Three

(FYI -- I'm too lazy this morning to find a picture of the book...Need...more...coffee...)

It starts off with a BANG. A right there, in-your-face, fairly immediate BANG.

And then the smoke clears. And just as Kevin Parson, the protagonist of our story, stares at the charred wreckage that is his car, I read for 200 pages, wondering when the next BANG would occur.

Turns out it really didn’t happen again until the end.

Ted Dekker’s Three did have one heck of a twist in its ending. Dekker brought everything together very neatly – especially considering the shock that comes during those last few pages. But the pages between the first 50 and the last 50seem stretched.

It took me 200 pages to actually “get in” the story. Not because Dekker did not weave wonderful descriptions or stall the story. I just didn’t care about the characters. Kevin is too confused (as was I). Samantha, his childhood friend, is too much of the type to go in with guns blazing. And Jennifer…except for feeling sympathetic for her brother being murdered, I didn’t feel much of anything for her. She was a character with a lack of personality. Which, as you find out, is actually ironic.

The plot moved along a little slowly for me, even though each time a BANG occurred, it no doubt was a big one – but they seemed too few and far between for my tastes, though others probably would disagree with me.

I did like the book, believe it or not. During the end battle with Slater and Kevin, I could not put it down. I wanted to know everything – I wanted all the secrets to be revealed, which, to my happiness, they were (well, all minus one, which I think needs to be made into a sequel…Maybe Four?). It’s quite an unusual story with enough twists and turns to keep me thoroughly entertained, but, as I mentioned before, it was hard for me to really feel the characters.

This might not be a book that I pick up and read again and again for fun, but, if you are enthralled by it, I have no doubt you’ll read it many times to pick up on secrets you did not recognize during the first go-around.

It’s a fun read, even late at night (no nightmares here). It’s not really a “beachy” book, for those of you getting ready to go on vacation, but more of a book to read after the kids are in bed and you have a cup of hot tea and a nice blanket wrapped around you. Enjoy.