“The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth,” by John Mellor is a philosophical exploration of human character and behavior under the guise of seven short stories.
On the grand scale “The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth” is about a young boy and an Angel. The Angel directs the boy to read seven books. Each book is a story about a gift that was bestowed upon the Earth by its “guardian.”
Each story that makes up “The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth” is followed by a brief passage in which the fantastic events of the story are explained by the Angel and are finally decoded by the young boy. These intervening passages are like lulls in a powerful storm, and provide a chance for both the readers and the characters to recoup their strength.
I must say that “The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth” is a highly unusual book. To use an expression coined by a character from “Antsy Does Time” by Neil Shusterman it does a tremendous job of “walking that fine line between profound and insane.” After reading it I’m still not quite sure if the book is an amazing piece of literature or a nothing more than a collection of disconnected passages of text.
“The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth” is definitely a book that you have to reread a couple times to absorb fully. It reminds me to some extent of the books by Madeleine L’Engle. It took her years to get her first book “A Wrinkle in Time” published simply because it was so strange. However, it was eventually accepted.
In my final analysis I would say that “The Seven Gifts That Came to Earth” is a book that is definitely worth reading.