A Good Pointer
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I wouldn't normally write a review but I felt, having read the negative comments of the only review posted so far, that something was needed to balance this out. The point of this book seems to me to be to show the writers of the Gospels as real people. It is very easy to read the Gospel accounts and forget that they were written by men who lived and breathed as we do; who went through the same temptations and doubts that we do. I think that in this sense, the book achieves its aim very well. The previous reviewer seems to have approached the reading of this book from a very different perspective and the negative comments made as a result are unfortunate. When I read this book, I did not expect a plot or intrigue; I expected to be given a glipmse of what John the man. Whilst I know that much of what is in the book is based on church tradition or is simply made up, it still helped the Gospel contained therein to come alive.
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LaHaye and Jenkins again show their inability to tell a real story.
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A good novel needs a good lead character. One that the reader can identify with or at least root for. In "John's Story", the title character is a rather unpleasant old man who spends much of the opening part of the book whining about, and shouting at, people with other religious beliefs. He does calm down after a while and starts writing his gospel, but that's no more exciting to read. He sits around talking about Jesus. This kind of filler makes up most of the book. A good novel also needs a plot. I'd estimate that less than 5 percent of "John's Story" is plot; the rest is filler. And it gets boring VERY quickly. Like in the neverending "Left Behind" series, Jenkins again proves his talent is not in storytelling, but in his ability to take a thin plot and pad it with filler into as many words as possible. It was so boring I was unable to finish it.
It's obvious that the authors didn't put much effort into the book. They knew their names on the cover would guarantee sales and wrote it for no other purpose than to make some quick money. It's not a novel as much as a long discussion of theology. And flawed theology at that. If you want to read about theology, find a nonfiction book. If you want to read a novel, don't read this one.
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