A Harvest of Thorns by Corban Addison

This has got to rank as one of the better fiction books I've read in awhile. I know I say that a lot, but this one was a bit different from the norm.

It was fiction, yes, but the theme of the story has some basis in truth, probably more truth than you or I want to even recognize. It's the fictional story behind how our clothes are made, the crowded conditions that can and do result in factories burning and people dying inside from fire or outside from jumping out of windows, the forced labor that some workers endure, and also the rape that can happen as well. While Presto, the main corporation in the story, is purely fictional, the question is raised, do you know where our clothes, our toys, our electronics, etc. come from? Are you okay with having your things made by people who are forced to work in crowded environments for little pay and who can suffer abuse at the hands of supervisors and managers?

This was a thought-provoking book that makes me stop and consider free trade items a little more carefully than I have in the past? What difference will it make for me? I'm not sure, but I would like to think I would try a little more to look for a better option. And better options can be hard to come by, because a lot of big corporations don't list where their things are made or where their supplies come from.

The book does jump back and forth a bit between two main characters, but I thought Corban did a good job of weaving everything together so it was easy to follow. It is not a Christian book. I thought I read somewhere on a Christian book website that was selling this book that they were aware that it was not a Christian book, but the overall theme of the book was good enough that they were choosing to list it.  There are just a couple words I would not want to use, but overall I can't complain about the quality of the book. But for any potential readers, I would want you to be aware of this. It is published by Thomas Nelson, which could raise some questions about other books that they publish, but so far I have never come across anything else. I make this disclaimer because I was reading some other reviews and saw that people had a problem with the language and the fact that it was a Christian publisher. Normally, I would be all over something like that too, but like I said, somewhere I thought I read that comment I shared above and therefore wasn't expecting a Christian book.

I very much enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone looking for a different kind of fiction. I think this might be his fourth book or so and I would like to read his other ones as well.

This book was given me by Book Look Bloggers and I was not required to write a positive review.