Prayer for All Seasons

I was looking forward to this book as the premise seemed interesting and it had great reviews. Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment for me. While the summary cajoled me in, the actual storytelling and prose left quite a lot wanting. A while after starting the book, I watched a virtual talk with the author in conversation, and got to hear him talk about his motives for writing the book as well as discussing some of the major themes. It was great to hear him talk about it, since it was clearly an important project for him.

However, as I continued to read the book, I found myself more frustrated than ever feeling connected with the author’s vision for this book. A lot of the prose is clunky, with random metaphors and vague language. Sometimes I had to read a sentence two or three times, and I still didn’t understand what it was trying to convey. There is importance in having literary books that aren’t straightforward prose, but your goal is ultimately to convey meaning; if your readers are lost or confused by what is happening, then it is not literary. Some examples of weird language: ‘Whose screams sound like whispers now—whispers that will be the last noise the universe will ever make.’ How does a universe make whispers? ‘…they could have access to some kind of sometime just by virtue of not being one of the excluded.’ What does this even mean. I have no clue.

Samuel and Isaiah, the protagonists, are the focus of the book, except you see them through what feels like dozens of different perspectives before getting to their own. It was an interesting attempt to show the inner mind of every character, and their take on the circumstances, but the result was that you hardly get any action on the page. Instead, you got pages upon pages of the characters’ inner thoughts. This can work in writing sometimes, but generally not with a character you have never met, whose motivations you don’t understand. Each character was fascinating and had great potential, but only got so much on-page time, so that I never felt like I understood any of them. The multiple perspectives bogged down the book and made it hard to connect with the characters, and the copious amounts of pondering and insertion of grand metaphors made it feel like nothing was happening.

Around 30-40% of the book, I wanted to call it quits, but I kept on going. By about 70%, there was finally some action in the book, but even then it felt drawn out and overly stuffed with metaphor and thoughts. I applaud the author for publishing a debut novel, which was clearly a passion project for him, but I had hoped its execution would have been more successful.