Synopsis: Dane and Mandy, a popular magic act for forty years, are tragically separated by a car wreck that claims Mandy’s life—or so everyone thinks. Even as Dane mourns and tries to rebuild his life without her, Mandy, supposedly dead, awakes in the present as the nineteen-year-old she was in 1970. Distraught and disoriented in what to her is the future, she is confined to a mental ward until she discovers a magical ability to pass invisibly through time and space to escape. Alone in a strange world, she uses her mysterious powers to eke out a living, performing magic on the streets and in a quaint coffee shop.
Hoping to discover an exciting new talent, Dane ventures into the coffee shop and is transfixed by the magic he sees, illusions that even he, a seasoned professional, cannot explain. But more than anything, he is emotionally devastated by this teenager who has never met him, doesn’t know him, is certainly not in love with him, but is in every respect identical to the young beauty he first met and married some forty years earlier.
They begin a furtive relationship as mentor and protégée, but even as Dane tries to sort out who she really is and she tries to understand why she is drawn to him, they are watched by secretive interests who not only possess the answers to Mandy’s powers and misplacement in time but also the roguish ability to decide what will become of her.
Frank Peretti has crafted a rich, rewarding story of love and life, loss and restoration, full of twists and mystery. Exceptionally well written, Illusion will soon prove another Peretti classic.
Plot: I must say that from all the hype I've endured from my family over this author, I expected a book I couldn't put down. I was disappointed.
When I read the synopsis, I conjured the plot in my mind and the book didn't come close to my expectations (I really need to stop doing that...). It took a completely different track and I couldn't get into it.
First off, as I got deeper into the book, I got bored. It's extremely repetitive and the aura of the unknown and mysterious happenings doesn't add tension. It's confusing and hard to get through. I felt almost as if Mr. Peretti himself didn't exactly known or understand what he was talking about and his confusion came out in the book. I found myself just going along with the flow and not trying to understand anything in an attempt to just finish the book. It's like a bad movie soundtrack. There are perhaps three good songs and the rest is dull filler.
I was also surprised that the Christian aspect of the book was so weak. There are a few mentions of church and the characters pray occasionally, Mandy often refers to events as "God things", but there is basically no message. In the author's note, Frank Peretti offers a few allegories between the book and Scripture that never would have occurred to me while reading. I've read other reviews and found this to be a common complaint.
Characters:
Mandy Whitacre - Heroine
I got tired of Mandy rather quickly; she was such a repetitive character. Granted, she's confused and discovering things in the situation she's been thrown into, but she never really connected. Every once in a while she would have a flash of spirit, but most of the time she was a pale shadow manipulated by the plot.
Dane Collins - Hero?
I guess you can call him the hero. He's the guy. The one the heroine falls in love with. But it's weird and slightly disturbing and just hard to understand. He's pretty bland too and his explanations of magic illusions are confusing at best.
There are many more, but they don't seem very memorable or in need of a review. The plot is the dominating factor in this book - not the characters.
Likes: I love the cover. It's beautiful and eye-catching. Too bad what's inside doesn't do justice. This is a horrible book to judge by its cover.
There was some humor, I guess.
I found it rather interesting that Dane's name was actually a nickname for Daniel. I like names and that sort of thing.
Dislikes: The horrid repetitiveness. Mandy was always doing the same things over and over, explaining the same things over and over, going the same places over and over. This book spanned the country, but remained plodding and predictable. Dane thought the same things over and over. And everything was just so SLOW! The plot didn't move an inch and is severely anticlimatic.
The whole premise on which the book was built was difficult to understand, poorly explained and rather obvious in places. I figured out what Dane should have figured out CHAPTERS before he figured it out. All the scientific kerfuffle was boring and thick as pea soup. I began to wonder if anyone - including the author - really knew what they were talking about.
It boiled down to two or three confused points and a climax that lost any semblance of sense and interest almost immediately. The bad guys were pretty helpless and didn't offer much suspense or tension. They were easily defeated, surprisingly inept and hardly threatening. They were built up to be so horrid that the end result was almost laughable. At page four hundred thirty, Mr. Peretti must have been as tired of his book as I was.
At the end, I still had a bunch of questions without answers, but at that point, I didn't care for an answer anyway. I was just glad I was done.
Conclusion: I've heard that the "Darkness" books are Peretti's only triumphs, but after struggling through this five hundred and twelve page clunker, I'm not sure I'll be giving those a try any time soon.
Till next time!
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