Forbidden

                Forbidden, by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, is an intense, futuristic thriller about a man named Rom, his three friends and a dead world. Dekker and Lee do a fantastic job of keeping the reader’s fingers busy… meaning; this book is quite a page turner. Although set over five hundred years in the future, they paint the world as not having changed much. It almost seems more Victorian then modern.

            Rom is a young, handsome funeral singer. He has never known love, hate, or any other emotion because he is emotionless. But then so is everyone else on planet earth. The story goes that, in 2005, scientists found the DNA chemical that creates the emotion of fear. Over the next few years, they similarly found the chemicals that made up every other emotion that a human feels. A nuclear war broke out and thousands were killed, so the scientists realized the only way to save the human race from annihilation was to rid it of emotion. They released an airborne virus into the atmosphere that stripped humanity of all emotion… except for fear.

            On a certain overcast day, Rom is making his way home from a funeral when he finds an old man, or rather, an old man finds him. He gives Rom a package and tells him to take it and find a man called the Book. Before Rom can ask any questions, the man is killed by some police officers. Horrified, he runs for his life, not thinking that all will be well if he just gave the package up. When he arrives home, his mother asks why he has blood on him so he tells her what happened. She becomes equally scared and tells him to take it in, but he counters that, because he ran, they will still kill him. The argument is cut short when the police show up at the house. He runs, but not before he sees them but his mother’s throat. Running out of options for safety, he goes to his friend, Avra’s, house. He asks her to help him and she agrees. They run and in a church where Avra asks him what is in the package. Realizing that he doesn’t yet know, they open it and find a vial of blood wrapped in leather, which is covered in writing. The writing tells them that in drinking the blood, they will find life. Rom takes the vial, seeing that there is nothing left to lose, and drinks a portion of it. The energy that courses through him is so powerful that he passes out. While he is unconscious, Avra also drinks a portion of the blood and she collapses under the force of life. When they wake, they realize that they really never were alive and that the whole world is dead. Two more of their friends drink some of the blood and the foursome begin to uncover the past… in order to save the present and restore life to a dead race.

            With many twists and turns along the way, this book is virtually impossible to put down. Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee have written this in such a wonderful way that it is gripping yet not just entertaining. Smoothly woven into this novel is biblical imagery and beautiful description. The most interesting part is describing what emotion is like from the perspective of one who has just found it. I would recommend this book to a more mature audience because of the graphic nature of the murders and a detailed (rather bloody) fight sequence.