Once Upon a Bookshelf

College student Lauren has taken a job transcripting the diary of a girl who was condemned to hang during the Salem witch trials. During the transcription process, Lauren learns not only about Mercy (the girl who wrote the diary) and her employer, but she also learns about herself and her family. Specifically, she learns about how she has been judging people all her life, how she has been trying so hard all her life to not let her parents down, and how a young girl with almost the whole world turned against her can give up her own life to save the life of the man she loves.

I am typically very wary of Christian fiction. A lot of the time it does not sit well with me. Yes, there are some exceptions – like Lewis’ Narnia – but I don’t normally dig through all there is out there to find those exceptions. I wasn’t sure what to expect from The Shape of Mercy when I was asked if I wanted to read and review it for my blog, but I was assured that “the Christian element is very light (well, except in the Salem storyline, but it’s not like you can avoid it in a Puritan society during witch trials).” I can quite happily say that that is very true. There are Christian characters and so they do occasionally talk about God, but it’s not in your face, shoving it down your throat type of religious talk. You get the same from this book that you would from reading a book where the main characters are any other religion – it’s present because you know it’s an important part of who that character is, but it isn’t preachy at all. That was my biggest fear about this book before starting to read it. But, had I not known that the publisher was the Christian imprint of Random House, I never would have guessed that this was a Christian book.

This is the second book I’ve read about the Salem witch trials in just over a month. The Shape of Mercy was a MUCH lighter read than The Heretic’s Daughter. Both are very good, but in very different ways. While The Heretic’s Daughter only dealt with what was happening in that time period, The Shape of Mercy dealt partially with a girl who lived during the time of the witch trials and partially with people in living in the present time period, showing how the Salem witch trials can still affect people today. I really enjoyed the way Meissner contrasted what was going on in Mercy’s diary during the witch trials with what was going on in Lauren’s life during the present. In fact, I really liked how Meissner contrasted all of the main characters lives at different points during the story.

The three main characters this story takes place around – Lauren, Mercy and Abigail (Lauren’s employer) – came across as being very real (for the most part). As the story progresses, you can really see what they love, what hurts them, and what drives them to do what they do. I loved that this book focused so much on the choices that the characters made - the choice Mercy made in order to protect the man she loved and the choice that Abigail made to let her love go really showed how our choices can have such a drastic effect on our lives, and that the results of that choice can affect not just us but others around us for years and years afterwards.

Definitely a very enjoyable book, and something I would highly recommend to other readers.