Sometimes you read a book that’s so well-meaning that you just want to root for it. Especially if it’s a Christian book. I wish I could say that Mark Charles Powers’ His Eyes was a successful work of art, but I’m afraid I can’t.

As the book opens (the opening is quite well-written), Michael Judson, a teenager in a suburb in an unnamed southern state, is in shock. His younger brother Lucas has just died in a freak gun accident, and Michael doesn’t know whether he, his (single) mother, or Lucas himself pulled the trigger.

This is the most successful part of the book, as the horror and finality sink in and he and his mother deal with it, each in their own ways. Michael finds some comfort in the friendship of an old neighbor, who lends him a cassette tape (this story is set in 1997) featuring a Christian song that’s brought him comfort. He also makes friends with a neighbor boy who has unspoken problems of his own. Meanwhile his mother sinks into depression and guilt, becoming increasingly dependent on prescription tranquilizers. Their grief is only aggravated by her ex-husband’s accusations that she’s responsible for Lucas’s death.

I think it’s a general truth that in fiction it’s easier to portray grief and pain than to portray comfort and healing. That problem is only aggravated when a Christian message is being proclaimed. One tends (and I know this from experience) to fall into preachiness. One’s words sound like platitudes, even when the truths expressed have been hard-learned through suffering and tears. Such scenes require a deft handling of dialogue – and I regret to say that author Powers hasn’t quite mastered that skill. Michael, in particular, tends to fall into verbiage that sounds nothing like a teenager talking.

I wish Mark Charles Powers well. I think he has talent, and is capable of very good things. But he’s not ready for prime time. I fear that His Eyes, well-intentioned though it is, will not do the good he intended (though it certainly may in some cases, with readers less picky than I).