Most of this book is very “this worldly”, but the plot does have a key aspect of it that falls a bit into the mysterious and magical category. And it is here that we find the biggest concern item for Christian parents. While it doesn’t come across as necessarily “dark”, there is a character brought up in flashbacks about key past events who is said to have the “gift of sight”, which is eventually referred to as “premonition” (seeing glimpses into the future). Another key plot item is when the town believes (and is later proven to be ‘right’ about) many strange things happening whenever a “blood moon” (a very rare astrological event) occurs. The Bible clearly tells us to be cautious with this type of thing so Christian parents will need to carefully determine where this particular example falls.
A few other items come up that Christian parents won’t like to see included:
Benny complains, “who wanted to text someone whose mom could be reading their messages”.
Benny’s grandma tells her something important is a secret and tells her not to tell her mother (“this is our secret Guppy”). Another grandma says, “I may let you keep your phone in your room at night and buy you unlimited Oreo packages… even though your parents told me not to”. A sign says, “Grandma rules apply here”. Similarly, Evelyn's papa says, “We won’t tell your mother that part” (meant to not worry her, but still).
There is some confusing and misleading “spiritual” content. In a desperate situation someone says, “I knew we needed more than prayers now. We needed a miracle… I knew just where to find one”. A strange event is called a “bad omen”. Another line says, “feels like we ticked off the gods or something”.
Other concerning / potentially concerning aspects to consider when deciding:
We open to friends out on an adventure casually telling each other where each had deceptively told their parents they were going (“we only told a small fib for a very good reason”). Later another character sneaks out. Zara tells a man not to tell her grandma she went out and “borrowed” her keys without asking. A boy pretends to faith to deceive his dad.
A crime show on TV mentions a murder
A nice business owner jokes about flooding his own restaurant for the insurance money
Climate change is proposed as a possible reason an island is missing
The following terms/phrases are used: “holy crap”, “may luck help you”, “God” (used flippantly), “this sounds like the start of every horror movie”, “sure as hell won’t”, “if you break something Evelyn is going to haunt you”, a friend’s eyes are said to “sparkle with mischief”, “she could call it fate, call it luck, but the things that were happening now were no accident”, “badass”, “pissing off”, idiot, jerk (note: quite a bit of the language comes near the very end of the book).
The following items are referenced: Taylor Swift, Ready Player One (we have not reviewed the book, but the movie has a horror movie related portion to it).