OnlineBookClub.org

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Sara's Soul" by Deanna Kahler.]

Sara’s Soul (The afterlife series book 2) by Deanna Kahler is a sequel to the book Echoes of Paradise. The novel focuses on Sara, a twenty year old woman in crisis. She is bombarded by gruesome visions of death that she cannot control. She decides that the only solution is suicide. Her plans get shaken up through divine intervention and a new love interest named Chip. Can Sara’s Soul be saved from purgatory through the love of guardian angels and God’s predestined plan for the lovebirds?

Deanna Kahler tries to label this book as Paranormal Romance. The story fits more within the scope of the Christian Romance. Kahler focuses heavily on Christian constructs such as; guardian angels, heaven, purgatory, missions from God, Catholicism, and explorations of destiny over free will. While there are paranormal elements, the focus is mainly on Catholicism. The misleading genre label creates a frustrating reading experience. For this novel to be a Paranormal Romance it needs to combine Romantic Fiction with an element from Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror. Examples would include Beauty and the Beast, The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, and The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris.

From the moment of Sara’s introduction Kahler’s ignorance in regard to mental health is apparent. Kahler tells the reader multiple times that Sara is depressed and cannot see a point to living with her death visions, yet her actions are not of a clinically depressed suicidal person. For example, She is able to get ready for a date with Chip and cook a meal from scratch all within an hour. I find both activities to be questionable. Sara’s entire evening preparation seems easy and not marred by any real struggles a depressed person would face in similar situations.

Peripheral details such as Chip being a psychiatrist are mishandled and only add to the characters when convenient. Chip behaves extremely irresponsibly for a mental health practitioner. For example, when he learns of Sara’s mental state and her attempted suicides, his solution is to take Sara camping instead of getting her professional help. Kahler is being negligent by incorrectly representing the best practices and safety procedures for a depressed and suicidal individual. I am appalled that at one point she suggests that love cures depression and marriage stops a person from their desire to commit suicide. This is misinformation at its worst. One cannot simply love away a medical condition such as clinical depression.

Throughout the novel there is no genuine growth by either Chip or Sara. The characters are static with no real depth or originality of thought. The novel uses a lot of clichés and relies heavily on a God construct that is already very familiar. Kahler wastes opportunities to give Sara more complexity by not taking the time to define Sara’s abilities. The reader is left with many unanswered questions especially regarding the details of Sara’s gift such as, when it began and how it works. It seems unbelievable that Sara has not developed any sort of coping mechanism to deal with her visions, or seek help by trying to learn more about her visions. Sara’s character feels lazily constructed.

Even the romance portion of this novel feels rushed and not completely thought through. When Sara and Chip first meet, he pry’s into her inner most feelings and thoughts. I felt like I was being rushed through the most exciting phase in a relationship, the first bloom. I was deprived of the trust building phase and time to allow a natural flow of intimacy to develop. Kahler’s own personal views about the afterlife and God overshadow the romantic relationship.

Kahler’s dialog also suffers from lack of characters with distinct personalities. It is hard to distinguish who is speaking when. The same language and similar speech patterns are used for all characters. There is an excessive use of exclamation points in nearly all of her dialogue, it feels like the characters are constantly in a shouting match. The result made it hard to take anything said seriously.

The book is riddled with inconsistency. The narrator suddenly switches to Chips point of view about a third of the way through the book without any warning. The stars seem to be a large part of the beginning of the book and then abandoned half way through. Sara’s abilities in the beginning of the book are loosely covered but they seem mercurial and constantly changing without rhyme or reason. It is very confusing.

I rate this book 1 out of 4 stars. The book is not original, it is mislabeled as paranormal fiction, handles mental health irresponsibly, suffers from flat characters and cheesy dialog. In addition, lack of fully realized characters, disorganized ideas and a cluttered story line make this book a convoluted read.

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Sara's Soul
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Like bluemel4's review? Post a comment saying so!

I liked your review. Something about this book just rubs me the wrong way. I found a quote from it in another online review:

"Sara clutched the bottle of pills in her left hand, tears streaming down her face. The pain, the sadness, the despair-- they were all too much for her. She had reached her breaking point. She knew that better days had once existed, but they seemed so far away now. All she could see were the many haunting images of suffering and death that plagued her mind like a disease. Death had always followed Sara since she was a child. She tried to escape it, but it gripped her tight. No matter how hard she fought, she could not free herself from its iron-tight clutches. Death was all there was for her. And what better way to beat death than to join it? Then she would finally be free. Five years had passed since that horrid day, the day her mother had died, when Sara was just fifteen years old. To her, it felt like yesterday."

I don't know what it is. I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it seems to be glorifying suicide. Am I right?

I really liked your point about the portrayal of being depressed/suicidal. Get ready for date: check. Cook a good meal: check. Throw my life away: check. I found it to be an insightful and valid review. I'm having a hard time understanding the 5-star rating on amazon.

Thank you! This is my first review so it is always nice to hear feedback. I am not sure if it is the glorification of suicide so much as a complete misunderstanding of what goes on in someone's mind once they are ready to take that step. I think it may be the heavy handed way the author handled the passage you sited. Kahler is not letting the reader feel Sara's pain but telling us about it. You know the old saying "show don't tell." The author does a lot of telling.

I also put a link to my review on amazon and gave it one star. I think that either the 5 star ratings are a result of people that the author knew giving reviews.

You're welcome!

I agree about the Amazon reviews, because one reviewer listed all this stuff he knows about the author personally! (Geez. At least try to make it less obvious.)

Yep, I think you articulated what I didn't like about that scene. The show vs. tell concept is hard for me to grasp intellectually, for some reason, but that's probably it.

Nice, insightful review. I can relate to your frustration. I read a book recently where it was difficult to tell which character was speaking. It was annoying because I had to frequently reread pieces of dialogue to figure it out.

Thanks bookowlie. I cannot imagine reading a book that did not have clearly labelled dialogue. This book pushed a lot of my buttons. As a trained, but not practicing Counselor it was difficult to read something so misleading to people that may not already understand major clinical depression or suicidal thinking.