2.5 stars, really. This used to be one of my favorite book series, but going back and reading it with new eyes has forced me to reconsider. I really love the underlying idea of the story—switching between worlds when you sleep and getting information to help in each world? Brilliant! A plot to threaten the world's population that can only be stopped with information from the other world? Awesome! Christian allegory so heavy that it's actually literal in the other world? Ehh...

That's the main problem with the story. It has this amazing idea and some stellar storytelling for the thriller part, but the ham-handed allegory from an Evangeical Christian idealist point of view just makes the whole thing less good. If the other world was just a regular fantasy world with a well-developed world, then most of the things that happen could be perfectly acceptable in terms of that constructed world's culture, but it's not, and that makes all the difference.

Also, in a culture that values pursuing and rescuing your mate in reference to how their god loves them, Elyon does a shit job rescuing the people he claims to love so much when they get in trouble!

EDIT: I had to come back and add to this because I couldn't stop thinking about why exactly I didn't like this book as much, and it turns out, it's really NOT just because of the lazy allegory work. It's because the parts in the other world are just not very good! It tries to do too much in too short a time and with minimal explanation; it pushes a dangerous stereotype of love and jealousy that doesn't make any sense; and the outcome of a mistake doesn't make any sense, among other problems.

I don't want to get into spoilers, so I'll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that this could have been a much better story if more time was put into building out the world and giving more time to the characters in it. After all, the time flow between worlds is split—why rush things so much in the other world?