3 out of 4 stars
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Last Believer Chronicles 1: Chosen Child by Anilyn Shaw is a Christian fantasy young adult novel where a young girl named Demona has her world turned upside down when her teacher, Demonica, starts to believe in God. Set in an apocalyptic world named Chanro, the story is told through Demona’s point of view.
Belittled since birth, Demona has only known abuse, terror, and fear. Her only ally is her older brother, Lucifer. Although Lucifer is the Next Runua (the next ruler of Chanro), he teaches her to read, write, and showers her with affection. However, when their forbidden relationship is exposed, Demona is outed as a Life Magic and is sentenced to live with her caste. As she becomes accustomed to her life as a Life Witch, a sudden unexpected event occurs that changes her life forever. As she struggles to overcome her internal and external struggles, she finds consolation in the one thing she swore she would never believe in, God.
When I first saw that this book was a mix between fantasy and Christianity, I was intrigued at the unique genre. Although I am Christian, I usually don’t read books under the Christian genre. So I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as I read the book, I found myself liking the mix between the two genres. I found the book to be mostly under the fantasy genre with bits and pieces of God and bible verses mixed in. I like how the author incorporated bible verses into her story as it flowed well with the narrative and made the struggles of the characters more believable.
Throughout the book, Demona goes through an internal struggle with listening and believing in God. Since she lives in a world where Satan rules, she struggles with accepting God as well as accepting her friends who have started to believe in God. However, I didn’t like Demona’s character because I found her to be too whiney and selfish. Her character didn’t really progress until the very last few chapters. I didn’t find her to be very relatable since she was almost always angry and cold toward the other characters in the book. The other secondary characters were more likable. I was surprised that Lucifer, who was supposed to be evil and cold hearted, was very kind towards Demona.
Since the book is split into two parts, the second part of the book features the name changes of a couple of characters. Four of the characters changed their names because they were made into new people after choosing to believe in God. I found this to be a bit confusing, but also an improvement because some of the names were too similar. For example, Demonica is similar to Demona.
Overall, I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. While I enjoyed the mix between fantasy and Christianity, I couldn’t really relate to the characters. I also came across a few grammatical errors, but they didn’t detract from the book. I would recommend this book to those who like to read Christian books or fantasy novels.
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Last Believer Chronicles 1: Chosen Child
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