Publishers Weekly, Starred Review:
“If viewing a film is to be a spiritual exercise, one must be open to conversion. Overstreet … leads readers through his own cinematic conversion in this compelling volume. Overstreet’s greatest gift is the masterful way he brings a spirit of discernment to the world of film. … Two thumbs up!”

Greg Wolfe, Publisher and Editor of Image; Author, Intruding Upon the Timeless: Meditations on Art, Faith and Mystery:
“Through a Screen Darkly constitutes a milestone in Christian reflection about contemporary film. This is not simply because it is full of insightful analysis and a generous, open spirit, but because its vision grows out of a passionate, personal journey. This is film criticism with a soul and a sense of urgency growing out of the conviction that faith and the imagination need one another — the better to open our eyes to the flickerings of God’s grace.”

Robert Clark, Edgar-Award-Winning Author of Mr. White’s Confession and Washington Book Award-Winning Author of Dark Water:
“In this beautiful and incisive meditation on the art of film — at once memoir, manifesto and critical guide — Jeffrey Overstreet teaches us not only why film should matter to people of faith but how to see movies as vehicles for inspiration and, indeed, grace.”

Brett McCracken, Relevant Magazine:
“If you propose in academic or professional film circles the notion of ‘Christian film criticism’ as a serious discipline … you will probably be laughed off. Thankfully, we are taking steps to change that. A significant step in the right direction has come with the brand new book by Jeffrey Overstreet, Through a Screen Darkly…. Overstreet … has taken it upon himself to free Christian arts journalism from the ghetto and shackles of narrow-mindedness, utilitarianism and aesthetic ambivalence (as well as the flipside — aesthetic gluttony). His new book … gives hope to all of us who struggle for a more thoughtful, measured and empathetic Christian perspective toward cinema.”

Aspiring Retail Magazine:
“Like a machete-wielding soldier facing a jungle, Overstreet . . . cuts through the glamour of the silver screen to reveal deeper truths behind films both famous and little-known. He explores such themes as wonder, loneliness, humor, and abuse — and how movies can give us God’s perspective on subjects we would normally avoid. . . . Overstreet brings readers beyond gut-level reaction to deeper understanding of movies and why some things rejected out-of-hand by most Christian reviewers shouldn’t be. Overstreet’s grand tour of the entertainment industry is thoroughly enchanting, enlightening, absorbing. For many readers who were previously unfamiliar with him, the book will make him the reviewer of choice, the best source for what movies to see, what to avoid — and how to watch a movie.”

Scott Derrickson, Writer and Director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Day The Earth Stood Still:
“Jeffrey Overstreet is a spiritual bloodhound, rabidly tracking the voice of God through his own experience of the history of cinema. In Through a Screen Darkly, he leads the way for all of us, demonstrating how we can look closer and experience the divine invasion of film for ourselves.”

Darren Aronofsky, director of Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain, in a message to the author (shared with permission):
“Inspirational…. Sometimes all of us forget that love for movies, that internal spark inside us that movies lit, and your book is going to remind many of us about it.”

Steven D. Greydanus, film critic, ChristianityTodayMovies.com, DecentFilms.com:
“[Overstreet] doesn’t just tell you whether or not he liked a movie. He offers you a seat next to him as the movie unfolds and he points out and reflects on the things that thrill, fascinate or trouble him. It’s an invitation not only to look more closely, but to ponder more deeply and appreciate more fully.”

Eric Miller, Christianity Today book review:
“Overstreet’s memoirist-as-mentor tack serves the ‘invitation’ part of the book well, enabling him to address contentious issues from an intimate, personal vantage. Nudity, sex, violence, profanity, anti-Christian storylines: He approaches each in a seasoned, sometimes battle-weary way, still smarting from the e-mail shellackings he’s received from hostile readers over the years. So in the form of a story — his own story — he responds, seeking to deepen the reader’s notion of what art is and fashion a new framework for considering the vexing questions art invariably raises.

“Overstreet is most convincing in his effort to show evangelical readers that their traditional approach to art tends to impede both a rich experience of the goodness of God and a profound understanding of this present darkness. … He urges readers instead to more daringly embrace good art, whether Christian or not, as a means of expanding vision and enlarging wisdom, accepting ‘the sensual pleasure of God’s gifts’ even as they take care to avoid the kind of exposure that may actually diminish their ability to taste goodness.

“To this end, Overstreet gives layers of description of dozens of films, ranging from The Empire Strikes Back to Taxi Driver to Wings of Desire. It’s a clinic in art criticism. Through his earnest and illuminating instruction, we learn much about genre, sacramentality, cinematography, and more. His quest to ‘apprehend beauty wherever I can find it’ is clearly an impassioned romance, one he longs to usher us into as well.”

Dr. David Frisbie, at the award-winning Armchair Interviews site:
“Scarcely a few decades ago, the phrase ‘Christian movie reviewer’ might have seemed an oxymoron: entire denominations and churches shunned the theatre, believing it to be evil per se. Overstreet is a much-needed voice that helps postmodern Christians and others be fully engaged with their culture, yet move beyond its limitations to produce high-quality films.”

Mark Moring, Editor, ChristianityTodayMovies.com:
“Jeffrey Overstreet has taught me a great deal not just about how to watch movies, but also how to glean truth, beauty and redemption from films of all types — even those that aren’t necessarily comfortable to watch. I am learning the art of looking closer, and this book takes that art — and that education — to even deeper, and thus more rewarding, levels.”

Eugene H. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, author of The Message and Eat This Book:
“Jeffrey Overstreet is a witness. While habituating the dark caves of movie theaters, he gives articulate witness to what I too often miss in those caves — the contours of God’s creation and the language of Christ’s salvation. In these theaters, assumed by many to be unholy temples in a wasteland of secularism, he writes what he sees and hears. I find him a delightful and most percipient companion — a faithful Christian witness.”

Mark Shea, Senior Content Editor, CatholicExchange.com:
“God the Maker made us to be makers as well. That is why, as Chesterton said, ‘Art is the signature of man.’ Filmmaking is an art form that is the unique invention of the twentieth century. Nothing quite like it had ever existed before, and through it, millions have had powerful, even profoundly spiritual, experiences. Jeffrey Overstreet is a guide eminently qualified to show us how to see the way in which films both illumine the terrain of the human spirit and probe the eternal mysteries of God.”

Dick Staub, Author, Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters and The Culturally Savvy Christian:
“Jeffrey Overstreet understands the art of understanding art and believes it is too important a task to leave to the experts. Through a Screen Darkly is a trustworthy guide as you sort through the enriching, exhilarating, messy, dangerous and important business of loving God and film.”

“Film critic and author Overstreet (Through a Screen Darkly) offers a powerful myth for his first foray into fiction. The kingdom of Abascar is cloaked in gloom, sentenced to an ongoing “wintering” by a jealous queen, in which colors have been done away with and are only allowed in the royal court. But young Auralia, found as a baby by the river and raised by outcasts, has a talent for finding colors everywhere and bringing them to life in a way no one has ever seen before. The fate of the kingdom rests on what Auralia chooses to do and how the king responds. Overstreet creates a world with not only its own geography but its own vocabulary — it is haunted by beastmen, home to cloudgrasper trees, vawns (something like dinosaurs) and twister fish. … Overstreet’s writing is precise and beautiful, and the story is masterfully told. Readers will be hungry for the next installment.”
–Publishers Weekly (Review, 7/16)

“Through word, image, and color Jeffrey Overstreet has crafted a work of art. From first to final page this original fantasy is sure to draw readers in. Auralia’s Colors sparkles.”
–Janet Lee Carey, award-winning author of The Beast of Noor and Dragon’s Keep 

“Jeffrey Overstreet’s first fantasy, Auralia’s Colors, and its heroine’s cloak of wonders take their power from a vision of art that is auroral, looking to the return of beauty, and that intends to restore spirit and and mystery to the world. The book achieves its ends by the creation of a rich, complex universe and a series of dramatic, explosive events.”
–Marly Youmans, author of Ingledove and The Curse of the Raven Mocker

“In Auralia’s Colors, Overstreet masterfully extends the borders of imagination. Whereas so many writers sacrifice characterization for plot or substitute weirdness for substance, Overstreet does neither. His characters are richly crafted but still recognizably human, and therefore, inhabitable. This story is wild and intricate tale, a high-octane full-throttle fantasy. Fasten your seat belts.”
–Gina Ochsner, author of The Necessary Grace to Fall and People I Wanted to Be

“The late John Gardner said that a good story should unfold like a vivid and continuous dream. With Auralia’s Colors, Jeffrey Overstreet has crafted just such a story, one that will leave readers ready to dream with him again.”
–John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture

“Jeffrey Overstreet weaves myth and reality, hope and loss into his tapestry, and he ties off The Red Strand with a cataclysmic flourish.”
–Kathy Tyers, author of the Firebird trilogy and Shivering World

“Welcome to the land of the fangbear, the muckmoth, and the Midnight Swindler. To a story brimming with lovely literary rewards and a cast of characters by turn loathsome and hilarious, winsome and mysterious. It’s not often one gets to be present at the birth of a classic, but Auralia’s Colors is that kind of storytelling. A true delight on so many levels.”
–Clint Kelly, author of the Sensations Series: Scent, Echo, and Delicacy

“In this new fantasy novel Auralia’s Colors, Jeffrey Overstreet weaves together a wide cast of compelling characters and an intriguing story in the setting of a world both imaginative and arresting–a world phantastic in both old and new meanings of that word. Readers will care what happens both to the characters of the tale (all of them) as well as to the realm of Abascar itself, and will not want to put this book down.”
–Matthew Dickerson, co-author of From Homer to Harry Potter: a Handbook of Myth and Fantasy and Ents, Elves, and Eriador: the Environmental Vision of J.R.R.Tolkien

“… the trick with excellent fantasy is to build a world that is more than the context for beloved characters. The world itself is a subtle character and parallels in important ways our experience; it is full of political and cultural commentary. The society is thick. Balancing this thickness without prostituting characters to score pet cultural points is not easy. Few authors manage it. The too-common tragedy in contemporary fantasy involves a thick political subtext which turns more on the author’s partisan axe-grind than on letting good characters find their own battles. It’s knife’s-edge work to create masterful tales that take not only great skill, but quiet conviction.

“This is what makes Jeffrey Overstreet great, and that is why his work is paralleled in review after review with the greats of the fantasy world.

“What makes Overstreet’s writing fresh is that each novel grapples with the piece of a larger cultural question…. The narrative coherence is probably the singular brilliance, as we encounter time and again in his characters deeply problematic questions that stay with us long after the novel is done, its plot resolved, and its characters finished for the day.”
– Robert Joustra, Comment

“Overstreet’s use of language is beautiful and lyrical, reminiscent of Patricia McKillip’s elegant prose. … Overstreet gives us a story that we want to see to its end, but that we also do not want ever to end.”
– Matthew Winslow, Greenman Review

Robert Thompson, FantasyBookCritic.blogspot.com
Delving deeper into the vividly imagined world of The Expanse, with characters both diverse and sympathetic, and a story filled with heartbreak, hope, and wonder, Cyndere’s Midnight is a worthy follow-up to Jeffrey’s fantasy debut and another enchanting entry in The Auralia Thread…

Donita K. Paul, author of DragonLight and DragonSpell
Astonishing, arresting, rich and profound. Jeffrey Overstreet’s beauty of prose reveals the vileness of human nature and then, just as deftly, awakens hope.

John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture
With Cyndere’s Midnight, Jeffrey Overstreet fulfills the promise of Auralia’s Colors: he has created a fully realized imaginative world, at once utterly distinctive and hauntingly familiar. I can’t wait for the next volume.

Sigmund Brouwer, author of Broken Angel
It’s entering a beautiful dream you don’t want to leave, with exhilarating tension that takes you beyond story and into deep truths.

Dick Staub, broadcaster and podcast host (The Kindlings Muse); author of The Culturally Savvy Christian
When the Inklings (C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) met at the “Bird and Baby” Pub each week they would read excerpts from their work, then critique and improve it. With Cyndere’s Midnight, the inventive and imaginative Jeffrey Overstreet delivers another well-crafted, artful work of fantasy, rewarding the thoughtful reader and reminding us that the spirit of the Inklings is alive and well and at least one living writer could have held his own at their table!

Robert Thompson, FantasyBookCritic.blogspot.com
Delving deeper into the vividly imagined world of The Expanse, with characters both diverse and sympathetic, and a story filled with heartbreak, hope, and wonder, Cyndere’s Midnight is a worthy follow-up to Jeffrey’s fantasy debut and another enchanting entry in The Auralia Thread…

Donita K. Paul, author of DragonLight and DragonSpell
Astonishing, arresting, rich and profound. Jeffrey Overstreet’s beauty of prose reveals the vileness of human nature and then, just as deftly, awakens hope.

John Wilson, Editor, Books & Culture
With Cyndere’s Midnight, Jeffrey Overstreet fulfills the promise of Auralia’s Colors: he has created a fully realized imaginative world, at once utterly distinctive and hauntingly familiar. I can’t wait for the next volume.

Sigmund Brouwer, author of Broken Angel
It’s entering a beautiful dream you don’t want to leave, with exhilarating tension that takes you beyond story and into deep truths.

Dick Staub, broadcaster and podcast host (The Kindlings Muse); author of The Culturally Savvy Christian
When the Inklings (C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) met at the “Bird and Baby” Pub each week they would read excerpts from their work, then critique and improve it. With Cyndere’s Midnight, the inventive and imaginative Jeffrey Overstreet delivers another well-crafted, artful work of fantasy, rewarding the thoughtful reader and reminding us that the spirit of the Inklings is alive and well and at least one living writer could have held his own at their table!

Jonathan Rogers, author of The Charlatan’s Boy

“The Ale Boy’s Feast is a great, sprawling poem. Its rich language moves and breathes and awakens every sense. Jeffrey Overstreet has made something beautiful here. His story reminds us that beauty is an agent of grace.”

Lindsay Stallones, evangelicaloutpost.com

“Jeffrey Overstreet writes like Van Gogh painted. He is a literary impressionist, and his understated yet vivid narrative style overwhelms the imagination. The Ale Boy’s Feast does more than just tell the end of a story; it invites the reader into the world of the Expanse with a cast of beautifully complex characters to join them in pursuit of the mystery that calls us all.”

Aaron White, Faith and Geekery

“…this story never failed to amaze me with its unpredictable course. It happens too frequently that in the final moments of a story, all the pieces are in place and it’s quite evident to the reader/viewer where they all fit. The Ale Boy’s Feast kept me guessing through its final sentences and even left with much to ponder after I closed and set down the book.”