ROOMS, by Jim Rubart, was the "talk" of the latest ACFW conference in Indianapolis this year. So, when I found it was available in Nook, I bought it.
(Yes, I have over 115 books in my to-be-read bookshelf, but I had a B&N gift card credit burning a hole in the ether, so ...)
What can you say about a book like this? Part "Replay," part "It's a Wonderful Life." A little downright spooky in places. It reminded me of some stories by Charles DeLint, where a fictional world is impacted by what happens in a writer's life -- and that world impacts the author.
Micah Taylor, the hero, inherits a house on the beach from a weird old uncle he never met. Just the fact the house is on the beach where his mother died when he was a child -- and his father blamed him for it -- is enough to make Micah hesitate to go down to check it out. His business partner/love interest looks up the property value and tells him to just sell it, don't waste his time checking it out. His estranged father tells him to get rid of it. Micah goes to check it out.
You'll fall in love with the story with very little effort, just like Micah falls in love/like/loathing/fascination/obsession with the house.
A place where dreams come true ... means nightmares become real, when you really think about it.
As Micah faces parts of his past he has tried to forget, and rooms appear without warning in this odd, somehow-alive house ... his life in the real world gets rewritten.
Yeah, that sounds good on the surface ... but is it? Especially when you have no control over what gets rewritten and how, and who you'll lose from your life?
Read it.
Shiver a little.
Stop and go, "Hey, yeah ..." or sometimes, "HUH!?!?"
Enjoy.
2 comments:
Michelle,
Thanks for your insightful review.
It's been fun to see how lovers of spec fiction have reacted to ROOMS as well as people who don't normally read spec.
Only the best,
Jim
We covered this book in our local book club several months ago, which led to a very interesting discussion. I heard someone refer to Rooms as a cross between The Shack and Frank Peretti, which pretty much summed it up for me. Rooms is a good, solid piece of speculative Christian fiction, something that I am always glad to see. :)
I loved this book.
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