**I was given a copy of this book to read in exchange for my HONEST opinion. I do not profit from this in any way.
Does any of us really know what the future may hold for us? What if we could go back and have a second chance? Are your eyes wide open to life or are you merely just watching the world pass you by? When seventeen year-old Derrion is assigned a senior project, he chooses to go against the grain and do his project on not of what school and the government taught him, but of the real truth; the truth that he had spent the last four years documenting. You see, one night change it all for Derrion’s father, Arthur. It was January, 11, 2008. Snowing in Baghdad (an unusual occurrence). He was a Ranger in the Army whose mission was to rally up the insurgents via house to house. A shot rang out and a fellow american soldier shot an unarmed child and Arthur watched the life slowly drain out of the innocent boy. In that moment- Arthur’s life changed forever- never able to feel the joy and love in life again- never able to look into is son’s eyes without seeing the horrified eyes of that Iraqi child. He struggled desperately through life for the next year until he committed suicide.
After the death of his father, Derrion struggled with horrible nightmares. Not because he was he one who discovered his dead father, but because of what he overheard his father say about that fateful night in Baghdad. He began to question everything he learned about war in school. It slowly became an obsession; he was determined to discover the truth about the world he lived in. Overtime, the internet slowly became censored by the government. Websites began to disappear. Derrion feared the truth would be forgotten so he began to print out hundreds of pages at a time of everything he could and organized it into color coded folders. On April 15, 2016, his worst fears came true. The internet was shut sown. It was called the Invisible War but what it really was was the worlds first major cyber attack that lasted 6 weeks. The President declared a state of emergency, martial law was imposed and curfews were enforced. Then came the door-to-door confiscation of guns. Highways were shut down, food riots, the economy collapsed. Soon the government created State Radio and State TV which meant the government now controlled everything the public could gain knowledge of. All citizens were required to be microchipped and teachers were required to report any insubordination to an online agency. Helicopters, drones and surveillance cameras watching their every move. Life in America was no longer truly free.
But then someone reminded Derrion of something important. You are not truly powerless unless you give up your power; “Change the way you think and you can change the world”. Hence, the idea for Derrion’s senior project was born. He would create a mock trial of the investigations into 9/11. But when Derrion submits his project idea, it flags him on a watch list. His whole world is about to change.
Then one morning, Derrion awakens onto a situation that he does not remember getting into. A situation that rocks his small Ohio town. It’s this point in the book that has me on the edge off my seat and I cannot divulge any more without ruining the element of surprise of this shocking twist in the story. And as if the plot wasn’t gripping enough, another twist in the last chapter really put me over the edge making me love it even more. This is just a phenomenal book and this is the kind of story that will always stay in the back of mind as one of the best I’ve ever read. I encourage you to give it a try, it’s well worth reading and passing on to friends!
Derrion Parsing is a high school senior and the son of an ex-Army Ranger. Unlike his classmates, he has access to information from the time before the Invisible War, when the government shut down the Internet, reformatting into a propaganda tool. When Derrion attempts to use this information as part of a school project, he awakens to his worst nightmare.
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In the Place Where There is No Darkness is his first novel.
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