The Unspoken by Thomas Fahy

Five years ago a cult known as the Divine Path controlled the lives of six teens. In order to escape from its grip, the teens killed Jacob, the leader in a fire that also took their parents, who had been drugged by Jacob beforehand. Before all that happened, though, a prophecy had been spoken that in five year's time the six teens would be destroyed by their fears and the Chosen Ones would return. Now, five years later, one teen ends up mysteriously dead - drowned in a tobacco field. The other teens reunite for the funeral, wondering if the prophesy really was true or if it was just a weird accident. Haunted by the past and the realization that they are dying off one by one, the teens, particularly Allison, struggle to beat the power of the Divine Path and survive.

This novel was good up until the end. The ending leaves you hanging. Some of the remaining five beat death, but are left with the threat of the year not being over, therefore meaning they still have a certain number of days to die. There's also the fact that the killer may or may not actually be dead. To me the ending felt like a cop-out. Sure there's the cliff-hanger excitement but it really just felt as though the author couldn't come up with a convincing ending so he just left it. I could understand if there's a sequel in the works, but there's no To Be Continued, just a feeling as though everything will be okay. I might believe that if there were an Epilogue of five years later, but no. It wasn't convincing; the book ended too soon. The bad thing about it is that he could have very easily just left the killer for dead and have them live happily ever after, if that's what he was going for. He had to have the killer's fate and that of the victims all mysterious and threatening, but it feels like an empty threat because nothing else happens. I don't know the author's intentions, but ending it with a feeling that everything will be okay seems like the easy way out when he's left too many things hanging.

Another thing that bothered me about the book was that some aspects were hard to believe. When the truth about Jacob is revealed, everything that happened seem too magical to be real. I'm left wondering if this novel is supposed to be believable, like this could really happen, or if it is supposed to have an element of fantasy to it. At first I was under the impression that it could happen, but the more I think about it, the more I disagree. The events from "The Confessional" aren't completely believable, as are certain character's death, especially when no explanation is offered. Again, I feel as though this author created this world and ran out if ideas so he just gave up and ended it without typing up the loose ends.

This novel started off being interested and it drew me in. I really wondered about the fate of the characters and wanted to know the truth. The main problem is that too many things are left unresolved. Give the book an Epilogue and it probably would be a little more satisfying.
MMK