GREEN, By Ted Dekker

I chose this book to review for the Thomas Nelson Blogger Reviews. I am a huge fan of the Circle Trilogy, so it was with great excitement that I sat down to read ‘Green’.

I won’t recap the story for you, however, I will say that while I enjoyed ‘Green’, I didn’t really feel like it fit into the Circle Trilogy. Let me explain:

1. The reader can’t really begin the series with Green. Despite Ted’s best effort, if I hadn’t read the circle trilogy prior to reading Green, I would have been lost at several points throughout the story. Tom’s relationship with Kara is the perfect example of this.

2. Bill’s role in Black was so minor (in the big picture), but in Green, Bill is one of the main characters. He’s almost like an after-thought if you start with Black and read through until Green.

3. In general, I like when Dekker brings in characters from his other books. But I really, really didn’t like the whole ‘Showdown’ theme in Green. In fact, it was a bit distracting from the Circle stories.

Ok, so those are my ‘complaints’. Now for what I liked:

It’s the Circle Trilogy. This is the series that hooked me as a Dekker fan, and for whatever reason, this is the story that Dekker tells the best, IMO. His characters are well-rounded, and the conflicts are engaging. Ted manages to neatly fill some holes from ‘Black’ with ‘Green’, and it was interesting to read the past/future and see how that would play out. The ending left me a little confused (regarding Chelise’s father) so I guess I’ll have to re-read the Circle trilogy again to see how that all fits.

Overall, I thought the book was a lot of fun. I really think that readers should start with ‘Black’ so they can get to know who the characters REALLY are. For that, I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.