don't like it. full stop.

i have nothing against Dekker really. but i would suggest him to really study the religion before he tries to write about it. nothing in the book shows the way a Muslim live.

first, Muslims take each of the five pillars seriously. not one is less important than the other.

second, no religious man would have commit violence against woman. if he do, that means he is not a religions man. simple. (an uncle kicking his niece until she is being admitted into the hospital for a week, where are her parents anyway?)

third, no Muslim woman (a good one) will touch a man (which she is not married to, unless it is her father, brother or son), yet alone kiss him. (Miriam had done with her boyfriend and Seth)

forth, a Muslim is not allowed to and won't drink wine, scotch or any alcoholic drinks. period.

fifth, Muslims won't sentence a punishment on anyone without proof or witness. to blindly punish others is just plain ridiculous. no one with wits will do that.

sixth, everything that is being portrayed in the story is the lifestyle of the Arabs thousands years back. it does not show the current Arabs at all.

seventh, no Muslim woman would be able to feel comfortable without her veil let alone wearing a fitted dress.

so in conclusion, miriam does not portray islam at all. she acts more like a filthy rich teenage american girl whom run away across the globe using the first flight when she disagrees with her parents.

i admit that Dekker wrote the story with just the right choice of words and suspense. he is a good story teller. i guess being a Muslim I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable being stereotyped that way. worse, the wrong way. it'll be nice if he could write the story with less ethnocentrism.

Seth. i like Seth. despite his refusal to admit God, i like his wit. i was feeling, if he really is a genius, why is it so hard for him to see that God exists? it is a simple math. we have a smart phone, wouldn't the smart phone creator would be smarter? he is a genius. why couldn't he figure it out? he even had came out with a mathematical equation which supposed to convince him that God exists.

anyway, i have a complicated feeling about this book. it is a mess of frustrating ideas and content. but i'll give thumbs up for the pace and diction.

This book was pointless. The physics part of the book went nowhere. The romance was not believable. The superpower of seeing the future was lame. Then I found out this is a Christian faith story about love. That explains why nothing made sense.

I thought this book was well done in terms of writing style.
The plot was far fetched but was entertaining otherwise.

I did not like the characters - I felt that things developed too quickly between Miriam and Seth and I was getting annoyed with Miriam constantly questioning Seth and getting upset when he couldn’t see his visions because he was so exhausted.

I won’t speak on the cultural aspect because I’m not well versed in the different religions that were presented in the book but I thought it was interesting to read about.

This book was thrilling!! I started it at 10:15pm and HAD to stay up until I finished it at 1:30am, despite having to work the next morning. It had it all--political intrigue, a clean romance story, and page-turning suspense.

My main complaint? This was NOT a Christian novel. I was talking with a co-worker and he mentioned the version he read was much more overtly Christian. I read Blink of an Eye and in it, he equated agnosticism, deism, Islam, and Christianity as equals. So long as you pray and think God exists and is love then you're a-ok. But what that fails to acknowledge is that God's love is most displayed when Jesus takes on our punishment for sin at the cross...which had to happen in order for a most holy and righteous God to listen and have a relationship with sinners like us! What amazing love!!! How then can someone understand God's love or have access to his throne of grace without it? You diminish God's holiness if you forget the exclusivity of the cross.

I've heard a lot of good things about Ted Dekker, and this is my first forray into his work. He writes fast-paced christian fantasy fiction much in the mold of Frank Paretti. In Blink, Dekker follows Seth Borders, a brilliant graduate student who develops a very strange power, the ability to see alternate futures. At first, he can only see a few seconds into the future, but the gift develops into allowing him to see hours into the future. He is able to see an almost infinite number of possible outcomes for any situation, and thus is able to manipulate reality toward the outcomes he wants by doing the things in that particular future. Seth comes in contact with a Saudi woman named Miriam, who is on the run from an arranged marriage in Saudi Arabia. They meet by chance, and the book is the chronicle of their flight across the globe.

Intertwined with this plot is Seth's wrestling with the possibility of God's existence. He starts out intellectually open to the idea, but unwilling to actually believe that God really exists. His own ability to view alternate futures seems to debunk the idea of God's existence for him because it seems to mean that the future is open and this appears to be incompatible with an all-knowing God. But as the book goes on, Seth realizes that he can pray to the God of Jesus Christ and the possible futures that he sees change, pointing toward God's involvement in the world.

Miriam, meanwhile, is wrestling too, both with the cultural difference between Saudi Arabia and the United States and between Islam and the Christianity that Seth is exploring.

All of these plots come to a fast-paced conclusion as Seth rescues Miriam from her husband-to-be's palace and God delivers them from a seemingly inescapable standoff.

Dekker wrestles with some interesting questions in an imaginative way, and that makes the book work. The biggest weakness is in the characters, who seem rather flat. All told, the book wasn't bad, and I'm going to dip into Dekker's work again.

Say…doesn’t this one seem familiar? And the answer is yes. After the success of the Circle Trilogy, Thomas Nelson immediately got to work reprinting Ted Dekker’s early novels. Most of these books just got a new cover, but Blink’s update was more than just cosmetic. The primary reason for this was because Dekker, along with editor Erin Healy, had adapted Blink into a screenplay called Blink of an Eye.

In what may be a good example of counting chickens before they’re hatched, Dekker reworked the novel to match the screenplay. The cover of Blink of an Eye even boasts “With New Content Based on the Upcoming Major Motion Picture.” And then there was no major motion picture. The book released in November 2007. The movie was slated for a release in 2008, but like a lot of sold screenplays, stuff happened and the movie was never made.

However, it wasn’t all for naught. Dekker’s attitude toward Islam and the Middle East shifted from the original writing of Blink in the early 00s and the rewrite to Blink of an Eye in 2007. The rewrite doesn’t paint all Islam as a stereotypical villain. Dekker has a better grasp of Islamic culture and religion. In the book’s afterword, he writes:

In many ways my overall attitude toward the Middle East has changed since 9/11 and that change is reflected in this rewrite. I think love is the order of the day, more so than some of the antagonism that slipped into the first version.

For that alone, the update is a good one and would later serve him well when Hachette purchased the rights and reprinted it in mass market paperback for a secular audience.

Blink of an Eye is best termed a philosophical thriller. The plot itself, though improved in this version, is still a fairly generic extended chase scene. It’s the philosophical underpinning that makes the novel stand out. Blink of an Eye is an exploration of what theologians call middle knowledge. Developed by Luis Molina and espoused by philosopher-theologians like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig, middle knowledge (also called Molinism) posits that God not only knows the future, but all possible futures. This provides a way of reconciling God’s absolute sovereignty with human free will.

Miriam Al-Asamm is a Saudi princess turned fugitive on the run. Forbidden from marrying her true love and instead forced into an arranged marriage with an older man, Miriam flees to the United States and finds herself in the company of super-genius Seth Border.

Seth isn’t an average genius. He’s got an IQ that would make Einstein blush and has no qualms about showing it. But then something begins to happen that’s even weird for him…he begins to see the future. And not just the future, but possible futures. When one of those futures is Miriam’s kidnapping, the two go on the run using Seth’s supernatural prognosticating to avoid capture.

Behind the scenes, the political machinations within the Saudi royalty are at work and a coup is imminent. Miriam is the missing piece that’s needed. Her marriage to a key figure will cement a partnership that’ll bring new power to the Saudi throne.

Then, underneath that all, is the book’s tagline: love changes everything. When all hope seems lost, will God answer prayer? Will he create a way where there was no way? Will his love change the future? It’s a Christian fiction novel, so you can pretty well guess the answer, but the journey made to that answer is thoughtful and poignant. I’m still a bit salty the church scene was cut in this version, but I’d still watch a movie based on it. Blink of an Eye is a worthy update to an early Dekker favorite.

This novel is an amazing wild ride. I loved every second. The author gave a fascinating look at a princess who runs to America. She doesn’t want to marry a man she despises. It is her duty and custom to marry her family has chosen. This author does a brilliant job of allowing the reader to get into the skin of a woman who has been veiled all of her life and is suddenly exposed for all the world to see. It’s freeing and terrifying to come out from behind the cloth. When the princess arrives in America she starts to run for her life. She finds someone to will help in her escape from her father’s clutches. There is an emotional transformation of this princess as she runs away from the men who want to take her back to the only home she has known.


This story is a very action packed, heart racing page turning novel; full of twists and turns. You will be up all night reading this great story and have a compassion for the women behind the cloth of their country..



Disclosure of Material Connection:
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”

Nora St Laurentt
TBCN Where Book Fun Begins www.bookfun.org
The Book Club Network blog www.psalm516.blogspot.com
Book Fun Magazine www.bookfunmagazine.com

I was going to give this 4 stars, but the final chapters of the book didn't have the same punch as the rest of it. I am fascinated, however, by the way Ted Dekker can alter his writing style when he switches genre's, and this book is definitely a good read with 'something for everyone," mystery, super-natural elements, foreign intrigue and romance.

So late in the game on this one. Gladwell as usual is amazing at the way he compellingly integrates scholarship and anecdote. We both make good decisions without much information AND make bad decisions based on too many preconceived ideas. Not sure what to do about that.

Every time I think to myself "You're not a writer, you could never make money at it", I should read a Ted Dekker book.

Romantic thriller. Actually I've read "Blink of an Eye" (newer version) and I love it how Ted Dekker uses FICTION to convey a message of love, faith, prayer, free will and omnipotence of God. The whole story is great! It is full of adventure and suspense with some paranormal aspects. A real page-turner!

I loved the characters and it’s different than other Christian fiction I’ve read. It seemed more science fiction which I will admit lost me a bit. My biggest issue was the instalove. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves and I would almost give them a pass since they were in very high stress situations but still… It would have better with a little less future changing every few minutes and having them spend more time together. It would have been more believable for me. It still wasn’t terrible and like I said, I loved Seth and Miriam. I listened to the audio and the narration was really good.