Jwyan C Johnson

WOW, WHAT A MESS! I liked the novel, but I was confused until the very end. I felt sorry for Dedra Kare who had suffered memory loss with her car accident. It was determined that she may have witnessed a murder, but her parents did not want her hypnotized for fear she would returned to her old bad habits, and since she was underage, the police could do nothing without their permission, but Dedra felt that something was off as she found an old yearbook under her bed and she couldn't find anyone that she knew in it! I am so glad that this is just book one as I have so many questions about the book!… (more)

I received this book as a part of Member Giveaway on Library Thing.

Where do I begin.

I don't even know.

I think I made more highlights in this very short story than I have in any other book. Honestly, I gave up after a while because nearly the whole book was highlighted red to indicate my confusions and points of interest.

Let's start with the question I've been asked to answer:

How surprised were you with the actual way Dedra uncovered the truth?

***MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS***

First, let's address the fact that I was put off by the way this question is worded because it is so obviously assuming I will find the reveal clever and therefore prompt me into gushing about it. Additionally, I don't understand the use of the word "actual" here. It implies that someone tried to find the truth another way and failed or something? Confusing and made me wonder if I'd missed something. I think the question may have been better phrased a little more neutrally, like "What are your thoughts on how Dedra uncovered the truth?"

Moving on to the "surprise," I think(?) the surprise is supposed to be that Dedra's acting talent *gasp* turns out to be the deus ex machina for her "solving" this mystery, as exemplified in this exchange:

"'That's right' Dedra smiles. 'I never went through with the procedure and still don't remember anything! I was just using my acting skills and improvising... like Janine suggested.'

'Ha ha,' Janine confirms. 'And... CUT!'

'Captain I designed my invisible script according to Janine stance. This scene only played out well because she [Janine] was telling the truth. I had to commit to the role of the risk. And when I saw the mystery of their reaction, I made them improvise according to their own truth.'"

It took me an inordinate amount of time to figure out the path this author wanted me to take, and even then I'm not sure I have it right, despite rereading this book nearly half a dozen times to try to find some sort of logic in this mess.

I believe we are supposed to conclude that:

1) Janine decides not to withhold the truth anymore and tells Dedra some things about their parents

2) Dedra decides (apparently at Janine's behest) to test the honesty of her sister's admissions, so she pretends to have undergone the hypnosis to make everyone think she has her memory back

3) Seeing the guilty reaction in her parents' eyes (though honestly I'm still not sure whether the "guilty eyes" were her parents' or the killer cops'--more on this and other obtuseness later) when they realized Dedra remembered everything served as proof that Janine was telling the truth all along about how their parents treated them (thereby exonerating Janine as a troublemaker and a joker)

4) Using the "truth" in her parents' minds that Dedra's "memory is back," Dedra could then manipulate her parents into confessing everything by going into the interrogation room to discuss it all with them where it would be recorded so her parents could be punished for their abuse

5) The guilty cops panic because if Dedra knew everything it meant she could implicate them in Image Reflection's murder and their attempted murder of her as an eyewitness that night

6) The guilty cops stupidly implicate themselves by running into the bathroom to discuss their predicament

7) The Captain overhears this because he just happens to be in the bathroom at that time and the murderers are caught

So, if by "surprised" you mean did I literally think to myself before I got to that part, Oh, Dedra is not actually going to undergo the hypnotism and instead she will use her acting skills to manipulate everyone into confessing everything., then, yes, I was "surprised."

And, when I write it out that way, I guess it kind of makes sense.

But, here's the deal. To me, as the reader, none of this is believable, sensible, or logical because, if you really think critically about how Dedra arrived there, what we are left with is a hilariously implausible series of events that happened to get some murderers caught, rather than a genius plan from an amateur sleuth with marginal acting skills. Yes, this all technically "led to Dedra uncovering the truth" about her parents and who killed Image Reflection; however, it is not clear to me whether any or all of it was purposeful or inadvertent on Dedra's part. This is a thin line, but it's a very important one because it either establishes (former) or disproves (latter) Dedra's credibility as a sleuth. In fact, the way it's written, it looks like Janine is the one who figures out how to get her parents to confess because according to how I interpreted things it was Janine's plan for Dedra to fake getting her memory back. I think that is why I had such a hard time understanding whether the guilty cops being caught was a coincidence or an anticipated result--it was Janine's idea to pretend, but that was to get the parents to admit to their guilt, not because Janine realized who the murderers were (unless she was in on it or somehow knew something about it). Then, we also have no insight to Dedra's thoughts, so we don't know if, using Janine's idea, Dedra somehow deduced this would kill two birds with one stone in revealing the murderer. Maybe we are supposed to believe that Dedra went into this thinking to just get her parents to confess, but then she saw the "guilty eyes" of the cops and somehow deduced in that moment that means they must be guilty of Image Reflection's murder? Quite a leap, but okay... Even still, that whole excerpt still reads like it's about the parents, but maybe by being so vague it's supposed to be about BOTH the parents AND the guilty cops? I just have no idea. That was the real "surprise" for me. That I finished this book without, in fact, believing that Dedra uncovered any truths or solved any murders because that reality was never established for me in the wake of so many missing details, open questions, and obtuse references.

This is mostly because we never learned what Dedra's parents told her or what Janine was supposedly finally being honest about (all of that dialog was hidden from the reader), nor was it explained to us how Dedra arrived that those conclusions. Now, it is not uncommon in mystery novels for readers to be left out of a single important clue or a single important conversation to give a little challenge, but in this case it was like no actual relevant clues were given to us at all and we were left out of everything--so much so that half the time I had no idea who was talking in general, who they were talking to, and what they were talking about. Basically, it was like reading a book filled entirely with red herrings and false leads. It's as if the author wanted to write a mystery novel and so read some websites about it, but misinterpreted how to execute it, not realizing you have to create a plot that supports the mystery (otherwise nothing is believable or makes sense to the reader) and you have to explain the red herrings and false leads to eliminate them (yet also show how they were vaguely relevant and didn't seem totally random). When that isn't done, this is what we're left with because the reader has no context:

- Why didn't Dedra just go through with the hypnosis instead of staging this farce, especially if Janine was supposedly going to tell her some of the truth, anyway?
- How did Dedra even connect the dots about the cops when she still can't remember anything?
- What was Janine referring to when she said "I can't do this" before rushing in to tell Dedra her new plan?
- What is this "truth" Janine tells Dedra to convince her the plan will work? Was she confessing what the three-year-old joke was? Was it telling more about their parents? Are those things connected?
- Did Dedra assume the cops would overhear everything and freak out when really the cops could have been anywhere?
- Did Dedra let the Captain and Detective in on the ruse?
- Why did Dedra assume the cops' only reaction would be to run away?
- Why are the dirty cops so stupid, running into a bathroom (before Dedra had even said anything to implicate them) and talking about it while still inside the police station?
- Why did Dedra assume the cops would run into the bathroom of all places where the Captain had conveniently been planted for that eventuality, and nowhere else? Or, was that all a coincidence?
- What was the dirty cops' MOTIVE for killing Image Reflection????? SERIOUSLY THIS IS A HUGE GAP.
- Why didn't her parents do anything about the bullet?
- What did their parents do to Dedra and Janine, and why?
- What did the parents hope to gain from the experiment? Just money?
- Was the contest even related to any of this? What was the point AT ALL of that?
- What is this "big thing" Dedra tried to manipulate her parents into telling her? Is this also related to the "truth" that Janine told her? Does this mean her parents were somehow in on the Image Reflection thing or that the cops were somehow in on something else with the parents?
- What happened to Dedra's car that disappeared and how did it magically reappear later?
- There are additional unresolved issues that I will get to later when I answer the book club questions, and even more that I am not bothering to write out because there are just too many.

Incidentally, all of this also makes the idea that the cops would basically offer Dedra a job at the end completely ludicrous. Though, the cops are ridiculous, anyway, because even they don't ask Dedra to clarify the dirty cops' motive to kill Image Reflection and just unquestioningly arrest them saying the bathroom confession is enough.

BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

There are extra "book club" questions I could answer. I am going to do so, if only because it is obvious that I did not like this book, and I want to be as clear as possible about why. Plus, the questions, though prompting me in a certain direction (which I will blatantly ignore), allow me to discuss other issues I had with this book that I was going to address, anyway.

How do you feel about her "tricky little sister?"

Once again, I have an issue with the lack of neutrality with this question. Why the quotes on "tricky little sister"? Usually when quotes are used, it's for directly quoting something or to indicate that you mean the opposite. So, is it supposed to get me to say that I realized she wasn't really tricky at all and the author did such a good job of planting doubt about her that I got another "surprise" when it was revealed she wasn't tricky after all? Or maybe it's meant to indicate she isn't Dedra's little sister at all (more on this in a second because I actually did wonder that)? Again, I feel prompted. Which is a good indication that my answer to this will likely take a different direction.

Do I think she is tricky... maybe?? I am told she does practical jokes and there are some instances where it is insinuated she is manipulative and a jokester (which conveniently means that by crying wolf with all of her past jokes, no one would believe her now when she is apparently actually trying to be honest, therefore creating doubt about her intentions and motivations), but nothing anyone else said about Janine really ever solidified that for me.

What DID make me wonder were two things Janine said to Dedra in chapter one that are never resolved:
- Janine mentions a three-year-old practical joke of hers that is still going on but that I don't think is actually revealed
- Janine flat out says that "Dedra" isn't Dedra's real name which seems to be either the three-year-old practical joke itself or a result of it, or alludes to something else entirely

My biggest problem with Janine is that it is not clear to me why she never went to the police about their abusive parents. Janine tells Dr. Johnson that she never told anyone to "protect" them both because the cameras made their parents not do the terrible things anymore. So I guess the "logic" is that she is afraid the cameras will be taken away if she tells people, but that makes no sense because if she tells people then they would be protected by the law so I don't get it. But when they were actively being abused I still HONESTLY I have no idea why she (or Dedra, for that matter) didn't just GO TO THE POLICE. Plus, because we are never told what their parents did, we as the readers don't really believe there was anything to be protected from, which makes not telling anyone seem even more lame and suspicious. Is the reason Janine never told anyone because they actually weren't abusive and she concocted this whole thing, perhaps to get this social experiment involved so that she could be the popular one?

Honestly, at one point I had wondered if Dedra and Janine are the same person; or, rather, whether one of them is a figment of the other's imagination or a split personality of some sort. Okay, stick with me here, even though I'm sure I'm way over-thinking things. (The problem is that, and I will address this more later, the "feel" of this book is that this author was trying to be really clever by giving everything double-meanings, so I began to question everything in order to make sense of anything.)

We already talked about how Janine alludes to the fact that Dedra's name isn't "Dedra" and that there is some three-year-old practical joke that is still going on. Additionally, there are several interactions that seem like they could be interpreted multiple ways:

- When the mom tries to get to Dedra before they can hypnotize her, the mom glares at Janine pointedly while asking for her "other daughter" to be brought to her, then essentially calls Janine "Dedra" (and at one point, which I'll talk about more below, Janine refers to Dedra, but calls her "Janine").

- It's too long to put an excerpt in this review, but at the very end there are lots of I's and we's involved in an exchange between the sisters that just seemed weird, like one was trying to convince the other that they are two people not one person or vice versa.

- Image Reflection was killed by a bullet, and Dedra just happened to be there so the cops who killed Image consequently tried to kill her for being a witness by, I think, first shooting at her and then ramming her car.

So, I began to wonder whether "Image Reflection" (which was a pointedly weird name to begin with) was a metaphor--that, Dedra is really a "reflected image" of Janine (or vice versa) and one of them is all in the other's mind. Meaning, Image Reflection i.e. Dedra/Janine is actually alive and everyone is lying about her dying and trying to cover something up for some reason. My point being that maybe Dedra/Janine witnessed something during the murder and/or when she was hit that caused Dedra/Janine to retreat to amnesia to cope that trauma, but she also invents a "sister" as a split personality who does remember everything. I JUST HAVE NO IDEA ANYMORE AND I HAVE ONLY ANSWERED LIKE TWO OF THESE QUESTIONS.

For symbolism, do you think Janine was right about the "clear winner" (when amnesia vs. forgiveness in Child Development)?

Honestly, I had completely forgotten about the "contest" altogether because there was too much other stuff going on and it was irrelevant to me in the long run.

According to my understanding, this is an experiment about how siblings, one who can't remember anything and one who remembers everything, cope and grow. I think the basic gist of the contest is: which child will cope better? The one with "nothing" to forgive because she can't remember how their parents had previously abused them or the one who can't forgive because she can't forget how their parents had previously abused them? Apparently, this is evaluated by looking at the girls' confidence, habits, and trust. I... am not really sure how those fit in as a way to evaluate things. Janine complains many times that Dedra is basically the "winner," I think because Dedra is still the popular one despite not remembering anything and she does not want to kill herself and Janine does (or at the very least cuts herself to release emotional pain).

Also, I am not sure how the popularity aspect and Janine's jealousy fit in to the experiment, unless maybe to create some sort of "tension" between the girls. There is a weird exchange between Dedra and Dr. Johnson about it, but I didn't understand it at all and wasn't sure what point it was supposed to be proving. It was something about "popularity not being proof of sincerity or social jealousy," but I couldn't rectify that statement in my head (I think it means just because you are popular doesn't mean you are an honest person or that other people are jealous of you for being popular?), particularly since Dedra was the popular one and the statement is meant to be about Janine. It's like a very pointed social commentary from the author (I have some theories but this but review is already so long), but instead of being deep, it is just nebulous and feels tacked on.

Where symbolism is concerned, I think this is trying to propose the question of whether it's better to forgive or forget. Except the way this is done, to me, disproves both theories. Sort of like how Life of Pi was for me.

Okay, there's my answer. I finally got there. I think this makes no sense as a scientific experiment and therefore there is no winner or loser--or, rather, that no one won. For one thing, what is the scientific point of trying to understand a circumstance that would be so impossibly rare to find or duplicate, much less apply any learning to in the future? RANDOMLY Dr. Johnson is writing a book on this absurd theory and RANDOMLY one of his old students ends up in this situation and RANDOMLY her parents applied for it? For another, why would anyone running this behavioral experiment be okay with ANY of the variables knowing that they are undergoing a psychological experiment of this type? Honestly, the fact that Janine knew it was an experiment is probably why she was "failing" so it nullifies everything because the "forgiveness" variable is tainted!! She was trying to evoke some outcome based on an expectation of beating her sister and felt pressured to learn to forgive (which is only going to make her want to do the opposite), rather than just living her life and seeing what naturally occurred. When people know they are being tested, they will not do what they would naturally be inclined to do, which would be particularly detrimental to a psychological experiment. For that matter, it doesn't make sense that the parents would know they're being experimented on, either, because Janine basically said that their behavior changed, too, because of the cameras. Further, why would the parents want only Janine to know, unless it was to be cruel somehow to Janine? Dr. Johnson actually seemed to think that BOTH of the girls knew what was going on and then was upset that Dedra didn't, but, again, I don't see how that would be a valid experiment or that any of his conclusions from it would be accepted by other professionals.

How did you feel about "the deal" between them in the final chapter? Did you agree with Janine, Dedra, or both?

I agree with neither. I think it will not work because neither of their motivations are in the right place. When your motivations aren't in the right place--meaning, they are external and you are doing something for someone else rather than yourself--it will not be sustainable. I also don't think a deal based on denial would be good for either of them because it still means neither of them is facing reality or actually coping with any of this.

Share how this mystery relates to your own story and your thoughts.

I cannot relate this mystery to my own life, mostly because I cannot relate to it at all and I came to no life lesson conclusion. I almost feel like this question may not be philosophical, but is instead asking me to literally compare it to a story I wrote using the same criteria or theme, which I obviously would not have done (this lends credence to another point I will make later about the "feel" of this book).

And, here we have at last arrived at my unprompted thoughts:

GRAMMATICAL MISTAKES & WORDING WEIRDNESS

Editing and spelling mistakes ("were/we're," "now/know," "parent's/parents'"), missing words and punctuation, and unexplained capitalization and italicizing of certain words (Drama, History Book, Psychology, Image Reflection--I thought they would be significant later like they were purposefully altered in appearance to be "clues," but the only one I could kind of reconcile that idea to was "drama" and, even then, only very loosely).

Examples of Obtuse References and Bizarre Wording and Sentence Structure

I mentioned earlier that I still am not sure the conclusion I reached is correct. This is because this book is so obtuse when referencing people or things. I think this was purposeful, and the author's main method of trying to create red herrings and false leads. On top of this obtuseness, there was also just a lot of weird sentence structure. These I have no idea whether that was purposeful, TBH. I think the author thinks they are very clever (more on that later), so I sometimes had a hard time distinguishing between on-purpose oddities and just bad editing or lack of proofreading. I even at one point considered whether this is a bad English translation of a book that was originally written in another language.

"'Listen,' Janine answers. 'If Janine goes under hypnosis, she won't find out she was a terrible kid...'"
Pretty sure that second "Janine" is supposed to be "Dedra" since Janine is the one talking?

"Other detectives passing by can barely stand legally still to hear the next round of her childhood past."
"Legally still"? WTF? I have no idea what that means.

"Captain, I designed my invisible script according to Janine stance."
Why is the word "invisible" there? Because she is not holding a script in her hand? And is "Janine stance" supposed to be "Janine's stance?" If so, her stance on what?? Their parents?? Or is "stance" a spelling error? Or, did the author purposefully use "stance," but it was a poor word choice and something like "perspective" would have made more sense?

"With a confident Dr. Johnson walking behind her, Dedra stares directly into the guilty eyes of another and lunges."
"I had to commit to the role of the risk. And when I saw the mystery of their reaction, I made them improvise according to their own truth.'"
These took me forever to interpret. All the theys and thems and theirs and weird wording choices. Whose guilty eyes? Her parents'? The dirty cops'? Someone else completely? Who is she lunging at? What risk?? And how is who's reaction a mystery and what truth is being improvised?? I just UGGGGHHH. I finally got there, as noted at the beginning of this review, but I should not have to wade through seas of nebulousness to get there.

"'And I videotaped the whole absence of this procedure,' Detective Corey assures. 'The parents simply outed themselves, Captain.'"
Okay, for one thing, if you video-taped something, then it is NOT absent. For another, absence of WHAT procedure?? Is he referring to the fact that Dr. Johnson and the sisters planned all of this in the office so none of what they talked about or did to prepare for it was on video? I think this is meant to indicate that because of the filming of the interview room and the absence of filming in the other rooms, no one has to know that Dedra wasn't really hypnotized and it looks like the parents implicated themselves instead of Dedra manipulating them into it? And even if she did manipulate them on purpose, who cares?

"'[Detective Corey discussing cops who shot Image Reflection] One shot at you to silence you, while the other insisted your car accident already did it.'
Already did what? Already silenced Dedra? And who is the other? The other cop? And insisted to who?

I just... I don't understand why no one in this book can just say what they mean instead of everything being a riddle.

Examples of Strange Referencing of Parents

The author kept switching between "her parents/mom/dad" and "the parents/mom/dad" and when referring to the girls' parents, which was very disorienting. I thought it would be revealed that they weren't Dedra's parents after all and it was trying to foreshadow that once Dedra got her memory back that that is the horrible truth Janine was hiding from her, but no (or, maybe it was--as you know, we aren't told anything that actually resolves that). I think eventually I realized that the author was doing it consistently, as if there were some sort of rhyme or reason to the choice, like maybe the author was trying to use "her" when Janine or Dedra were actively involved in the scene versus when it was a narrative using "the" because it wouldn't be the narrative's parents? I have no idea and have never seen that choice of style anywhere in any other book.

"Still outside both rooms, Janine prepares herself to entertain the inevitable tension. She moves closer to HER parent's room and stands beside the audio system to eavesdrop again."

"'As I was saying,' THE mother says, 'Janine has always been jealous of Dedra.'"

"'She is incredibly manipulative,' THE dad adds."

"Janine smiles back at HER parents..."

SERIOUS OVERCOMPLICATION

Waaaaaaay too many things going on: amnesia, hypnotism, movie stars, practical jokes, forgiveness, mental and emotional abuse, sibling rivalry and jealousy, reality TV, psychological experiments, murder, hit and run, autism, narcissistic parenting, manipulation. I think this was a misguided attempt at creating red herrings and false leads. Eventually I sort of felt like I did when I was reading Tapas, Carrot Cake, and a Corpse, as if this were a school essay where you write a short story centered around a list of vocabulary words provided by your teacher, except instead of British colloquialisms it was psychological terminology this time.

I feel like if this hadn't been a short story, PERHAPS it may have worked a little better because there may have been more opportunity to really connect everything for readers. It was like it was trying to cram everything from a full length book into a novella, but the author didn't quite have the know-how to make that work (short stories are very hard to do well even for experienced authors) and I am mystified about why the author thought this had to be a short story in the first place.

WHY WAS THIS WRITTEN

I am still not sure why this was written--like, what was the motivation or purpose. I was given a main question to answer to fulfill my review, but then for whatever reason book club questions were included, as though this strange short story was either written for a class or would be used for educational purposes for reasons that I cannot fathom. Or, did the author just have an idea, then think it would be fun as a promotional thing to offer it for free and encourage book clubs to read it? Eventually, I felt like I was reading a paper someone wrote for a Psychology class and then felt was good enough to publish as a book, or that the author is a Psychology major and has learned a bunch of things recently and wanted to coalesce them all into some sort of clever story. Whatever the motivation or divination or inspiration, I feel like it failed and I don't know what the point was.

THIS ISN'T REALLY A COZY MYSTERY

Either the author doesn't know what actually constitutes a cozy mystery, they researched it but misinterpreted how to do it, or they used the label as a ploy to get people to buy it to reach a broader audience. Cozy mystery fans will be disappointed by this book, which does not deliver on that promise. Having read dozens of cozy mysteries, the elements for them (though they may vary slightly for each reader's preference/opinion) are pretty standard. Technically, this book covers some of what a cozy mystery is, but those are superficial nods and they aren't in the areas where it counts.

- There is a mystery, but it's not really a puzzle reminiscent of a cozy mystery. At one point I felt reading this book was like watching that scene between Sarah and the two guards in Labyrinth, where one guard always tells the truth and the other guard always lies, and Sarah has to decipher their double-talk to decide which door is the correct one--except with this book there are 24 guards, three Sarahs, a dozen doors, and they are in a labyrinth wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. Way overkill.

- Things are obscured with red herrings and false leads, but, unlike a cozy mystery, almost none of the clues are revealed to the reader. Or, if they are, they are so clouded by all of the "noise" of everything else going on that I couldn't even tell anymore what might be a clue, a red herring, or just a random reference for no reason.

- There is a murder and it does take place "off stage," but it doesn't happen as a part of this book, it is being solved retroactively.

- Not only is a small town or rural setting non-existent, we learn absolutely nothing about the world these characters live in. This is a main part of what makes cozy mysteries "cozy" because of the atmosphere they evoke.

- Similarly, we don't get to know anyone at all. It isn't just that there is no character growth, there are just no characters at all! I mean, the "murderers" (i. e. villains) are two random cops from the background who had nothing to do with anything for the rest of the story, we don't know anything about the victim except that he was famous, and everyone else from the parents to the sisters to the cops were so one-dimensional. No one was charming or quirky or engaging or funny and I really did not care what happened to any of these people. This, combined with the lack of a setting, made this the least atmospheric book I have ever read and is what most firmly pushes it out of cozy mystery territory.

- Cozy mysteries are very careful to establish means, opportunity, and motive when things are tied up at the end, which would be the basics even in real life for moving something from circumstantial to an arrest. Means and opportunity were kind of established, but MOTIVE wasn't. O_o We still have no idea WHY the cops killed Image Reflection!

- I guess Dedra is brought into the mystery through "circumstances," but she is not reluctant nor an amateur (for some reason she already thinks she is a great detective who deserves an internship at the police station, though nothing supports that for the reader.

- There is no theme or hook to this book. The only thing I can KIND of maybe see as a "theme" would be the whole "drama" aspect since that is how Dedra "solves" the case, but it's just not a focal point otherwise. "Psychology" could also maybe be a theme since it was beaten to death in this book, but even still I can't say it was because it is so all over the place and seemed arbitrary. Lack of hook is also a major part of what pushes this out of cozy mystery territory.

- I guess technically the title was a pun, but it is a cliché one and, even if we said that "drama" or "psychology" is the theme, the title has nothing to do with either of them.

THE TONE OF THIS BOOK IS OFF-PUTTING

I don't... really like a book that thinks it's clever. When authors get lost in their own cleverness, the reader feels left behind because they can't figure out what's going on as the complications keep piling up for no discernible reason and instead of being resolved they just multiply. No one likes a book that feels like it is trying to be too smart for them (that is not what writing mysteries, especially cozy mysteries, is about!), especially when they are reading for pleasure, more so when the author makes it is so painfully obvious that they think what they are doing is so smart, and most especially when what the author is trying to do isn't working as smartly or cleverly as they want it to from the reader's perspective. If a book could have an ego (another psychology term to add to the slew of them!), this one would.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Dear God, for not liking this story, I have certainly analyzed it to death (this is one of the longest reviews I've ever written and it's for one of the shortest books I have ever read) so it was at least a good exercise in critical thinking. I guess it has that going for it.

If I hadn't desired to fulfill receiving this in exchange for a review and if it hadn't been as short as it was, I probably would have dnf'd it. I will not read more in this series or likely anything else by this author.… (more)

This was a unique way to teach about faith. It was also a unique way to get people to study and memorize scripture. The symbolism in this book was fabulous. The book is set up so you can click on the scripture and read it right then and there or you can read it all before or after reading the story. I myself clicked on it as I read. Then I went back and reread the story. This is a different way to get people into the scriptures. For family devotions or youth groups, there is a script so that they can actually put on this skit.
I received a copy to facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.… (more)