The Springfields are a family of investigators—Dad, Mom, and twin siblings Elijah and Elisha—for the Veritas Project, which seeks to find the truth behind strange mysteries and crimes when others are unable or unwilling to see past the surface. When a teenage boy shows up on a highway in Idaho with no idea who he is or why he's there and can only answer questions with "I don't know," the Springfields are brought in to investigate. Elijah and Elisha go undercover and are soon enough caught up in a world with no absolutes and no way to escape.

For as much as I liked the previous book in this series, I like this one even more. I always have, I'm pretty sure, since I read these several times soon after they came out in the early 2000s. While the warning presented within this book might seem extreme to some, I think it's an insightful look at what happens to society when truth is left up to the individual. When one rejects God and the Bible, upon what foundations can "right" and "wrong" be based? Only one's own feelings, beliefs, assumptions, desires, etc. And when that person's version of right and wrong clashes with someone else's, who wins? That is what this book examines in a somewhat true-to-life setting. Though some of the mechanics involved in the book are certainly beyond what technology can do these days, the study of "what if" is again the focus in this book, like it was in the previous.

If you read this book and don't see any parallels to what is going on in real life, you might not be paying very close attention. I know this approach isn't for everyone, but I do truly believe that the only truth that can really be known is found in the Bible, and the more we get away from that, the more dangerous it can be. Peretti has a way of cutting to the heart of things that I have always loved, and I really wish he had written more in this series. I highly recommend this book to all fans of Christian thrillers, whether you're a teenager or adult. ( )

I wasn't expecting a Sherlock Holmes level mystery solving book and I definitely think that that drove me off a little bit. Sherlock Holmes and Jesus is definitely not my usual book breakfast either.

Don't get me wrong, the schooling system is atrocious, but not for any of the reasons actually in this book. Like does this actually address the fact that teachers are neglectful and don't pay attention to students? Not really. Does this address the teacher on student abuse and how teachers often mistreat or even groom kids? Not really.
Does this book address that special education and special education students are regularly trapped in rooms, beaten, or locked up, or even tied up for entire School days? Absolutely not none of the actual things that happen in public schools are addressed.
This is a very simple propaganda book that tells you basically public schools are bad, Christian (private) schools are good. But it doesn't use anything that we know of public schools. Not even going as far as to be unbiased and say homeschooling can lead to abuse, or anything else. It's not even humble enough to tell you that some Christian private schools and Christian public schools have equal to more incidents that go unreported. This is pure Frank's bias.

This man does not know what actually makes a school system bad or that the neglecting teachers and stuff are to be focused on. It has slightly that oh teachers are evil kind of energy, but it doesn't go anywhere with that. And even when it does, yes it does, it's full ham and nothing near any case he could have lifted off of.

Frank doesn't understand communism or capitalism or how to tell the difference between the two of them, but thanks capitalism is good. That's an entire section of the book. Don't give in to Communism but give in to consumerism.

"There's no winning or losing, this is just a game of basketball." This is supposed to be liberal propaganda, where it's supposed to make the liberals look bad, but basketball is just a game, especially practice basketball. So it went right over my head what the purpose of this was because yes? Basketball is just a game and who wins and who loses doesn't actually truly matter. Am I supposed to be mad that participation trophies exist and that it doesn't really matter who wins and who loses because no matter what ninety percent of the team will not get a trophy only the first person and the second and the third?

There are actual games of basketball where there are no winners or losers, you just shoot hoops. This scene alone had me dissecting it too deep, it's not objective morality, it's literally a bad comparison.

The teacher offers to let the students pick their names and because Frank cannot understand LGBT or dead names, he has a character who changes her name every day and we're supposed to be bothered by this character even though I have no problem with a character changing their name. I've read so many books where characters have five different nicknames and we cannot commit to them. This is a staple of most literature in real life I have five different nicknames and it's okay because different people can call me different things. Frank, trans people are not a threat to you. In fact my great grandpa was called by his nickname and never his actual real name. This guy was not a trans person he was just my great grandpa.

You can change your name at any point during your life, and changing your name doesn't automatically equal changing your gender. I knew immediately what he was going for but it's not the same thing. I changed my name at a young age because I hated my name and I was named after something stupid. That doesn't mean anything. One of my best friends changed their name to a nickname they liked more. They weren't trans.

"Was the walkman really yours? If nobody owns anything, is it really stealing?" This isn't how Communism works.

People still have their own possessions and communism, it's just a lot of things are more public and available to everyone. This reminds me oddly of when a republican told me that Canada was Communist because it had free healthcare. And obviously if everybody can access the healthcare it's communism. Anything that isn't America is obviously a threat in this situation because if it's an outside system of working people make it into this big scare. And this book is no exception, it's trying to make it into a big scare.

Robbie Zachariah quotes are in here and that makes me unhappy. Nothing like including a '''Christian man''' who regularly molested massage therapist and died before you could get any comeuppance into your book.

This book loves to say "relative truth" but this truth can't correlate to science, physics, anything that isn't in the bible. The truth is whatever the Bible says and everything else is not relative truth in this book. So if anybody else is believing otherwise to this Christian belief or faith they are not correct and this book is saying that.

"The little Hispanic from the volleyball team". Um.

You can't just refer to people as the little hispanic, the brown girl, all of those things because that is so icky to read. Not only is it clunky, it reads very harsh and judgmental. To say "the little Hispanic girl" sounds racist and like you're looking down on them.

Global = bad. One Earth Society says so.

I couldn't understand because most of the time I was imagining the teacher who said that winning didn't matter and all of that as the cloud guy from Amazing World of Gumball. I mean what else am I supposed to imagine him as? This story is so ridiculous it doesn't really fit in a real world setting. It's a Wayside School Is Falling Down. But broken and corrupt. It's all corrupt.

This is the stuff that teaches us that slavery is okay because some of the slaves turned to Christ and became religious. But these are also the religions that tell us because somebody has melanin in their skin that that's a representation of their sin forming in their own flesh. It's a terrible racist pile of filth.

"Every six seconds" don't you dare.
"Sixes began appearing" no thank you.

The number of the beast is assumed to be 666, but we've had multiple people break down why that wouldn't be it. It's basically the same thing as the pentagram is a sign against God when it's not, I don't know why people don't research deeper into this. The Jesus fish a lot of people put on their cars is actually a symbol of a vagina. These are simple Google searches people can do.

"What we've learned here will live on and movies, and videos, and books" except then he says the world will end but if the world ends, the chances of any of that surviving is exponentially low. Literally if you are doing all of this to live on forever, you want to ensure that your stuff will be preserved and you won't have it destroyed, so if the world is going to end, then chances are your stuff is going to be destroyed.

Boy I can't wait to find out what the secret combination is, what do you mean at 666, what do you mean this author is that generic? I guess he just doesn't know what he's doing. Weird.

It's such an obvious combination that honestly when I realized it was that I was mad that I hoped against everything that it wouldn't be that. It was probably the massive amount of 666 that made this go from a two star to a one-star to half a star. Because I could have handled all of this propaganda just fine and fiction but the idea that they don't do any research and build this up more definitely killed that star.

It's even more confusing because I don't get the point of this book, the story wasn't good, the characters weren't good, what was I supposed to take away with from this book?

0.5 stars. ( )

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Peretti never fails to capture my attention in his books. In a place where there is no rules, Elisha and Elijah are definitely pushed to their limits. "Where there is no knowledge, there is no truth."The government has an undercover project to test learning environments and how the children learn and respond. They attempt to brainwash kids into believing whatever they say. They have a new program every year and to make sure no one finds out, they abolish the 'camp' sites after the summer. In the recent program they get homeless 'volunteers'. In these camps the teachers are strict, the kids loose the sense of right and wrong, and it is up to the undercover agents to figure out why.

I got a tad confused at times, but in the end everything fits together. I loved how the kids at the camp learned to start their own 'government', it really shows that, without rules, everyone runs a muck. ( )

Elijah and his sister go undercover to investigate a mysterious school that is sheltering runaway teenagers for a sinister purpose.