By C. E. Murphy
Published by Del Rey Books
In C. E. Murphy's book, Truth Seeker, the truth becomes a magical way of seeing the world. Lara Jansen is a simple woman who works as a tailor in an upscale shop in Boston. She has known since childhood that she can sense when someone is telling the truth (tales of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were actually very upsetting to her). What she doesn't realize is that her talent is just beginning to blossom and that she will be able to do more than just sense the truth; eventually she will be able to manipulate reality into the truth that she sees.
What I enjoyed about this book was that it combined the worlds of modern day Boston and the Barrow-lands (a place of the Seelie and Unseelie). I don't want to tell too much about it because there is a big surprise around the middle of the book. All I can say is that it had a slow start, a great middle and a not so great ending. Murphy seemed to get tired of what she was doing or tried to manipulate the plot in someway to create drama at the end. I didn't find it to be very effective and wish she had done something other than one fight scene, then another (less dramatic) one. Also, I was a bit confused about what helped whom and why Lara's truth sensing abilities changed toward the end.
I did appreciate the concept of seeking the truth. However, often today we seek the truth in order to be in control of it. Science seems to be a way of looking at the world in a true fashion but often it simply ends up as one hypothesis against another. Even Lara herself said that she cannot distinguish between what is true and what the teller thinks is the truth. So it seems that even the truth can be manipulated.
The sad thing about the character of Lara is that she had no use for any kind of fantasy tale or fiction. Fairy tales made her uncomfortable. What kind of life would that really be? Would I want the truth and only the truth all the time? Is my understanding of what is true different from yours? How then can we really know the truth?
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6 NLT)." Even though we have a fairly good record of Jesus and the truth that he gave to us, we still cannot agree on his truth. Just look at all the denominations and various "Christian" beliefs in our society today. So, even with a truthseeker, I don't think we can ever know the real truth. That is where my faith comes in. And that is often the stumbling block for seekers as they really want the complete truth.
I recommend Truth Seeker for those who enjoy a bit of fantasy as well as "true" stories.
Happy reading!
Amelia
Copyright 2011 Amelia G. Sims
No comments:
Post a Comment