Book review: "The Mountain Between Us" by Charles Martin

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading any books by Charles Martin, then I would highly recommend any of his books. I just finished reading The Mountain Between Us, his most recent novel, and absolutely loved it. His writing is beautiful and the words just flow off the pages. There have been books I read which I’ve liked, but were not as enjoyable as they could have been because of the writing style. But Martin has a gift with words and all of his books have been a joy to read. He describes scenes exceptionally well, and he draws you into the characters and makes you care about them. His characters have a depth to them that makes it easy to feel a connection to them. His stories are generally about redemption and forgiveness, and usually have wonderful endings that make you think. His books always leave me feeling happy and satisfied in the end. I suppose his books would be classified as Christian Fiction, but it’s in a subtle way; it’s not heavy handed in the least. It just shows people who have a strong faith and try to live their lives the right way. My favorite book of his is When Crickets Cry, which was the first book of his that I found, but I quickly read everything he’d written. I’d forgotten that he had released a new book, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it at the library. It only took me four nights to read it, although I stayed up much later than I should have because it was so hard to put down. And then after I finished I had to go back and reread parts of it because the ending was so wonderful and unexpected, and it sort of put the rest of the story in a new light. My favorite line from the book is this: “When you laugh I want smile, and when you cry I want the tears to roll down my cheeks”. I like books about redemption and love, and happy endings. I suppose it makes me feel that there is hope for those things in my life too.