The Reviewer is Stefan Vucak (3 stars). Here is her unedited
review:
“With
her mother divorced, foster father away and after a series of troubled
experiences at school, Shale Snyder encounters a strange white dog who leads
her through a portal into another dimension. In a strange kaleidoscopic world,
she meets a talking donkey and a rabbit. Descending into a village, Shale is
told that her real father is a powerful Roman official and she is transported
2000 years into the past. Always busy, her father doesn’t have much time for
her, working to suppress an uprising in Jerusalem. Her foster mother is jealous
of her, banishing a boy Shale was friends with, but ends up getting her
comeuppance. Shale joins with the king, discovers God and returns to her own
reality.
I liked the start to "Seventh Dimension". Lorilyn Roberts portrays
Shale as a real person with real problems, and I was waiting to see how her
life would develop. When she slips into another dimension and encounters
talking animals with which she can converse, the story loses much of its appeal
as the discourse with them often doesn’t have much relevance to anything. Shale
is searching for something and I thought it was family and fatherly love. When
she observes the ‘king’ being tempted by the devil with its allegorical
reference to Christ’s life, the book turns into a twisted bible story and
everything becomes predictable. Lorilyn Roberts has allowed her imagination to
soar with the "Seventh Dimension", invoking haunting images of magic
and childish delight. Her writing is evocative and the dialogue crisp, making
it a pleasure to read. As a religious fairytale with magic thrown in, the book
will have a big audience, especially young readers.”
Here are my comments from Ms. Vucak’s
review which I hope readers will find evocative. I welcome the opportunity to
expound on some of the issues this reviewer raises. Be aware, that if you have not
read Seventh Dimension – The Door,
you might find this a spoiler.
Thank you for reviewing my book Seventh Dimension - The Door.
First, there are some important
factual errors that are important in understanding the theme of Seventh Dimension – The Door.
Shale’s foster father was not away. In
fact, there was no foster father at all. Shale was “abandoned” by her birth
father when she was young. He left Shale’s mother penniless. Shale and her
mother were forced to live with strangers for years and the young girl Shale lived with when the story begins was a bully and hated her.
Two years later, after the “accident,” Shale's mother remarried. The man she married became her stepfather,
though he had not adopted her.
This is important, and crucial to the story because the theme of the book is: You are a daughter of
the king.
I bring this up also because Shale's
family was not “fixable” until something significant happened - mainly until Shale changed. This happened when she went back in time into the
Seventh Dimension where she was forced to confront her own demons, her
dysfunctional family, the father who left her, the boy who molested her, her
wicked stepmother, her brother who needed healing, as well as meeting a young
man from her future, and a powerful king.
You missed another very important
point. Here is a quote from your review: “When she slips into another dimension
and encounters talking animals with which she can converse, the story loses
much of its appeal as the discourse with them often doesn’t have much relevance
to anything.”
The animals are important. First,
they represent parts of Shale’s personality – fearful, insecure, bossy, and yet
pristine with a kind heart. Can you identify which animals these were? Worldly
Crow was the betrayer – how you could think the animals have no relevance is
strange to me.
The animals move the plot forward:
The dog, in the beginning, spelled backward is symbolic of God reaching down
and drawing her into His world. When we have a spiritual encounter, we enter
into another world. I called it the seventh dimension. The animals introduced
her to the King – her eternal heavenly father. The animals accepted her
unconditionally and had faith in her. Shale gained strength from them and grew
in maturity as she cared for them. She learned to put their needs ahead of her
own. In the beginning, Shale was really very selfish and self-absorbed, as are
all young adults who have been abused. It’s a matter of self-preservation.
I could say more about this. There
is a lot of symbolism – the bird in the garden was the first to tell her she
was a daughter of the king – like a prophetic foreshadowing. In the end, the
king set the bird free, allegorical of Shale being set free.
Shale learned obedience through
suffering, through imprisonment in her private quarters. You will remember
toward the end, she locked herself in the room willingly. Obedience is part of
the Christian life.
You made this statement in your
review: “Shale is searching for something and I thought it was family and
fatherly love. When she observes the ‘king’ being tempted by the devil with its
allegorical reference to Christ’s life, the book turns into a twisted bible
story and everything becomes predictable.”
Sadly, many kids will never receive
love from their families. They will receive judgment and conditional love. Conditional
love comes in many forms.
To be honest, I would be hard-pressed to believe you could have known what would happen from the temptation in
the wilderness until the end of the book. If you did know, you are a genius and
you should be able to make some big bucks with that kind of intelligence. My utmost
respect for you if that is true.
The biggest issue for Shale was she
had to learn forgiveness to be able to receive the king’s unconditional love.
When she returned home, she brought the rock into the house and took it up to
her room, even though her mother didn’t understand. Shale at that point had
enough self-worth to overcome her mother’s lack of understanding and begin
anew. She was no longer bound by other people’s opinion of her. The word Ebenezer
means “new beginnings.”
I get the impression, though I may
be wrong, that you are not a Christian and do not understand the power of this
story in Biblical terms. The message here for kids is one of hope – that you
can rise above your circumstances and your difficult family situation and
succeed in life, but you don’t have to do it all on your own. In fact, you can’t in human terms do it all on your own. The king of kings will help you. Shale
entered into a search for answers and she found a Savior. She realized who her
father was—a king who would never leave her or forsake her.
I hope my extensive comments here
will help you to see this is more than just a story – it’s my life told in
fable and allegory. I was Shale Snyder, and this is my testimony with lots of
creative storytelling. And I will leave it to the reader to wonder which is
true and which is fiction.
