Forbidden is a dystopian novel, first in a trilogy, by authors Ted Dekker & Tosca Lee. The book was unfamiliar to me until the very moment the book howed up in my mailbox. It was a wonderful surprise from the lovely people at Hodder & Stoughton.
The people of the world has been in a peaceful state for several hundred years. All emotions has been eradicated, all except fear. Now Rom Sebastian has been given a mysterious vial, a vial that have been passed on from Keeper to Keeper in wait for the time of the Rebirth. Rom decides to taste what is in the vial and his life is turned upside down. Rom is trusted into a world of Chaos(aka. filled with feelings). This is only the beginning of a fulfillment of a prophecy foretold over 480 years ago. The prophecy spoke of a boy that will become Sovereign, but to what cost? The price? Kidnapping, murder, fear, sorrow and love.
My thoughts:
To live in a world ruled by one feeling, and that feeling is fear. Sounds absolutely dreadful, right? It might for us, but for the people of this future world it is perfectly normal. Why would they want to go back to the age of Chaos? Well for starters because living in fear and being stripped of all other emotions isn't really to be alive. The description might make you think of Lauren Oliver's Delirium trilogy, they certainly lack love in Forbidden as well but other than that there isn't any similarities I would say. It is perhaps more plausible that one can better control the worlds population when all they can feel is fear, at least that's what I think. This book is a lot darker then Delirium as well and has a lot more violence in it. I don't think this is a book suited for the younger demographic target group when it comes to YA.
Some of the characters in this book was easy to relate to. It wasn't difficult to imagine what inner turmoil a sudden blossoming of all kinds of feelings could do to a person. Everyone would react differently, and for some it might just be too much.
Forbidden is a novel that can be labled as Christian fiction, a genre I usually never read(although I consider myself a Christian). I must say that it didn't bother me in the least, which it did in ie. The Dark Divine by Bree Despain. There is symbolism here of course and those with knowledge of Christianity will certainly see it but I read this story with my dystopian glasses on. Forbidden can be read like a dark, dystopian with great characters and some memorable quotes. I will continue on with The Book of Mortals that's for sure.
My rating of this novel:
/
Source:
Review copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This book can be purchased from a number of local retailers and on-line book stores such as Amazon and The Book Depository (I'm not an affiliate of either). The latter store does by the way have free shipping to about 100 countries.
I've had Forbidden sitting on my bookshelf for almost a year, maybe I should get to reading it? :)
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, yes you should ;)
ReplyDeleteeek, I fear you scared me away with Christian fiction
ReplyDeleteThat usually scares me away too so I don't blame you but the story was quite good :)
Delete