Hey AfterI,
interesting choice of reading material...
how did you come about this book?

Do you know the person who made the underlines in it?

How far along are you into it? (Seems like a "Bible-thumper" would have underlined those passages, btw, or someone who is looking for specific 'instructions' from the book to buoy up their own beliefs).

I think what I'd do is look at some reviews of the book (not just the back cover blurb), and see what literary critics think of this author, or if he has a track-record of any kind showing his general "philosophy of life." Authors write one of two ways - from what they KNOW - or from formulas.

"Relationships are never about power, and one way to avoid the will to power is to choose to limit oneself - to serve."

How about you married folks out there? Or parents? Does this sound like your relationship, or a relationship you'd like to have? Servant and master? My relationships have never been about serving, but sharing. There's a difference.

There are two things I would like to note about this type of book—theological fiction.

First, because of the limitations of the genre, it is sometimes difficult to really know what an author means by what he says. There is often some question as to what comes from the author and what comes from the characters. The author cannot always adequately explain himself; nor can he provide footnotes or references to Scripture. It can be challenging, then, to turn to the Bible to ensure that what he teaches is true.

---> This makes the task of discernment doubly difficult, for one must first interpret the fiction to understand what is being said and then seek to compare that to the Bible. We will do well to keep this in mind as we proceed.

Second, we must also realize that,
---> because of the emotional impact of reading good fiction, it can be easy to allow it to become manipulative and to allow the emotion of a moment to bypass our ability to discern what is true and what is not.

This is another thing the reader must keep in mind. We cannot trust our laughter or our tears but must allow our powers of discernment to be trained to distinguish good from evil (see Hebrews 5:14). Discernment is primarily a Spirit-empowered discipline of the mind rather than an emotional response.

I broke up the text for easier reading, and to point out the most salient remarks in this bit of the intro.
Clearly, though, it's considered a "Christian" book, and is wildly popular.

It doesn't matter what name you come up with, a real-life counterpart has existed at one time or another.

Wildly popular usually means "Oh look, we found something that makes us feel good about ourselves!"

Independence can be seen as both curse and cure depending on the eye of the beholder and in this case, the author makes it clear independence is not kosher.

There it is again. 'Independence is evil, you have to come back to us so you can live forever under our thumb.' Surely I don't have to point out what's wrong with this?