Cross Roads by Wm. Paul Young

When I saw that the author of The Shack had produced another book I stopped what I was doing and downloaded it immediately. William Paul Young doesn't create characters with a level of humanness that makes them completely relatable. For the most part, his characters are pretty two-dimensional. He doesn't string together story lines and weave plots that have you gripping the edge of your seat and ringing up the book club girls to send them running to the internet to buy their own copy. What he does do is present incredible tales of faith. Tales of healing, and love, and spirituality. Tales of healing faith and loving spirituality. Cross Roads, like The Shack, prompted me to dig up all the spiritual beliefs I have or have had and reexamine them. Young makes me think about aspects of my character that I have pushed aside or not considered. 

The first 25% of the book was very difficult for me to get into but after the rough start I was hooked. There is a chapter in Cross Roads in which Young personifies ego, and all the other wonderful characteristics ego brings with it, that stopped me in my tracks. The characters he creates to represent those elements of human behavior are spot on and he had me dwelling on those things about myself for hours. 

Young's books are like toolboxes for me. I don't buy into everything he says. Some of it fits now, some of it might fit later, and still other elements may never fit my system of spiritual beliefs, but so many pieces of his perspective give me tools to riddle through my own life mysteries and I love that. The fact that his writing makes me think about the parts of me that I would like to improve, and that he even occasionally gives me a new way to tackle the work-in-progress that I am, will keep me rereading his work and waiting for anything new he may bless his readership with. 

You will find an official plot line description at:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15789399-cross-roads.