Also by this author: The Deception, The Defiance
Series: The Delusion #1
Published by Wander on October 3, 2017
Genres: Fiction, Christian, Thriller
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By March of Owen Edmonds’s senior year, eleven students at Masonville High School have committed suicide. Amid the media frenzy and chaos, Owen tries to remain levelheaded—until he endures his own near-death experience and wakes to a distressing new reality.The people around him suddenly appear to be shackled and enslaved.Owen frantically seeks a cure for what he thinks are crazed hallucinations, but his delusions become even more sinister. An army of hideous, towering beings, unseen by anyone but Owen, are preying on his girlfriend and classmates, provoking them to self-destruction.Owen eventually arrives at a mind-bending conclusion: he’s not imagining the evil—everyone else is blind to its reality. He must warn and rescue those he loves . . . but this proves to be no simple mission. Will he be able to convince anyone to believe him before it’s too late?Owen’s heart-pounding journey through truth and delusion will force him to reconsider everything he believes. He both longs for and fears the answers to questions that are quickly becoming too dangerous to ignore.
Where do I start with The Delusion by Laura Gallier? Fans of Ted Dekker’s more thrilling books like Adam and The Bride Collector will like this novel. If you’re a Frank Peretti fan, too, The Delusion is right up your alley. It gave me chills, and it made my gut twist into knots. Gallier is descriptive to a fault, and the imagery is incredible; I am not exaggerating when I say I saw characters from this book in my dreams…or should I say nightmares.
The Delusion by Laura Gallier takes spiritual warfare out of the invisible and makes it visible through the mastery of the author’s imagination. So much so, honestly, that this novel disturbed me. Suicide is obviously a very heavy topic. Gallier doesn’t take it lightly and uses it as a foundation for a well-developed story, narrated by a teenage boy. This was a good book–hence the high rating–but I’m not certain I actually enjoyed it. Almost every chapter ended in a cliffhanger, so I kept on reading. I related to the main characters, and I found myself rooting for them.
Sometimes, though…I think Gallier might take things too far. The “grade level” rating for this book is supposedly grades 7-9. But I would not let my early teen read this book, unless they are very grounded in themselves and in their faith. I don’t get creeped out by novels, but The Delusion did me in. God and His people are victorious; I appreciated that overarching message, but I didn’t like how this book got there. The topics in this book are too heavy for an early teen, in my opinion. This book was almost a Christian version of the Netflix show “13 Reasons Why.”
The big heart-pounding, climactic moment of this book depicts an instance I don’t think should ever be fictionalized–and you certainly shouldn’t describe it in great detail. Especially when your target audience is teenage students, who may have experienced some of the scenes in The Delusion in real life.
The Delusion by Laura Gallier is good. Disturbingly so. I absorbed it like a sponge; I couldn’t put it down until I finished the final page. But aspects of it are a little too sensitive and a little too real for my liking. I didn’t completely know what I was getting myself into with this book, as I read nothing past its synopsis before opening it. I think I’d still read it, knowing what I know now. That being said, I just wouldn’t read it at night, when my brain is most open and vulnerable. No creepy demon creatures in my dreams, please!