There’s something rotten on the Island of Mirror, and Adeline Rye is ready to rock the boat. When she begins to question the increasingly harsher laws, and the punishments inflicted upon those who break them, she and her two best friends attract the wrong kind of attention. Even her father’s high position can’t protect her forever. With the help of Cayde—a boy only she can see—and the guidance of a mysterious stranger who speaks of a God who sees her, Adeline risks everything to begin to peel back the layers hiding the island’s sinister real purpose.

Fans of dystopian sci-fi fantasy may enjoy this chilling twist on biblical history. Loosely inspired by the kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament, The Divided Kingdom centers around two futuristic island cultures sprung from the same tragic history, and how their embrace or rejection of the faith that bore them influenced who they became. The fantasy elements are miraculous, as opposed to magical, and many of the things Adeline rediscovers will be familiar to Catholics and Protestants alike. Young adults and mature high school aged readers will best appreciate the more mature themes. 

Adeline lives in a post-Christian dystopian culture—perhaps even post-apocalyptic—where order and efficiency dictate the actions of every person within the walled city. “The Originator” is the higher power appealed to by those who enforce the ever more stringent laws, but Adeline sees a disconnect between the merciful love her mother attributed to God and the “mercy” her father exacts via brutal punishments in the name of The Originator. The way of life she grew up with no longer seems to make sense, and as she begins to ask questions and push boundaries, the risks Adeline takes finally tip her rigid but peaceful life past the point of no return. 

One of the main premises of the book is a big “what if” question: “What if a Christian culture forgot its Christianity?” Mirror is a bleak example of how far a people can fall when religion becomes a method of law enforcement as opposed to genuine worship. Though there are certain similarities to the religious rigorism of the scriptural Pharisees, Ramirez departs from any real parallels fairly quickly. Mirror is not a criticism of religion, but rather a cautionary fantasy depicting what might happen when serving the rules becomes more important than serving the Lord, and people rely more on man to save them than God.

Another significant theme is the conflict between utilitarian efficiency and what Catholics would call “holy leisure” and the arts. Ramirez explores the role of beauty in the wellbeing of the human person, and paints an interesting picture of what happens when the arts are discarded. Sadly, this is not such a foreign concept in our modern society, where budgets for the arts are more and more often being cut in schools in favor of more “practical” subjects, and creatives find it difficult to make a living using their gifts. Ramirez illustrates what philosophers and theologians have long purported, that beauty and creativity are signposts pointing toward the divine.

One of the most intriguing parts of the story revolves around Cayde, the mysterious boy whose encounter with Adeline is life-changing for both of them. As more of his story is revealed, the intrigue only grows, and it becomes clear that both he and Adeline are more connected to the island’s history than they know. I can say no more without revealing some huge spoilers, but suffice it to say that his character introduces one of the biggest plot twists of the book. I’d pick up book two just to find out where that twist leads.

Though The Divided Kingdom does not contain any real gore, the severe punishments meted out might be too much for some readers. The story also deals with mature themes, such as corporal punishment, euthanasia, reproductive laws, forced contraception, sterilizations, surrogacy, artificial insemination, and selective births. 

Adeline does read younger than her twenty-two years, which may affect a reader’s suspension of disbelief, and the whimsy of the first chapter contrasts significantly with the darker and heavier tone of much of the rest of the book. That said, Ramirez has created an imaginative amalgam of dystopian sci-fi and post-Christian apocalyptic fantasy that seeks to show that God is not absent or idle, even where He has been forgotten.