So the main character of this book Amelia is a teenager upset with her super-rich mummy because she blew $85,000 on a gown she wanted her to wear to a ball.
Why upset? Because she wished mom would have spent $85,000 helping children dying of AIDS in Africa? Or rebuilding homes for the earthquake devastated people of Haiti? No! She’s upset because her parents “don’t understand her.” Wearing an $85,000 frock to a fancy ball is “just not me,” Amelia moans.
Her real passion is dancing!
Her love interest, Matthew, also has the terrible burden of parents he describes as “extremely wealthy.” The misery!
This is a problem because his cash-bloated parents expect him to excel in academics and sports. But poor Matthew also “feels misunderstood.” He could care less about sports – what he really wants to do is take tap dancing lessons – but he fears his controlling parents will force feed him Ritalin and crush his offbeat, wacky desires.
So right out of the gate I think we have established that Amelia is not exactly Mother Teresa and Matthew sure ain’t Gandhi.
But the real fun starts when Amelia and Matthew get lost on a school hiking trip and they both croak from hypothermia.
Upon their deaths from exposure, they don’t really die but are launched into a parallel-worlds kind of afterlife – where Amelia finds super incredible amounts of love, love, LOVE!!!!
She learns that she and Matthew have loved each other through countless lifetimes, and not just any love – they are “radiantly in love!” “shining with golden love!” their souls are “shattered with exploding love!” and, and … well, they were just SO DARNED IN LOVE ALL THE TIME AND FOR ALL ETERNITY!
To give credit where it's due, this is actually a well written book, even beautifully written, when isolating the prose itself from the overall shallowness of the content. This author has flat-out talent with words. She paints gorgeous imagery of achingly lovely worlds glittering with golden sunshine and green grass strewn with multicolored wildflowers – you know, like the Teletubby planet, but even more glorious.
The bottom line is that Parallel Worlds is massive teenage narcissism in full saccharine bloom, replete with every conceivable cliché of the New Age and simplistic quantum ka-ka trotted out to form an idealistic vision of naïve love that can save us all, save the world – love that is powerful, eternal and lasting forever.
I eagerly look forward to the day when the author matures, and lives some of the genuine grit, dirt and heartache of life so that she can turn her extraordinary talent with words to the task of writing something that is real, deep, edgy and meaningful.
This book is FREE on Amazon.com as a Kindle selection here: PARALLEL WORLDS BY HEATHER MACAULEY NOELL
SEE: KEN KORCZAK ON AMAZON.COM
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