To read or not to read . . . good grief!

I have a mentally painful dilemma with which to deal. Having just finished my twenty-first Dekker book, I have to wonder if the mental challenges I face after each book really make his books worth reading. Let me present the argument in my mind.

The book I just finished is Infidel, the second of The Lost Books. Since I finished, my mind has been in a craze to find out what happens next. Thankfully, I only have to wait till May . . . since I only found Infidel this weekend after four months of searching for it. Let me first make it known that none of this is a question of Dekker's writing ability--even those that don't always like Dekker (hard to believe those kind of people exist) would say his writing ability is phenomenal. The way he tells the story draws you in as if you're watching it unfold before your very eyes, the characters completely unaware of your presense. Speaking of characters, he does a great job there too, well developed and believable.

The themes of his writings are certainly ones that we all need to think about. All of his books seem have one consistant theme, the battle between good and evil. Evil comes in many forms, and he shows that well in his stories: the Horde, Black, Braun, or the core of our very selves.

There is only one thing that I don't know what to do with. It's the fact that the ending usually has me wanting to do a mixture of two things: To thank Ted for the fantastic writing that had me turning pages all the way to the end, or to hit Ted over the head with his own books for leaving me hanging and filled with questions!

I mean, good grief! Could you leave me in more suspense? He just disappears! So now my mind rages in wonder . . . Where did he go? To what other books does this book connect? Is she really the one that I read about in the sample in the back of Adam??

So to read or not to read?

Well, if I do read, I'll just repeat this crazy cycle again. If I don't read, I will be left wondering!

I say READ!