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Title: To See the Light
Author: Elisha Andres
Published By: CreateSpace (2014)
Synopsis: Dawn and Courtney start their summer with fresh hopes. However, as the summer continues, their worlds begin to fall apart. A kidnapper is on the loose and children are being kidnapped everywhere. Courtney’s family begins to fall apart. They are hired at a Daycare, and from then on, their lives are changed – forever. (Taken from Goodreads)
Review:
My reaction after finishing this book: WOW.
I got this book because it was written by a young Christian author and so I decided to give it a try. Wow, was I not expecting such a profound story. It was incredibly deep and just awe-inspiring. The storyline, the things the characters go through. The writing was more amateur, with weaker sentences and a little more scatteredness, but I was so captivated by the storyline that for once, it didn’t matter as much. What mattered more was the profoundness of this story that really made you think.
This book was incredibly Christian in a good way: the whole book is basically a theatric storytelling of how you can always trust God and He will never let you down. It was literally a story about characters finding their light at the end of the tunnel. The characters are stuck in a dark tunnel the majority of the story.
Dawn as a character was a little unreal, a lot of people might say. She’s happy stuck in a deep dark cellar with a good chance of dying and she’s joyful because the Lord is amazing. Wouldn’t she be panicking? Worrying? Scared? I can take my best guess that people would say this was unrealistic and hard to relate to. And I can see how it would be. However, I’m going to take this from a totally different standpoint and say that author could’ve meant for that. The author really seems to like to get literal and bring to life phrases like “a light at the end of the tunnel” and I think this could’ve been a way to express that in, literally, our darkest moments we should still be praising God. And in that sense, then that makes this an even more incredible story that such things were able to transmit.
To emphasize: I think that this book is a lot more introspective then a lot of people think, and because it’s very introspective instead of the adventure people are expecting, readers are going to be let down. But a hundred years from now when this is the next classic novel (because I can totally see this becoming a Christian classic), they’ll appreciate the themes worked in.
My one disappointment personally was that the writing was more amatuar. I’ve read a lot of young writers and gently put this wasn’t the best writing I’ve read. It was amazing for the author’s age, but it wasn’t excellence. Not that the author won’t be able to achieve excellence; I think her books are going to, in time, surpass all our expectations.
The other thing was the ending. Though it was satisfying, tense in all the right moments, and sad in others, it just felt unrealistic. Dawn gets home after being trapped underground for months and her family hugs her and then says, “We should all play a family game tonight.” All cheerful and happy again. I feel like a situation like that would’ve been more emotional. But then again it could just be more thematic stuff that I haven’t noticed yet.
Overall:
So as a whole this was a deeply profound read. It was suspensful, tense, and kept you on the edge of your seat. It was a largely introspective book full of wonderful Christian themes that any Christian teen will appreciate.
Negative Content:
None.
Rating: 5.0
Recommended to: Ages 10+.