Once you get past the present-time part, whose sole purpose seems to be to spoil the ending, it becomes increasingly obvious that there may be a good story in here, albeit a bitterly sad one. Actually, make that a great story; a thrilling, breathtaking story, which may well exist within an interesting world and have some deeper meaning to convey as well. I'd quite like to read that story, especially if the religious aspect was mainly added for realism and the deeper meaning is mainly what's spelled out in the last chapter. However, it seems I somehow ended up with the pile of highly detailed yet hastily written notes upon which a book, or even an entire series, is to be based. If, on the other hand, the author actually believes this to be a real book in any way worth publishing, my only advice to him is to either give away or sell the rights to someone who can actually write or hire a ghost writer to salvage something from it in his name.
Now I'm not even talking about the significant number of obvious mistakes, which reveal a lack of not only proper editing but even that of simple proofreading. I'm talking about the fact that nothing flows; nothing carries any weight or has any impact, no matter how momentous, shocking, desperate or heartbreaking the events and situations themselves may be; the dialogues seem like an endless stream of examples of how people couldn't possibly talk; developments are rushed and strung together beyond any shred of plausible suspension of disbelief... It's simply a pain to read and a shame, as this is a story which would deserve a better fate, if only it'd be unearthed from beneath the terrible writing.

Notice: I do not give the author or publisher permission to use parts of this review for promotional purposes. Saying this because it’s easy to see how certain bits could be taken out of context and used as such.