Book Review--I Hated Heaven by Kenny Kemp

Book Review- I Hated Heaven by Kenny Kemp
Ordinarily I wouldn’t want to read a book with a title like this but I saw the author while shopping at Costco in American Fork and talked to him for a minute.  He seemed a little defensive and told me that his book was less than the cost of “this candy” and he held up a container of chocolate almonds.  I said, “I only read from my Kindle as my eyes can’t see the small print anymore even with glasses.” He said he didn’t know if it was available from Amazon for the Kindle but I could give it a try.  So, when I got home, I looked it up and it was only 99¢, so I downloaded it right then.

The book begins with Tom Waring helping to carry the casket of his friend’s wife, Carolyn, to the burial site.  Soon, we are introduced to Tom’s wife April and his young son, Josh who was attending his first funeral.  Then we meet Chuck the husband of the deceased who is an older man and who works with Tom.

Tom is comforted by his Christian faith and “knew that Carolyn was safe in God’s arms” but his wife April is a non-believer.  Tom and Josh attend church together and they say prayers at night, but April doesn’t participate.  In spite of their differing beliefs, they are happy and very much in love.  When Tom is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he doesn’t tell April. A couple of days later, he collapses and is rushed to the hospital.  Right before he dies, April says to him, “If there is something . . . or someone . . . promise me you’ll come back and tell me.”  Tom’s desire to fulfill his promise to April is the overriding theme of the book.

The author’s description of Paradise (as he calls it) where Tom “transitions” to seems more like a place where the government is in control—-not a place where God would want His children to return to. While there, Tom encounters difficult people who are concerned with rules and regulations with lots of forms to fill out.  (Sound familiar?)  It is not a happy or peaceful place—and he is always trying to find a way to get back to April. Before crossing the bridge to Hell, he meets an irreverent skinny personage named Stan who stays with him after he crosses the bridge.  Stan helps him find the portholes where he can pass through to earth where he takes over Chuck’s body in an attempt to reach April.  I thought Stan was Satan.

Warning: Spoiler ahead.  Stop here if you want to read this book.

In the end, God is irreverent, Paradise is Hell, and Tom returns from the dead to live with his wife and son, (even with fast-growing pancreatic cancer?).  My knowledge of God and His love for us—His children—is not compatible with this story although it had it’s moments of goodness particularly when Tom is talking about his faith in God.  It struck me that this book might have been written by a person who was trying to keep some of the beliefs he had been taught and no longer embraced and combine them with the religious ideology of the secular world.  Whatever!  I could be wrong.