctor whose past haunts him, an alcoholic who is on the verge of suicide, and a blind pastor with a retarded son.

The story revolves around the cross being mysteriously repaired by the carpenter and things escalate down from there. When I say down I don’t mean bad, I mean depressing.

This whole story is very depressing and deals mostly with a child’s slow death. Those who don’t like sad stories will definitely not like this one. I myself could hardly read the last quarter due to its dark and depressing story line.

(Major spoiler alert.)

If you are worried about the ending and questioning if it ends on a hopeful level, don’t worry. In the end the stranger appears at the church where the boy’s mom is crying. He’s holding the boy’s hand and the mother and son unite for a happy ending.

(End of spoiler)

Overall this is an amazing book about faith and the broken human condition. Though it isn’t without its flaws. First off the writing isn’t the best I’ve read, it’s just average. The story at times was very similar to the Joshua novel by Joseph F. Girzone, and at times it moves very slow. The last 150 pages are nearly entirely set in a hospital and seem to stretch forever. There are quite a lot of characters, but compared to Peretti’s novels it isn’t much.

So now I’ll deal with the content: Spoilers may follow.

Violence: There are a few scenes at a bar where characters beat each other up. A girl jumps off a bridge but we later see that she is okay. The whole story is about a boy with cancer so that may be regarded as violence.

Language: None.

Sex: None, except for one scene where a girl wakes in a married man’s house with a vomit stain on her shirt. The daughter of the man comes in and says “You shouldn’t have kissed Daddy. Only Mommy can kiss Daddy.”

There is nothing objectionable in this book, but it isn’t for everyone. Even though the ending portrays hope, it dwells so much on hopelessness that the writer could’ve cut a good 50 pages or more out easily without effecting the story. So in the end, I’d highly recommend this incredible story by William Sirls, with some slight caution due to upsetting scenes.

4/5 stars.

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Writers Block

Hi readers, I want to talk about something that all writers loathe….writers block. What is writers block? It’s that time when you just get nothing. Your mind goes completely blank and it becomes nearly impossible to fill that blank screen, and everything becomes overwhelming. You think you’ve lost your touch. You may even think your writing career is over, which is a pretty good indicator that you didn’t want to do it in the first place to me.

I wanted to address the issue because I had been struggling with a scene in my WiP (Work in Progress), and for the first time I hit the dreaded writers block. I became stuck, and I didn’t know what to do.

Have you ever felt that way? Not just in writing, but in normal life? Have you ever felt stuck with a decision you knew you had to make, but you knew each one would drastically change your course? It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? I felt pretty stressed out about it in my novel. It’s the first time I’d encountered it and I didn’t know what to do.

Thankfully I escaped. But how?

Us writers are quite a busy bunch if you know what I mean. No, we don’t go out and do a whole lot of manual labor, but our job is just as, if not more, stressful. Imagine putting up a new fence, which would probably take a day or two at the most, compared to writing 80,000 words at least to fill a novel, if that’s what you’re aiming for. Plus, you have to figure out a good story to use those words in, and a good plot to drive that story along. Our minds are at work so much I’m sure they get pretty fed up at times and just want a break. That’s where writers block comes in. Sometimes I go through a whole day with nothing but my novel in mind, working out the next scene and plot point.  Mentally, it gets very tiring.

So how do we break that writers block? Simple, take a break.

Rest and don’t think about your novel for a whole day or two (I know, it sounds impossible, right?). If you do that your mind will have time to refresh and inspiration has more of a chance to come knocking. I figured out the next scene in my novel by just going away from it for a day.

So, can this be used by people who don’t write? Yes, and it’s simple, stop worrying. You want gray hairs, go ahead, worry until your hair becomes blindingly white 🙂 Or you can stop and rest, seek God, and allow Him to guide your paths and your choices. Read the Word, that’s the most important step of all, for both writers and non-writers alike.

Stop worrying, rest in the knowledge that the Lord knows the way, and don’t lean on your own logic and understanding. Trust me, in my own knowledge, I had some pretty crazy stuff for my scene. Now that I look back, I thanked the Lord that I didn’t put them in!

‘Till next time, God Bless!