I almost gave this book 3 stars, and here's why!
I chose to read this book because it was a Christian Thriller. I was hoping for a thrilling tale with Christian aspects woven into it. And though there were indeed some thrilling parts to this book, I would not classify it as a Thriller. This book is more of a fictional, apologetic-theological novel that has a few thrilling aspects to the plot. Originally, my frustration with the lack of a thicker plot line & thriller action sequences led me to give this a 3 star rating. However, upon finishing the book I realized that I truly liked the book overall. Even though I was craving a more stirring plot line, the book still impacted me with some key moments of good character development and beautiful arguments for God.
I definitely did not agree with every point made in this book, like the modernized take on Calvinism that was sort of mixed with classic Armenian views. That part just didn't work for me and didn't logically flow. It felt like more of a pandering to both sides of the argument. There were a few more aspects that I didn't agree with but the biggest argument that drove me up the wall was the constant blubbering on and on about NDEs. The author sort of killed the ending of this book because he pumped this NDE argument up to the point of aggravation. Even the other main character in this book seemed frustrated with how often it came up, and you almost knew as the reader that he or someone was going to die, or nearly die, and then be resuscitated and recall an NDE experience. This ruined the ending for me, and kind of killed the majority of the book's conversations that were fighting to uplift the existence and need for God. If all that was truly needed for this atheistic character to believe was a near death experience, then why sit and chat with him literally all night in this freezing cold airport? I'm not at all saying that it was wasted, as I believe these conversations are seeds being planted within an unbeliever's heart so that they may hopefully one day see those seeds come to a fruition of faith. I think that these conversations on their own are worthy of being useful, powerful and a way for God to move. But by having the atheist character ultimately have his moment of belief only after he had a NDE, you remove the impact and importance of the hours and hours the main character spent pouring life and love into the unbelieving character. I don't discredit the power of NDEs, and I know there are lots out there that are likely true, because Jesus loves meeting with his children, and also those who are not yet believers. But there was too much weight placed on NDEs for me to feel more comfortable with the truth and power of the conversations that took up 90% of this novel. And though I enjoyed the intellectual sparring (mostly), I was craving some balanced story telling to this so called "thrilling" plot line. Perhaps if these other elements were more evenly balanced and distributed throughout the story, I wouldn't have been so thrown off and upset with the obsessive NDE focus.
Overall, I don't dislike this book, I did enjoy it. And I want to support and do support literature like this, where we can speak the truth about God and present logical & biblical facts to further uplift the Kingdom of God. This book is no failure in my mind, it just could have used a stronger plot line or perhaps a renaming of the genre for this book. I did appreciate the boldness of this author, despite my thoughts about the plot or the couple things I didn't agree on theologically. We need more authors like this, who are willing to write truth like this in a world where truth is being attacked.