Book Review: The Door Within

Summary: There is an unseen world of good and evil where nightmares are fought and hope is reborn. Enter The Door Within. 
 Aidan Thomas is miserable. Within two weeks, Aidan’s life is completely uprooted as his parents move the family across the country to care for his ailing grandfather. The quiet but imaginative Aidan is struggling with attending a new school and fitting in with a new group of friends. But when he begins having nightmares and eerie events occur around his neighborhood, Aidan finds himself drawn to his grandfather's basement—where he discovers three ancient scrolls and a mysterious invitation to another world.
 No longer confined to the realm of his own imagination, Aidan embarks on an adventure where he discovers a long-fought war between good and evil. With the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance, Aidan faces Paragory, the eternal enemy with unfathomable power. Will Aidan be willing to risk everything and trust the unseen hand of the one true King?

Thoughts: I know this is something of a classic in Christian fantasy, and I hope I'm not going to offend a lot of people when I say this, but I really did not like this book. From hardcore allegory, unbelievable feats, and misuse of myths (the building blocks of fantasy! Respect them!) to 2d characters, a predictable plot and too many too used tropes. I don't mind obvious cliches when handled well, after all pretty much nothing written is 'new' it was all done before. As authors we just have to find new ways of using these tropes. But this was all trope. Useless kid suffering from reality finds what he's looking for in a magical land. You could get pretty much all of it from Narnia and The Neverending Story with much better writing, characters, and in between plot. (Deep breath) Ok, I'm not trying to bash the book or anything, I just really didn't like it. I do think this would probably appeal to young boys (there's a teensy bit of crude humor that might not be so entertaining for girls). I was bored but a younger audience who hasn't already seen/read these tropes a million times and are not familiar with the proper tales of mythical creatures (they use unicorns for plain old horse work!) might find some appeal to this story.

Content: A mild bit of watered-down violence during a battle scene and one time when Aiden's pants fall off in front of several people. Aside from that, perfectly clean.