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Book Review: Pierce the Veil by David Simms

Pierce the Veil  by David Simms

Macabre Ink, 2024

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1637890516

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition (pre-order)

Buy: Amazon.com

 

Derek Boone and his friend and fellow bandmate Shane are navigating a snowstorm on their way home from a show when the car they’re in skids off the road and off the side of a bridge into freezing water, killing them both. Almost a day later, Boone is revived using an experimental cryogenic technology, All he wants is for life to go back to normal, fix things with his religious fiancée, Megan, and grieve Shane (I found his grief experience to be very convincing). However, his unique experience has made him news, and everyone has an opinion about what he should do and whether he should share his NDE (near-death experience) although he doesn’t remember it. He is suspended from his job as a teacher due to parent concerns that he will bring it up, asked to do a television interview, targeted by a priest-assassin, and kidnapped, with Megan, by a cult. The cult wants to use his NDE to prove to the world that there is no heaven, only a place of energy absorbing “clouds” that drain souls like batteries, and the brotherhood of the priest believes that due to the length of his NDE he can push through that “hell” to find light on the other side, to bolster the world’s belief that there is a heaven. It’s interesting that both sides make the exact same arguments. The brotherhood, as an underground branch of the Catholic Church, has a lot more institutional power behind it. Despite everything, Boone manages to hang on to the core of who he is.

 

Simms drops you right into the middle of the action, and it is a wild ride up to the end, with some horrific scenes, as well as some dread-inducing moments at the end. Yet there is space for Boone to participate in and process philosophical discussions on NDEs and the afterlife that are necessary to move the plot forward without feeling like the plot has lost its thread.

 

In terms of character development. Boone’s close friends Charlie and Heather, who are briefly mentioned near the beginning of the book, are memorable and help move the plot forward, Megan, whose function at first seems to be irritatingly pushy and misguided about religion, absolutely rocks in a team-up with Boone as the priest-assassin chases them through a shopping mall, She shows strength of character and puts herself on the line for Boone. Even the priest-assassin is revealed to have more to him than we initially see.

 

Boone is just an ordinary guy wanting to live an ordinary life, whose singular experience leaves him, and the people he loves, in precarious situations while he attempts to unravel his experiences during his NDE. As much as he wants to believe things in his life can stay the same, he’s’ left in a haze of uncertainty, grief, love, and fear that he needs to work through himself to find answers.

 

Pierce the Veil  is not just a thrill ride. It will make you think.

 

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on July 11, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Cover art for Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White.

Peachtree Teen, 2022

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1682633243

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition ( Bookshop.org | Amazon.com )

 

Hell Followed with Us is an incredible and original book, but it is not an easy read. It is a scream of rage. Make sure to read the author’s content warnings at the beginning of the book.

 

Benji is a trans boy injected with a virus that will turn him into a genocidal monster, a Seraph, for a doomsday cult, the Angels. He tries running away but is captured by the cult’s death squad. A group called the Watch, queer teens inhabiting their destroyed teen center for LGBTQ+ youth, attacks and kills everyone in the death squad except Benji, who is offered refuge by the leader, Nick, an autistic gay boy. Nick knows Benji is the Seraph, but hides it to protect him, believing that his powers will allow him to control the Graces, monstrous creatures made from infected bodies trained by the Angels to attack nonbelievers.

 

The Watch successfully attacks a church with Benji’s help. Benji discovers his fiance, Theo, is hiding in the church, and visits him there, only to find that the visit was used by the Angels as an opportunity to burn down the home of the Watch. As Benji continues to physically disintegrate into the Seraph, he makes a plan with Nick to pretend to return and cooperate with the Angels, despite their murder of his father, transphobia, and religious extremism. While the first plan is botched and Benji turns fully into a Seraph, a second plan unleashes a bloodbath on the Angels and frees the Watch from fear and persecution..

 

Andrew Joseph White wrote this for trans kids facing a hostile world, to give them a mirror of a trans boy who fights back. But it’s not necessary to be trans or queer to be wowed by it.  So many of the major characters were queer that I got to see many different aspects of how they characters experienced their queerness, and it also didn’t become the only factor defining their identities. I loved the found family feeling of the members of the Watch, looking out for each other in a hostile world.

 

It’s difficult to imagine how hard-right evangelical Christianity in this country could get more repressive and violent than it currently is, but somehow White takes it to an even more terrifying extreme. Highly recommended.

 

 

Contains: transphobia, deadnaming, misgendering, graphic violence, domestic, child, and religious abuse, body horror

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Posted on December 18, 2022 by , Reply

Book Review: The Strange Nighttime Journey of Father Stephen Marlowe by Ambrose Stolliker

 

The Strange Nighttime Journey of Father Stephen Marlowe by Ambrose Stolliker

 

Muddy Paws Press, 2022

 

ISBN: 9788986056906

 

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition (Amazon.com)

 

The basic plot device is one readers have seen before: a preacher who has lost his faith goes on a journey and faces hardships while attempting to regain his spirituality.  Why read this one?  It’s a quick-paced story that keeps the reader engaged, and shows good imagination.  Describing it as “strange” doesn’t do justice to Father Marlowe’s journey: some parts of it are straight off the clouds in Cuckoo Land.  It’s the creativity that pushes the book to success, and it’s got plenty of it.

 

Father Marlowe has good reason for his lack of faith: his brother (also a priest) killed himself, and Marlowe feels somewhat responsible.  As the book explains later, he may have some justification for feeling that way.

 

Father Marlowe goes to talk to a priest who specializes in faithless preachers, and that’s where his journey into strangeness starts.  The only literary equivalent for his odyssey that comes to mind is Alice in Wonderland, although Father Marlowe falls through a floor instead of down a rabbit-hole.  No world of smoking caterpillars and vanishing cats for the Father Marlowe, though: he winds up in the ocean of the Well of Lost Souls and must journey to the Black Fortress That Sees, in the land of A’ch’Ba’Hu.  (everybody got all that?)  His journey for faith, and his brother’s soul, takes him across all types of terrain, through many hardships, and has quite the collection of eclectic characters: some helpful, some not.  Does he succeed?  Maybe, maybe not… you’ll have to read it to find out.

 

This is written well enough that it’s a page-flipper. It’s got good pacing, and makes you feel for the character.  By partway through, you’ll be wondering how much poor Father Marlowe can handle before he throws in the cassock.  He’s a sympathetic enough character to get the readers on his side.

 

But the real star of the story is the journey itself, and what the Land of Lost Souls holds for the intrepid priest.  Flying boats captained by midgets with wings, demons that have full human bodies as feet, and a really weird take on Charon the boatman, among other things.  The journey becomes a little more “normal” (relatively speaking) towards the end, but it’s engrossing enough to keep the reader zipping through it.

 

There’s also a little hook at the end that leaves room for a sequel, and based on this book, most readers would want to continue the Nighttime Journey.   The only area that maybe could have used a bit more bulk were the flashback sections about Father Marlowe and his brother growing up.  There are enough of them to explain the story, but more would have been nice.  They were engrossing parts, and it felt like there was plenty more narrative to be mined in that section.

 

Bottom line, The Nighttime Journey is a well-written book that scores high on the creativity scale.  Most readers should enjoy this one, regardless of their feelings on theology.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on October 13, 2022 by , 1 comment
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