Play Book Tag discussion

This nearly got two stars because for a self-published book it is free from typos, poor grammar and many other mistakes. That said, it read like a self-published book and there were a number of weaknesses in the story telling and prose, etc that a publishing house would have helped Gilbert get rid of. I suspect that the bulk of Gilbert's audience doesn't pay much heed to these things, and fair enough, but I do. I am not going to elaborate on the list of things that got in the way of the story telling, but I wish Gilbert would hire a good professional editor who is not in her church or a friend who could help her with this stuff, because she has some good ideas.

For a Christian novel there were at least three red flags.

1. Jesus made a point of never siding with any side in a political debate. There is no political party that lines up well with the Bible--no parties or TV networks should be mentioned. Keep politics out of the pulpit! There is enough division in Christianity not to invite more this way.

2. Ghosts? If they weren't a hallucination, then that was in very poor form for a Christian novel. Keep that stuff out no matter how you interpret the scene where Saul goes to see that banished woman. Trust me, there are many chapter and verse Christians who interpret this very differently (view spoiler)[as in a familiar spirit is a demon familiar with the dead person, not the ghost of the deal person (hide spoiler)]. I was quite certain this character was hallucinating, but it could have been made much more clear since I saw that at least one reviewer didn't see it as that.

3. Christmas--celebrating it has many controversies, either over the time of the year (no scholars think the birth was in December that I am aware of on any side of the debate) or how many worldly things come up. All of the Christmas scenes focus on the "wrong" things (and I am not saying I am opposed to having a tree, but honestly there wasn't one mention of the point of Christians using this time for a holiday) Not one. We heard about decorating, this crazy white tree and then everyone pouncing over opening gifts-it was no different than a secular Christmas.)