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HELLO WORLD, I'VE READ A TED DEKKER BOOK. At last, now I can be a Normal Person because I've read the Decidedly Abnormal Books that Ted Dekker writes.

This book was...interesting. I'm really not sure what I think of it. All in all, it was kind of a "meh" read, in my opinion.

Lovely Things:

- The plot. Okay, the plot was pretty cool. *nods* The way Dekker intertwined two worlds with two plots that meshed together?? THAT WAS PRETTY DARN COOL. I wasn't a huge fan of the fantasy world, but we'll get to that. As a whole, I really really liked the overarching plots.

- The sibling relationship. Kara and Thomas had a realistic, believable relationship; and I genuinely enjoyed reading their interactions. I just wish there had been more of those because UM YES SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS FOR THE WIN.

- Kara. Yesyesyes. For some reason, I actually really liked Kara. DON'T ASK ME WHY. She just seemed the most interesting/relatable to me.

- Some of the fantasy elements. (Note the qualifier "some" *cough*.) I have to admit, Dekker wrote up some interesting fantasy stuff. From the rainbow forests to the Roush (which I always picture as owls, for some reason??) to the different fruits (WHICH I WANT PLEASE). It was really creative! I like that.

- The action. I liked all the excitement in the modern world! Perhaps it was just because I was in the mood for a thriller, but I usually found the action scenes to be pretty exciting.

Not So Lovely Things:

- The violence. I NEVER thought this would be an issue for me...BUT GUYS. This book made me squirm a lot. I'm not very sensitive to violence normally--so long as it isn't overly descriptive. But the stuff in this book had me over in the corner gagging. All the descriptions of the bats eating humans alive and everything?? *shudders* And every time someone got hurt, blood was going everywhere. NO THANK YOU. I had a really hard time stomaching all the violence in this book.

- The fantasy world. URGH. I wasn't that much of a fan, honestly. Some of the fantasy elements were cool, but I wasn't overly interested in the world overall. It just seemed boring to me, and I was tempted to skim over those chapters.

- The characters. *laughs uncertainly* Oh boy...with the exception of Kara and (maybe) Monique, I really didn't have an emotional attachment to any of the characters. Thomas was okay (though he annoyed me at times), but Rachelle? She was downright AGGRAVATING. And the romance between her and Thomas = ugh. I just...didn't like either of them that much, and putting them together makes them worse. :P

- The overall "feel" of the book. I don't know how to describe this, but I just didn't like the overall "feel" of the novel. It was weird (but not in the way I liked), disturbing, but also boring? I DON'T KNOW. Some books I just click with and some I don't.

Overall? I'm not exactly dying for more Dekker books. BUT that doesn't mean I won't be giving them another try. After all, he's written plenty of them to try out. ;) And maybe I'll enjoy his books that have less fantasy stuff in them. Surprisingly, I didn't like the fantasy aspect all that much.

3 stars