Friday, February 20, 2015

The Last Circle / Gretchen Blickensderfer


Reviewed by: Sooz

Genre: Dystopian/LGBTQ

Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words

Availability    
Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES
Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Gretchen Blickensderfer grew up in Manchester, England. She acted and performed voices starting at 12. She came to the United States at 18. Gretchen has worked as an actor, screenwriter, and film critic.

Description:

The Last Circle chronicles the rise to power of a United States Evangelical theocracy and the small group of Pagan and LGBT friends who must escape the country to survive.

Appraisal:

As the current-day United States fights toward legalizing gay marriage across all 50 states, The Last Circle looks at a “what-if” world if the opposite happens. However, it’s not just about gay marriage, but paganism and anything that is deemed un-Christian, even Cinderella.

The fundamentalist Christians have won in The Last Circle and those that do not follow their beliefs are not safe in this dystopian future.

The message in The Last Circle is very heavy-handed with an almost preaching-like quality of what will happen to the country if Christians take over. This could be a real turn off to many readers, including myself, but not for the reasons you think.

It just seemed so much was painted in black and white. If you’re a Christian, you’re an evil person who doesn’t want anyone to be happy and you will go to dire lengths to ensure that salvation comes to everyone even if means they have to give up their freedoms to do so. On the other hand, if you are pagan or Wiccan and your friends are gay and outcasts from their families, you’re inherently good.

Life does not work this way.

While I appreciate Gretchen Blickensderfer’s fight for a better society, it just seemed many of the scenarios were outlandish and many of the characters were walking stereotypes. It’s a bit more complicated than good versus evil especially when painting with such a broad brush.

The book also seemed to jump around a bit too much and felt disorganized.

Format/Typo Issues:

There were some typos.

Rating: ***Three Stars

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