3 stars out of 5
“Evil cannot remain hidden for long.”
“The biggest lie is that fear will keep you safe in the darkness, but fear is the darkness. So round and round you go, fighting darkness with darkness. Better to open your eyes and see the light. In that light, there is no darkness. So you’ve always been safe. You just don’t know it because you’re blind to who you are as the light.”
“My Father is light, and in him there is no darkness. I am the light of the world. My Father is love, and as I experience true love I experience him, he in me and I in him, as one. There is no fear in true love, the love that holds no record of wrong. That love is the evidence of being in the light.”
Fear, he is a liar. This is the message that Ted and daughter Rachelle Dekker offer/cram down our throats throughout. It’s a great message, don’t get me wrong, but it does come across a bit heavy handed. And that’s a shame because there truly are some moments of brilliance from Team Dekker.
Full disclosure. I often find Ted Dekker’s books to be hit or miss, mostly because I like it when books with supernatural elements offer like 90-95% reality with 5-10% supernatural or aspects beyond reality. Give me a believable story with believable characters for the most part and I can extend my imagination for the rest. I loved Dekker’s Three, Skin, The Boneman’s Daughter, and The Bride Collector since I felt they were closer to reality than others. So maybe The Girl Behind The Red Rope was doomed for me from the start! If you like more fantasy, allegory, and supernatural than believable, then this book is for you.
I thought maybe the book was going in a direction of M Night Shyamalan’s The Village but quickly takes a unique turn. I wish the characters were more likable. I never truly felt anything for Grace and her family nor any of the characters of Haven Valley. I felt like their was a really good premise that gets bogged down in allegory and pages upon pages of replacing fear with love. Again, a good message but the overall story for me took away from the message and had me plodding through until the end.
* I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley and Revell Publishing Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*
