In the past month, I’ve managed to get back into the swing of reading (by the pool anyways), and have finished Terri Blackstock’s If I Run trilogy. I bought the first novel for cheap at a bookstore, and I thought it was pretty intriguing and not a super taxing read, so I decided to continue on. Truthfully, when I looked up Terri Blackstock to see what the other novels were called, I was surprised to discover that she is a Christian author, mainly because faith was discussed so little throughout the first book.
As a religious person, Blackstock being a Christian author did not bother me, but I was a little skeptical that it could take away from the story line which focused on a young adult woman named Casey. She is charged with murder and on the run from some corrupt cops. With each novel, the religious talk increased a little bit, and certainly had a bigger impact on the last installment, If I Live, but it wasn’t enough for me to dismiss the entire trilogy.
That being said, I don’t think three novels were necessary. For approximately a thousand pages, Blackstock basically rehashed a similar method of evading the cops, Casey’s love interest, Dylan, and praying. The first novel was definitely the most interesting and captivating, but Blackstock does a nice job of adding in a couple of seedy side stories and making Casey a hero. Most of what was hashed out in the books seems both likely and at the same time unlikely to happen in real life, and I think that’s quite an accomplishment!
If you’re looking for a quick and mildly compelling, thriller trilogy to read this summer, then go ahead and add If I Run, If I’m Found, and If I Live to your list. As long as a little bit of religion doesn’t bother you either!