There Comes a Prophet by David Litwack
Publication Date: July 9th 2012
Publication Date: July 9th 2012
Genre: YA Dystopian
Pages: 265
~Summary~
Who among us will cast aside a comfortable existence and risk death to follow a dream?
A world kept peaceful for a thousand years by the magic of the ruling vicars. But a threat lurks from a violent past. Wizards from the darkness have hidden their sorcery in a place called the keep and left a trail of clues that have never been solved.
Nathaniel has grown up longing for more but unwilling to challenge the vicars. Until his friend Thomas is taken for a teaching, the mysterious coming-of-age
If he reveals the truth, the words of the book of light might come to pass:
“If there comes among you a prophet saying ‘Let us return to the darkness,’ you shall stone him, because he has sought to thrust you away from the light.”
A world kept peaceful for a thousand years by the magic of the ruling vicars. But a threat lurks from a violent past. Wizards from the darkness have hidden their sorcery in a place called the keep and left a trail of clues that have never been solved.
Nathaniel has grown up longing for more but unwilling to challenge the vicars. Until his friend Thomas is taken for a teaching, the mysterious coming-of-age
If he reveals the truth, the words of the book of light might come to pass:
“If there comes among you a prophet saying ‘Let us return to the darkness,’ you shall stone him, because he has sought to thrust you away from the light.”
~My Thoughts~
I felt like
in the beginning it reminded me a bit like The Hunger Games. No there isn't any
games the characters of this story have to play till the death but there is
this thing called the teaching. The teaching is where the vicar's choose a
coming of age child that doesn't fully believe in there ways of the light. You
know, it’s either their way or the highway, kind of thing but we all know the
highway isn't so pretty. So there is a choosing, another element of The Hunger
Games. Actually I am noticing that a choosing of some sort is just part of the
Dystopian formula, am I right? They then have a ceremony so the vicar's can
announce who they have chosen.
Now the teaching is where the coming of age child of light goes to go to the big Temple City and is shoved in like a human sized crate. In there they show them the all extreme darkness and then this changes the person. At the end of the teaching they ask for another coming of age child that needs to learn the ways. I'm going to try not to spoil much but a little info can't hurt anyone. Another gets chosen and they are all so very surprised. The main character Nathaniel comes back from going out of town and finds out it was his other friend Orah. This is where another element of The Hunger Games comes in. Nathaniel goes to the Temple City asking to take her place in the teaching and of course this is new to the vicar's.
Here they give him a choice: become one of the vicar and leave his life and family behind or let Orah continue her teaching. While he ponders this they hold him for the time being and this is where he finally finds the adventure his been waiting for. And this is where my interest for this book starts to perk up a bit.
Along this journey of his, he friends hop on and they go looking for the mythical Keep. The Keep is things of the past and things that the vicar fear. So here I am, getting excited for this quest of theirs, but as time goes I see this supposedly dangerous journey turn out so easy. Hardly any obstacles as you may have read many before for other characters, they go on a breeze with maybe one or two chances of getting caught but even those were easy. Yes, as you read through you'll see why but even then it felt too easy.
This book holds a lot as it is a standalone so when they finally make it there I just loved the world of the Keep. It made my stomach flutter with this world of genius magic. So the learning of the past was amazing and my interest started to perk up once again. I noticed throughout this book it was easy for my mind to wonder to the other 20 different things I had to do in the day which this element helped in rating of course. It’s not that the book was boring it’s just didn’t hold me well enough in some moments of the story. Plus, bouncing from one point of view to another made it hard for me to connect with any major characters of the book. There were moments that I loved and was happy for them but sometimes I just felt far away from them. It didn’t feel like I was totally grounded within the story.
Overall this is a dystopian that'll get its fan's and I am one of them. The world that once was, was a favorite part of mine and at the end I wished we got to see more of it. The characters, the world, and the story line were great it’s just I felt like some things were missing for me to fully fall head over heels for and I pretty much talked about my problems with this up above. If you're looking for an action packed dystopian where the characters of the story are always in danger then look away.
The urge to write first struck when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the night when lightning flashed at sunset followed by northern lights rippling after dark. Or maybe it was the newsletter's editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean. But he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic.
Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. He paused to raise two sons and pursue a career, in the process becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the software industry, founding several successful companies. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned. There Comes a Prophet is his first novel in this new stage of life.
David and his wife split their time between Cape Cod, Florida and anywhere else that catches their fancy. He no longer limits himself to five pages a day and is thankful every keystroke for the invention of the word processor.
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~Giveaway~
Happy Reading Everybody!
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Wooohoo awesome blog tour! Sounds interesting.
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