"These Nameless Things" by Shawn Smucker

These Nameless Things (Revell), by Shawn Smucker, was not what I expected.  Not sure why, but from the description I thought maybe our lead character escaped an evil cult and was waiting for his brother to escape as well.  It was not.  Our main character, Dan, lives in a village on a prairie just outside of the Mountain all of the villagers escaped.  As time goes on more and more villagers decide to leave the prairie and travel east.  Dan is afraid that everyone will leave before his brother escapes and he will be left all alone.  One night a storm rolls in and everyone starts to remember snippets of their past and secrets begin to be kept. Dan keeps a secret of his own as he helps a tormented welcome heal in his home without telling any of the other villagers.  His moral dilemmas pile up as he begans to trust the other villagers less and less.

It was slightly slow going, in the way of the finale of Lost-I kept going but was never quite satisfied.  Then I discovered that the author followed the idea of Dante's Inferno and everything made much more sense.  Give me a break that it took me a while; I've never read Inferno. Haha.

I'm not sure that I would recommend this to the general public but I do think my fiance would like it.  If you're like him and like to peel apart the layers of story to find themes and metaphors and symbolism you may like this book.  You will find themes such as grace, grief, guilt, and forgiveness.  

You may even discover that as important as it is to forgive others in order to experience the freedom and guilt and grief you may need to forgive yourself.

 A copy of this book was provided to me for review by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.