Review: Love in the Times of Dystopia
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 7, 2013
"What is scarier?" asks Danielle Tara Evans in her new novel The Cleansing, "Brainwashed humans without a conscience who would stop at nothing in order to kill you or Mother Nature who yielded far more strength and power than any amount of humans combined?"And that's the main question that the two protagonists, a married couple John and Annie, seek to find on the pages of this dystopian novel. Throughout the book, they struggle with the aftermath of series of natural disasters, and even more devastating government policies that purport to education the citizens on the right way to take care of the environment, yet end up eliminating the very citizens that are supposed to protect their environment. The story takes a number of unexpected twists: natural-born citizens are in the minority, and the country is ruled by a president guided by loyalties to a foreign nation and his own interests - an idea more frightening and harder to handle than any natural disaster, in fiction or in real life. John and Annie barely escape arrests, executions, and torture only to find themselves in the midst of a forced conversion of the citizens to Erdinism, the new national religion that sees even the minor transgression as a sin to be severely punished.This story is dark and violent, but not without hope. As I came to the end of the story, I kept thinking about a possible force that could be stronger and more powerful than the evil of humans and the disasters of nature, hoping that Danielle Tara Evans provides a possible answer. And she did. The force that is stronger, more ever-lasting and more enduring than any of the evils combined is that of love. In this case, it is the love of the two main characters, John and Annie, that endures all and perseveres. Definitely a force to be reckoned with.