Book Review: Serenity

I just finished reading book one in a new Christian manga series titled Serenity. The manga is about a troubled girl named Serenity who becomes the "project" of the kids in the Prayer Club at her new high school. The first book in the manga series is titled "Bad Girl in Town".

I heard of the Serenity manga a while ago. It was featured in the Family Christian Stores (FCS) sales catalog that I subscribe to. In fact, I bought "Bad Girl in Town" on sale at FCS, and I'm glad I bought it on sale. The manga, at least book one, was just ok.

I love anime and watch a lot of it on tv, though I've never read a manga, so I had high expectations for Serenity. The drawing was excellent. It really looked like a top-notch secular manga. Anyone who loves anime and/or manga will love the look of Serenity. The story though, is flat.

I think the main problem with the manga is that it's too self-conscious. The authors are really trying hard to show that Christians can be cool. The Christian kids use the latest slang and dress quite fashionably, but it's just not believable. The book is a Christian version of manga and it reads like it. The authors definitely weren't following C. S. Lewis' advice for Christian authors to keep their Christian worldview latent.

Of course, Christian kids may very well need fiction that's openly geared towards them, and maybe the authors of the Serenity series are just trying to preach to the choir. If they are, they succeeded; but if they're trying to reach a larger audience I think they'll have an uphill battle. As I said in a previous post, most non-Christians aren't going to buy entertainment that's openly Christian. I can't see too many non-Christian parents buying the Serenity series for their kids.

But even if the manga wasn't openly Christian it still has problems. I know I shouldn't judge a whole series based on one book, but the first book is what makes you want to read more and I don't care if I read more of Serenity or not.

The series is written, I assume, for a teen and older pre-teen audience, but reading it as an adult was tiresome. The character development was light. The action was light. The dialogue was light. Everything was light! If I was a teen-ager reading this book I'd be a little insulted by the insinuation that I couldn't handled substantive fiction. After all, it is possible to write intelligent, substantive fiction for kids, if you're talented enough. Or maybe the authors suffer from the "Christian fiction" syndrome in which it's just assumed that Christians want, and can handle, only fluff. Whatever the authors' issues, they'd better come up with some more edgy stuff if they want Serenity to last through her senior year.