Faith Fiction and the Process of Melting

I give a book almost 100 pages before I decide to read on, or stop. At times the process happens transparently, or without conscious recognition (unless the book sucks). Also, as a person who reads, I am generally more willing to read something recommended by others than merely picking something out willy-nilly. But, as it happens, I picked out two random books and became intimately acquainted with FAITH FICTION. The book, Levi's Will looked harmless enough, religiously benign. But forty pages in, I started to wonder why God was mentioned so many times, and each mentioning, I found even more bizarre, was generally positive.

I started to think about genre fiction, of why, most of the time, books that fall under a very specific genre and sub-genre tend to suck. The writing is mostly subservient to the narrative. It alone does not seem to merit much on its own terms. What is important here, and for most books of sub-genre material, is the story. Because, in the case of Levi's Will, the story struggles to maintain allegiance to meta-narrative, in often blatant ways, the story cannot allow itself room to roam, to curve, to change course mid-stream for the sake of the narrative, not the narrative's sake itself. Thus, the story seems to dictate how characters must react and how the reader must intuit thematic strains. In FAITH FICTION, the power of God, the redemption of man through God, God's love and gentle/demonstrative guidance present themselves almost like thick, woolen blankets covering the bones of the narrative just begging to be expressed in its own terms. Anthropomorphizing aside, the narrative of such books reminds me of melting snow. It follows a governed, prescripted pattern when sliding off the house. There are basic guidelines at work here. And when it's ready, the whole fucking thing comes barreling down the side of a mountain, a roof, or a hill. There is no trickle down, no Hansel and Gretel type treasure hunt in this sort of fiction. It's an avalanche that often leaves only the very lucky, or very faithful alive.