Adam

Adam
by Ted Dekker

Well, initially going into this book, I was excited by the person who lent it to me, the fact that TED DEKKER wrote it, and the freaking freaky cover. Once I started reading it, its format took me comeletely off gaurd and its story was in true Dekkeresque fasion, addictively gruesome. As the story progressed, the suspense was amazing and only the ending was less then sadisfactory.

PLOT: 5 out of 5 stars
AMAZING!!! Like always Dekker weaves a tale that spins in and out, and takes you for a wild ride. The plot is believible and yet unbelievible at the same time. The main story progresses very naturally and flows very well and you find yourself getting sucked into the world because you need to know what happens next. Over all, like his other books, the plot was great.

STYLE: 5 out of 5 stars
The style is very "his style". He loves to take the reader inside the person, fully. You experiance all the bodily functions and feelings, even more than you would normal be consciouse of as a regular person. And as always, Dekker adds a chilling psychological psycho babble inside his character's minds that can be unnerving and unsettling at times, but so is the human mind. This book was especially intresting because it jumps back and forth between the present and the future, where someone is telling you about the past before the present, if that makes any sense at all. This causes the entire story to be much more suspenseful as certain things but not others are revealed and hidden by this format.

CONTENT: 1 out of 5 stars
While I loved Ted Dekkers other books, especially his Martyr's Song Series (Heaven's Wager, When Heaven Weeps, and Thunder of Heaven) because the spiritual content is very well written and very accurate, I am sorry I can't say the same about this book. Not to spoil anything here, but there is a lot of demonic powers at work in Dekker's story. However, once a "christian" confronts the demon possesed person, things go terribly wrong. The experianced exorsist, a Catholic priest, is afraid of the demon, is harassed by the demon, uses a guide book he quotes from and some religious symbols (a crucifix and some holy water) to get the demon to laugh at him. In the end, the demon is defeated not by the word of God or anything along those lines, but simply by the demoniac seeing his sister and fighting the demon from within.

I won't go into my rant about the modern American church and the spiritual realm, but needles to say, Dekker was way off in this book. I know because of experiance. He must have studied some messed up teachings or drawn his material from movies like the Exorcist because he got so many things so wrong, and painted a completely inaccurate picture, something I wouldn't expect from someone who painted such an accurate picture of intercession in the Martyr Song Series.

My final comment on Dekker is concern. His books seem to be getting darker, his obsession with the darkness and with fear growing and becoming more adamant, and his spiritual vision, twisted. I hope this is only a phase, a path he is exploring, and that he will try other ways too, instead of continueing down this one. Yes, his books may be growing more horrifyingly gripping and darkly inticing, but just as perfect love cast out all fear, the spirit of fear will eventually quench all of your love. He is medling with things here that are deeper than he may even understand, but hopefully, as I said before, this is just a phase.

FINAL RATING: 3 out of 5 stars. Caveat lector.