The Circle Trilogy

Book Review: White

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

White
The Circle #3
by Ted Dekker

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fantasy thriller

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with Black.

In one reality, Thomas Hunter and the rest of the newly minted Circle try to stay out of the hands of the enemy while also debating whether it’s better to hide and stay safe or try to bring the Great Romance to that enemy. In the other reality, Thomas Hunter is dead and the threat of the virus inches ever closer. 

I think I understand more now why I had such a hard time with this series when I first read it around 20 years ago. The Christian allegory falls apart so much when it becomes more clear that these two realities are connected in some way, possibly some kind of circular time, and the “Christ” character dying and being resurrected in the previous book implies that Christ had to die twice for the sins of humanity. Which makes one not enough. That’s a huge theological issue. Then beyond those implications, when the histories are changed, the forest/desert world doesn’t seem to be affected, so does that mean they’re actually not as connected as it seems? It kind of gives me a headache to consider.

The story itself mostly plays out in a way that continues to be engaging. Though Dekker introduces a super powerful element that just sort of…goes away. I believe it comes into play in other pseudo-related books, but since it’s introduced here, used to incredible effect, and then just hand-waved away, it bugs me. I also dislike the feeling that Dekker killed off Thomas’s wife in the previous book simply to pave the way for a new romance in this book—a romance that I can’t say I cared for all that much. Couldn’t someone else in the Circle have been the romantic lead for this plot line? Maybe it wouldn’t have felt quite so forced to me then. Or maybe it wouldn’t have helped.

In the end, I like the trilogy a lot more this time than I remember like it when I was younger (or maybe this third book just tainted my memory of the first two), and I probably even liked this final book a little more than I did back then. But I feel like there was a lot of build-up for an underwhelming conclusion (though the conclusion on the “our world” side was more satisfying). Then there’s an epilogue that I think went completely over my head, and I’m pretty sure also set up more for Dekker to explore in other books, books that are not officially part of the same series but are still connected in at least tiny ways. I plan to keep going in this broad world, but I really don’t know how far I’ll get. As for this series, if you’re interested in fantastical fiction with a Christian, or at least moral, bent, you might enjoy this series. If you’d be bothered by a Christian allegory that goes pretty far afield, you might want to skip this trilogy.

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Book Review: Red

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Red
The Circle #2
by Ted Dekker

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Christian fantasy thriller

Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Black.

Fifteen years after the events of the previous book, Thomas of Hunter is the leader of an army of forest dwellers, called the Forest Guard, in a perpetual battle against the desert dwellers, the Horde. He hasn’t dreamed once in those fifteen years, but when he gets into a pinch in battle, he realizes that the answers could be found in his dreams. When he wakes up in the other reality, mere hours have passed and the danger of the Raison Strain virus is ramping up. Both realities need him, and both are on the edge of destruction.

I have to admit that with the way that the previous book ended, I wasn’t all that enthusiastic starting into this book. I’ve never really enjoyed war, battles, fighting, etc. in books, and the endless war between Thomas’s Forest Guard and the Horde (aka Scabs) wasn’t a huge draw for me at the outset. Fortunately, it quickly becomes more than that, especially when Thomas intentionally dreams for the first time in order to glean information he can use to aid the fight. It’s interesting that Thomas has aged 15 years in that reality but is still a younger man in the “real” world. Waking up after dreaming of 15 years going by is hard to imagine, but I liked that some of the people that know him best can see a difference in how he acts and even how he looks (mostly his eyes).

The urgency of the Raison Strain, even though it’s been carried on past the first book, is still there. The world moves on to a new stage as the secret of the virus threatens to be exposed, and though normally I’d feel it’s a mistake to drag something like this on for so long, it works here, thanks to the addition of the parallel reality. Some major revelations are shown involving the connected realities in this book, too, that brought my engagement level even higher. The forest/desert world, which has always displayed a very literal view of good vs. evil and has been the main vehicle for development and change in this series, brings some emotional moments at the end of this book that made me consider diving right into the third book. I won’t, but I also will not be waiting very long to read it. 

I understand even more now why 20-something-year-old me read this series as a parallel to Christianity. It’s not as direct a parallel as I must have expected/wanted it to be, but it’s certainly allegorical. Though the ways the allegory fell short (or even fell apart) bothered me when I was younger, I’m able to enjoy the story for what it is this time around. And I’m glad for that, because I’m enjoying it a lot!

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Book Review: Black

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Black
The Circle #1
by Ted Dekker

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Christian fantasy thriller

After an encounter with a dangerous loan shark, Thomas Hunter dreams of a world where evil is completely contained and humans live in happiness and harmony. The dream is so vivid that while he’s dreaming, he’s certain the world with the loan shark is the dream. Then the worlds begin to bleed together when he learns about some events that are still future to the “Earth” side and are expected to wipe out most of life on Earth. Knowledge from each world becomes useful in the other, and before long, both worlds are in jeopardy.

I read this book, and the entire trilogy, for the first time back around when it came out. I remember finding it a bit strange, confusing, and not particularly enjoyable. My husband read the series more recently and said he thought I’d like it…so I gave it another chance. I have come to understand that, when I was a young adult, I read this book as a direct parallel to Christianity. Though it certainly has an analogous angle to it, I needed to read it more as fantasy and let it be what it was, not what I assumed it should be. Doing that made this second reading experience far better than the first. I was hooked early on, enjoying the fast pace of the “Earth” reality and the world building of the “green forest” reality alongside it. Though the green forest side was slow in comparison to the Earth side, I skimmed a few scenes when Thomas had a very real, yet at the same time kind of abstract, communion with Elyon, the undisputed Creator of the green forest reality. I get the inclusion of those scenes, but I didn’t feel the need to read them thoroughly.

As the Earth reality gained speed toward the pending disaster, the green forest takes a turn that is sad and unexpected (though, at the same time, unsurprising), and I was really curious to see where that side of the story was going to go next. I remember snippets from the trilogy, but fortunately, it’s mostly all new. The last few pages are a bit bizarre but, at the same time, intriguing. And the book ends on a cliffhanger, which I normally dislike, but it really worked here. And now I’m excited to continue reading, which I didn’t expect to be!

I am aware that I’m at the beginning of a long, twisty mess of a book franchise. Some are directly connected and others are more peripherally so, and apparently there’s no specified order in which to read the books. I have read one of those books in the past and part of another one, and I found both bizarre and unsettling, coincidentally enough. I currently don’t have a lot of desire to read much more than the main trilogy, but I’ll see how I feel when I’m done with the first 3 books, and maybe the prequel.

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