Frank Peretti's The Oath Book Review

I’ve done it, the thing I told myself I wouldn’t.

I guess that’s the way with peer pressure, or more correctly, sibling pressure, but I’ve taken the dive into the Christian supernatural/horror genre, the genre I told myself I wouldn’t ever read. I mean, who likes reading about scary situations where the realm of angels and demons are laid open to the eyes, or at least, influencing the characters in less than subtle ways.

I carried the idea that these novels held uninteresting characters. After all, wasn’t the whole point in their being scared out of their wits? There’s hardly time to develop a lovable hero when he or she is running for their lives the entire time.

So when I ventured from my usual sphere to read Prophet by Frank Peretti, I questioned whether this was one of those creepy supernatural stories of his. I was reassured it wasn’t, and I started reading. While there weren’t any of those elements, the main character would experience something like hallucinations, prompting the accusation that I had been lied to.

Well, turns out that by most standards, Prophet was rather tame and un-supernatural, and I did end up enjoying it. It was surprising that being originally published in 1992, the subjects were modern and still very applicable today. But that’s a post for another time.

As you may have already deduced, I am a follower and not a leader (though hardly a pushover, so don’t even think about trying it). So when my younger sister read Peretti’s Monster and raved about it, the tidbits of the scenario and characters she shared began to intrigue me. You mean, this novel was set in the beautiful, forested mountains of Idaho instead of a gloomy, haunted house? And the hero and heroine were actually relatable, engaging, and at times, humorous?

This interested me more and more until I gave in, taking up the gauntlet. To cram paragraph after paragraph of praise into one sentence: I loved it. And then I too joined my sister’s exclamations of adoration. Monster was nothing like I’d imagined it to be, and more importantly, I came away with a valuable lesson in story-telling that I realized my own writing needed. Here was a deeper purpose and calling to my craft, and ironically, I found it in a thriller.

But it wasn’t over.

Seeking the next thrill, my sister latched onto another of Frank Peretti’s, The Oath. This one sounded weirder, leaning more onto the supernatural scale like all those I wanted to avoid. But again she liked it, perhaps not with the complete zeal of Monster, but enough for her to perpetually hound me to transfer it to the top of my extensive To-Be-Read list. She talked some about the hero of the story, developing a curiosity inside of me for this character named Steve Benson.

After two books, I had a clearer understanding of what to expect from Peretti, so I was willing to give it a try on this basis along with my sister’s recommendation.

Ready to hear what I thought about it?

It was weird. I mean, really weird and gross, but not in the horrifying aspect, just out-and-out eww at times. But that isn’t to say it turned me off, it was actually amusing, which sounds crazy without any context.

Set again in the enchanting mountains of the Northwest, this story focuses on the backwoods folk of an old mining town. There were many elements of humor woven throughout, especially with the rustic lifestyle of the townspeople, but even the hero, a hunter and professor of environmental science and biology, Steve Benson, has his quirks, not to mention the downright comical idiosyncrasies of Peretti’s writing alone. Ah, to write like this literary giant! I can dream, can’t I?

Near the beginning I was saying to myself, “The villain is delving into the occult, just what I dislike,” but I fastened my belt, determined to see it through. Not to spoil anything, but it didn’t follow exactly along those lines as I have heard his other ones such as This Present Darkness or Piercing the Darkness do.

There was a great deal of the fantasy/allegorical features to the story, reminiscent of C. S. Lewis, but perhaps a little more gritty with some of the descriptions than would be appropriate for a child audience as Lewis’s was directed toward. It didn’t disturb me, which goes to show I do a lot of fussing with little grounds for it. As I stated in a previous post, I’m a sucker for allegories, and while I won’t go into detail and spoil it for you, this had to be the most enticing element of the novel.

In an irregular approach, Steve Benson shifted into an anti-hero near the middle of the book, and at one point I was even willing for him to die, going “Hah! You’re going to get it now!” This kept in line with the development of the character, though, and satisfactorily resolved so that I was once again cheering him on by the apex.

Culminating into a lengthy, suspenseful climax, you begin to wonder if Benson will ever succeed in living through the ordeal, but oh, the sweet terror keeps you turning pages all the way to the conclusion. I liked that while he was continually on the run, he relentlessly plotted and worked out his plan with almost an uncanny but nonetheless natural fearlessness to the hunter on his heels.

The Oath evoked in me a strange mixture of feelings, perhaps due to the subject matter being so heavy. On the whole, I enjoyed it, while certain features left me with a less than hundred percent fondness for the story. The underlying message, just as in Monster, continues to inspire me, so I would recommend it nevertheless.

Who knows what I will be wrangled into reading next, but no one can accuse me of being close-minded in my literary pursuits.

Have you read The Oath or appreciate a good Peretti novel? Or have I aroused your curiosity enough to read it for the first time? Let’s talk in the comments below!

~Alissa