Lol. Well, there are lots of different opposing opinions about it. There are people like Eugene Peterson (author of The Message Bible paraphrase) who say it's basically the best thing for Christian literature since The Pilgrim's Progress, and then, like flesh said, there are those who say it's misleading and all that. If I haven't already made this clear, I'm pretty close to Peterson's view, but I think it is important to remember when reading it that it's a novel, not a theological treatise--it should be read for enjoyment and enlightenment, not as a complete or authoritative exposition of biblical truth.
That said, the story centers around a guy named Mack whose youngest daughter Missy is kidnapped, later found to have been brutalized by a serial killer in this shack in the middle of nowhere. This causes The Great Sorrow to come over Mack and he struggles with how a God who is supposedly good could allow such a thing to happen to someone so innocent. Then he gets a note in his mailbox, apparently from God, telling him to visit him at the shack where Missy was killed. So he goes. And he meets God. All three of Him. And this is where Young starts to lose people. God the Father is represented by Papa, a rather rotund black woman. Jesus is... just Jesus. A Jewish carpenter in his early thirties. The Holy Spirit is represented by Sarayu, a mysterious Asian sylph... thing.
The novel mainly follows Mack's dialogue with the three members of the God-head, and the things they say about relationship versus religion, expectation versus expectancy (you'll have to read it to see what that one's all about), and the way that God and man interact with one another are the things that have drawn criticism. Some say Young is spot-on, others say his work is at best misleading and at worst outright heretical. In any case, it's found a huge following among those disillusioned with the church, and I guess I was one of those people, so I found it hugely beneficial. I'd say more, but I want to leave some of my comments for later.
