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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Blimey what a book! You have to be prepared for the long haul with this epic novel, however the short chapters and quick paced storyline pull you along. Sometimes a little far fetched in terms of how logic falls into place but nevertheless gripping. This will make an amazing film! I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend, I'm not really a political agent thriller type of reader but this had me hooked.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Sometimes you read things and know it was written by an old, straight, white dude who thinks he's impressive and this was one of those books. All the women were gorgeous and the smart ones were impressive while the rest were defaulted secretaries. Of course they were all interested in our main man here. I have been bored with this trope for the last 87 years.
But who wouldn't be interested in all the white man pain. "Pilgrim" is supposed to be this competent, smart, top-notch intelligence agent but what we get is a guy with a "troubled past," zero defining personality traits except THE BEST AT ALL THINGS and the fact that sometimes, people dying makes him sad. He didn't like that 9/11 or the Holocaust happened and those things made him unhappy leading to a chapter or so about his upbringing. And consequently, as much of the book is set in Turkey or Saudi Arabia, it became super, and very uncomfortably Islamophobic, to the point where I had to put the book down for days at a time to control how infuriating it was. I have many lines that made me have to put the book down and go take a walk but the one I remember the most at the very beginning of the book was, "The driver thought I was crazy - but then his religion thinks stoning a woman to death for adultery is reasonable, so I figured we were about even." Fun fact friends, so does the Bible. But that's a different, unrelated issue. There's also his descriptions of the Down Syndrome boy you meet later in the novel. Pilgrim makes himself out to be a bit of a hero for not looking shocked when he sees the child is not "typical." He spends the whole novel calling him "little guy" to the point where I was ready to lose it if he said it again (he did, about 400 more times), I'm not even sure he bothered telling us his name he was so busy telling us he was being so nice to this special needs boy.
Which brings me to my next point. This book is all tell. He narrate his way through things, telling us what happens while leaving out details to drag you farther into the next chapter - he went to so many stores and walked out of each of them with "the purchase in a bag" only to find later the purchase is something like glue or a phone or something he could have told us without being shady about it - that it became extremely boring. That in conjunction with the tendency for entire paragraphs to be one long sentence of metaphoric descriptions, usually about his troubled thoughts, it was not fun to read. It was boring at best.
The book was also told from several perspectives... kind of. You though that it was being told from someone else's point of view until our favorite main character popped up mid-paragraph with some first-person commentary to throw the flow of the whole chapter off. And of course, each two page chapter was ended on some sort of cliff-hanger, James Patterson style, to keep you going becuase why else would you. See opening gif.
I spite finished this book. I wanted to finish it so I could give a review about the plot as well as the writing and bad characterization. The plot was not terrible. While many of the conclusions that Pilgrim drew were lucky leaps - it must be a woman killer, her beer is not in the fridge - that should not have, but did, work out, the general story was engaging. When I wasn't ready to gouge my eyes out from the bad writing and worse characters, the mystery part was fairly engaging and, again although much of it was a stretch, the connections were well thought out.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I didn’t hate this but it was a brainless page turner to me. It dragged on a little long and some of the plot lines were borderline ridiculous.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No