Monday, April 27, 2009

Book Review: "The Noticer" by Andy Andrews

“Sometimes all a person needs is a little perspective.” That is the tagline on the cover of the book, The Noticer, by Andy Andrews and that is the core value of the books hero, Jones. The story is told from the perspective of Andy, a semi-fictional version of the author.

From the first chapter to the last I was completely captured with the story, something unusual for my own personality type. We first meet Andy as a twenty something homeless and hopeless man living under a seaside pier on the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama. “Jones”, a mysterious man who seems to appear at just the right time throughout the book comes to the crying young man’s rescue by befriending him and pushing him in the right direction of taking charge of his own future and life outcome.

Before you write this off as a fictional version of a “Christian help book” you need to know that the advice delivered could easily be found straight out of the Book of Proverbs. It is not the message of “take charge of your own destiny” as it is “use your head and do your part to cooperate in the life God has given you”.

While the story begins with Andy’s tale of the role Jones played in his own life change it quickly expands to the impact Jones has on many different lives he touches. The mysterious and eccentric man seems to show up at the most needed moment in everyone’s life. Here he saves a marriage, there he saves a life and then restores a purpose in life. He counsels young and old, the driven and the defeated. This book is worth the read and worth passing on.