When Heaven Weeps by Ted Dekker

Alright, this is now the third Ted Dekker book I've read, and I'm sorry to say I haven't liked any of them.  I keep reading more because I have friends who tell me even if I didn't like that one, I'm sure to like this one!  This one was the best of the three, but his genre is too weird for my liking.  The books I've read all have some grand analogy that the reader is supposed to relate to something spiritual, some unseen battle or grand revelation and I just never quite get the connection he's trying to make.  There are good parts about all of the books that kind of keep me guessing and wanting to find out what's going on, but I do find a lot of the smaller plots are never fully resolved.

For example in this book, right at the beginning a woman discovers a new plant growing out of a rose bush that just died.  This plant is unfamiliar to her, and within 2 weeks it has almost taken over her garden, blossoming with huge beautiful, yet unfamiliar white flowers, with a smell that almost overpowers.  When she brings in her botanist friend, he studies it and concludes it's a new type of flower.  This subplot with the flowers is underlying throughout the book.  Near the end, the botanist tells her he has discovered something special about this plant, but she tells him to wait to tell her until later.  Then it never comes up again in the book.  Unless I completely missed some deeper meaning.  After all, the whole book is about some deeper meaning of the depth of God's love for us, and I didn't completely get that analogy either.

Now I'm going to just be nitpicky, but another thing that bugs me is name choice.  If you're writing a fiction novel, you have free reign of choosing whatever names you want for your characters.  The main character in this book, as chosen by the author, is Janjic Jovic.  Tell me, how do you pronounce that?  I know he's supposed to be from Bosnia so the name has to fit that style, but even in the book there are other Bosnians with easier names, like Mosolov.  I looked up the pronunciation of the first name, which is Yanic.  So then is the 'j' in the last name also pronounced as a 'y'?  Then it just sounds kind of funny. I just figure if you can choose any name in the world, or even make up your own, couldn't you pick something that's easier and flows better?  Even if I'm reading it in my head, I like to know how to pronounce something, and Janjic Jovic never rolled off my 'tongue,' so to speak, and it bugs me.

Something got me thinking however.  I have always really liked books by Frank Peretti.  And after contemplating some of his novels, they are no more 'weird' or less filled with analogies than Dekker's.  Their styles of writing aren't that different.  But I think Peretti's analogies must be easier to follow, because I generally get all of his (which maybe says too much about what my brain can and cannot comprehend)!  So sorry to anyone who has recommended Ted Dekker to me.  I'm a lost cause...