Doon

I had two whole weeks to explore this magical kingdom and convince the people of Doon we weren’t witches. Fourteen days to try to find out why Jamie MacCrae had been visiting me in the modern world, and why he now looked at me like I might pull out an AK-47 and go Call of Duty on his beloved people. Three hundred and thirty-six hours to prove to my handsome prince that I wasn’t evil incarnate. Suddenly, two weeks didn’t seem like nearly enough time.

Book: Doon (A Doon Novel) by Carey Corp and Lori Langdon, Blink (Zondervan Publishers), 2013

Genre: Fantasy/Supernatural

Target Audience: Girls 16+

Subjects: Magic, Witchcraft, Prayer, Dating Relationships, Friendship, Family Relationships

Summary: Vee knows it’s real. Somewhere deep inside she has no doubt that the legend of Doon is true. And so dragging her best friend Kenna with her, she crosses over the bridge wearing the rings left to Kenna by her aunt. Finding themselves in this magical land isn’t exactly all she had hoped for though. It turns out that the boy of her dreams is actually prince and very soon to be king of Doon, and worse still, wears a mantle of heavy responsibility for his entire kingdom, a mantle so heavy he will not let himself take a risk on love. Kenna on the other hand has no problem getting a guy. The prince’s brother happens to be quite in love with her and makes no secret of it. But she’s not convinced her future is in Doon – she has big dreams and has just achieved key steps towards those dreams back in America. And then there’s the whole issue of most of the kingdom thinking the girls are witches since they showed up right when other things started to go wrong. Two weeks is all the girls get before the bridge to the rest of the world opens back up and they must decide to stay or go forever.

Notes: Doon is a new spin-off on the legend of Brigadoon or Bridge ‘o Doon, the story that a village in Scotland, in an attempt to fight off the evil influence from the rest of the world, prayed and was blessed with the ability to disappear into the mist and only make contact with the world every hundred years. In this story, characters can come and go from Brigadoon during that time as well as any time if they are wearing one of two magical rings. This story is very focused on the romance aspects. Both girls have just graduated from high school, both come from broken or at least single-parent homes and are looking to control their own destinies. Doon is a world that encourages the exact opposite. They have a strong belief in magic and destiny and some form of ultimate-being. The spiritual elements are hinted at all throughout this book. The two girls wonder and doubt and consider the possibility of the power of prayer and how much God is or should be involved in their lives. One of the people in Doon explains their views that the civilization’s “Creator” or “Protector” is outside the laws of nature and does amazing things that for lack of a better understanding, people call “magic”. Everyone in Doon attends church and to the girls, the princes seem to hold a strong faith. Kenna assumes God would be willing to cry over the death of one person because he is such a good person. But the book is careful to not make anything too clear. They never outright say that God is the “Protector” of Doon or that putting one’s trust in Him for salvation is necessary. The “Protector” is a benevolent, powerful being, but not necessarily involved in their day to day lives at all, more just there for emergencies.
Also, the characters show very little conviction that sex should be reserved for marriage. The girls outright discuss if/who they have/should have sex with in the beginning. Then in Doon, Vee comes very close to having sex with the prince. What stops her isn’t a belief that it should be reserved for marriage, but a conviction that she isn’t the one he should love. Yet the very next morning she teases and tempts him to try again.

Overall, this is an entertaining story, but there isn’t much of spiritual value in it. Everything is just left in vague, unclear terms, leaving the reader to just form their own opinions rather than presenting the Scripture.

Spiritual Content Recommendation Scale: 1/5

Reviewer: J:-)mi

James 4:13-17 – Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.