Keefe looks like an average human teen. But he’s really an elf who’s recently gained frightening new powers. And to keep his friends safe, he must run to the Forbidden Cities of Humanland. There he will seek answers and, hopefully, find how to control those new powers.
Please be careful. Please be happy. And PLEASE forget all about me. It’ll be better for everyone that way.
Those were Keefe’s last words to his good friend Sophie Foster before he left: It’s not like he wanted to go, but he really had no choice. He needs to protect the people he cares about. But if Keefe stayed in his current state, he would only endanger them.
His mother’s experiments on him have begun effecting him. He’s started developing scary powers. He can subtly manipulate and influence others through his words and the tone of his voice, for instance. That essentially allows him to “command” people to do things without them realizing it.
And that’s only the tip of this frightening new iceberg of powers.
So, Keefe runs away to the Forbidden Cities of Humanland. If he had stayed at home in the Lost Cities, who knows what kind of havoc he might have accidentally caused. For that matter, who knows what his powerful—and decidedly evil—mother had planned for him.
To be among humans, though, will take some getting used to. Keefe is an elf, you see, though you’d probably not know that if you met him. He looks just like any other handsome teen human (with a great head of hair, mind you). So, in theory, he can walk among humans without raising alarm. But with his new ability to sense the emotions of others—anger, passion, sadness, hate and every other feeling rushing in like an ocean wave—that’s not so easy.
However, Humanland is probably the best place to be right now. There’s so much more space to hide. And that space will give him a chance to figure out how to control these powers that he doesn’t fully understand.
Not only that, but Keefe is sure that his mother’s and father’s plans have ties in Humanland. He has so many questions—and he just might find the answers there.
Sophie Foster and his other friends are working to solve a mystery of their own. So, he’ll stay in this foreign Humanland—jumping from here to there with the crystal pathfinder that he stole from his father—and work on his problems.
Where will he go? What will he do? Who will he reach out to for help? Keefe isn’t sure. But he must find a way to foil his mother and find control. And in so doing, he’ll change his destiny.
None.
Though Keefe is in Humanland, he comes from a world that is home to everything from unicorns to dinosaurs to, of course, plenty of elven magic. Keefe also wrestles with his newfound abilities. And part of that entails a process of envisioning a pool of “inner power” that dwells within him.
Someone magically draws out a dark wisp that was maliciously hidden in Keefe’s heart.
Keefe believes that his father is distant and judgmental, and that his mother is unstable and evil. He also calls her a murderer.
We never meet his mother in this story, but Keefe does encounter his father. And while the man isn’t exactly warmhearted, he does go out of his way to aid his son and, in a way, help protect him from his mother.
Keefe also meets a former enemy whom Keefe believed was dead. This person declares that he has greatly changed as a result of his near-death experience. With time, the two find common ground and become friends.
With time, Keefe learns a great deal about himself and his past. He eventually stops blaming himself for his mother’s machinations and the things she implanted in him and begins trying to use what he has for good. “The only legacy I have is the one I’m going to make for myself,” he declares.
The closest thing to anything crude is someone calling a person a “jerk.”
In Munich, a human woman implies that she thinks a confused Keefe might have been drinking. Keefe acquires some elven medications that give him energy and heal his wounds. Keefe’s parents drank “odd concoctions” while trying to conceive a child. Their hopes were to imbue him (Keefe) with special powers.
Keefe believes a man and his daughter were murdered in the past. And based on something his mother forced him to do as a child, Keefe partially blames himself for their death. He imagines (dealt with in general terms) a bus hitting and killing them. He also encounters someone who was on the verge of death and fought his way back from the brink.
At first, Keefe struggles to survive the elements in Humanland and he suffers from hunger. He also meets a runner who talks about the pain of blowing out his ACL. Keefe then decides to use pain to help control some of his runaway powers. He puts a pebble in his shoe and steps down on it when he needs to distract himself. This practice results in a painful and messy blister on his foot.
Keefe wrestles repeatedly with his feelings for Sophie. He notes that he has an “unrequited crush” on her. (He uses his strong feelings for her as a means to help control one of his new powers at one point.)
In passing conversation, a man mentions having a husband and later a woman mentions having a wife. Interestingly, however, though Keefe repeatedly questions the many incongruities of the human world, he doesn’t bat an eye over the concept of same-sex connections.
The references aren’t belabored, but in reference to a female waitress who mentions having a wife, Keefe and another character state that they think this human choice based on love (rather than elven-style matchmaking based on genetics) is “really cool.” Someone states that life is too short to waste on anger and hate. “Better to focus on things that make you happy.”
Have you ever felt guilty about something you didn’t actually do, but were associated with? Or have you harbored feelings of guilt over something you did do in the past? Where do you think those feelings come from? Why do they stick with us? How can feelings of guilt be a good thing?
Take a look at John 3:17 and John 1:9. Both of these verses talk about the guilt we carry when we recognize our sins: the wrongs we’ve done in the past. But the verses also talk about God’s forgiveness and redemption.
Can God free us from feeling guilty? And does that give us a fresh start moving forward? Keefe talks about not letting the past mistakes define us. Is God’s forgiveness an important part of not being defined by our past? How do we accept that forgiveness?
Get free discussion question for books at focusonthefamily.com/magazine/thriving-family-book-discussion-questions.
This latest entry in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series steps aside from the series’ central storyline to fill readers in on what the missing Keefe Sencen has been up to. It’s an adventure that encourages young readers to realize that past choices and mistakes can shape you, but they don’t have to define you.
Parents of young readers should be aware that the story includes quite a bit of fantasy magic. And there’s also a bit of sexual identity controversy that has surrounded this book. Keefe—new to the human world—runs into two different humans who mention their same-sex partners during his journeys. (See above.)
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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