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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
5 star - Perfect
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
4 star - i would recommend
3 star - good
2 star - struggled to complete
1 star - could not finish
I find that Coben thrillers are good to listen to while doing mundane household tasks. Although this story required me to look past some actions I found implausible/improbable, and although I had basically figured out what was going on with Natalie partway through the book, it was quick-paced and had decent entertainment value. Good literature? No. Mechanism to make housework less tedious? Yes.
Having been in a reading slump I picked this book off my TBR shelf blindly and finished it almost in one sitting. It is not a very long book. This was fast paced and interesting. Did I figure some things out before the end? Yes. Was the ending kind of expected? Yes. Still, it was a good book and I inhaled it.
** Original review posted on www.snazzybooks.com **
I am a big fan of thrillers and wanted to try something by Harlan Coben as I’ve heard he writes some entertaining, gripping novels.
'Six Years' is told from the perspective of Jake, a ‘college’ (or ‘university’ to us Brits) professor who is pining the love of his life Natalie. He watched her marry another man 6 years ago, despite feeling certain that she loved him as much as he did her, and he has never got over her. When he reads in the newspaper about her husband’s death he goes to pay his respects, secretly hoping that, even 6 years on, Natalie will still be interested- but finds that the Todd Sanderson who he watched marry Natalie had a different wife and family before his death. There is no trace of Natalie- in fact no proof she ever existed- and even the retreat where Jake and Natalie first met, in the village of Kraftboro, doesn’t seem to have ever existed. Weird!
The novel is fast paced and never dull, revealing more and more of the truth as it goes and I really enjoyed reading it. One thing I did notice, however, was that it wasn’t the most well-written book I’ve ever read. It seemed in many ways to be written like a generic American thriller novel and the writing style could certainly blur into another similar book. There are also various points in the story that seem a little far-fetched; without giving too much away, he seems able to recover from some pretty severe beatings without any lasting injuries and can beat up a whole host of seemingly tougher characters. I wonder how much training and working out he gets done as a college professor- but then think that this is a stereotypical view and actually just because he isn’t in the armed forces or similar doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to fight! The book also mentions that he is a big guy too which no doubt gives him some advantage over others. Regardless of this he really seems to recover from injuries that no one should be able to leg it away with!
Despite this little niggles, I still really enjoyed the twists and turns of this novel as Jake finds more and more out regarding Natalie and her disappearance. There are quite a few different characters involved and elements that relate to various points in time, but it wasn’t hard to follow as a reader and I didn’t find it too taxing to read at all.
'Six Years' really kept me hooked and I couldn’t guess what had happened to Natalie until Coben, bit by bit, revealed it to the reader. The ending was a little predictable but I liked it and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys an easy to read page-turner!
I am a big fan of thrillers and wanted to try something by Harlan Coben as I’ve heard he writes some entertaining, gripping novels.
'Six Years' is told from the perspective of Jake, a ‘college’ (or ‘university’ to us Brits) professor who is pining the love of his life Natalie. He watched her marry another man 6 years ago, despite feeling certain that she loved him as much as he did her, and he has never got over her. When he reads in the newspaper about her husband’s death he goes to pay his respects, secretly hoping that, even 6 years on, Natalie will still be interested- but finds that the Todd Sanderson who he watched marry Natalie had a different wife and family before his death. There is no trace of Natalie- in fact no proof she ever existed- and even the retreat where Jake and Natalie first met, in the village of Kraftboro, doesn’t seem to have ever existed. Weird!
The novel is fast paced and never dull, revealing more and more of the truth as it goes and I really enjoyed reading it. One thing I did notice, however, was that it wasn’t the most well-written book I’ve ever read. It seemed in many ways to be written like a generic American thriller novel and the writing style could certainly blur into another similar book. There are also various points in the story that seem a little far-fetched; without giving too much away, he seems able to recover from some pretty severe beatings without any lasting injuries and can beat up a whole host of seemingly tougher characters. I wonder how much training and working out he gets done as a college professor- but then think that this is a stereotypical view and actually just because he isn’t in the armed forces or similar doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be able to fight! The book also mentions that he is a big guy too which no doubt gives him some advantage over others. Regardless of this he really seems to recover from injuries that no one should be able to leg it away with!
Despite this little niggles, I still really enjoyed the twists and turns of this novel as Jake finds more and more out regarding Natalie and her disappearance. There are quite a few different characters involved and elements that relate to various points in time, but it wasn’t hard to follow as a reader and I didn’t find it too taxing to read at all.
'Six Years' really kept me hooked and I couldn’t guess what had happened to Natalie until Coben, bit by bit, revealed it to the reader. The ending was a little predictable but I liked it and would recommend this to anyone who enjoys an easy to read page-turner!
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the first Harlan Coben book that I've read. I really liked the ease of the writing style and the fact that there weren't a lot of parts that were slow. It was definitely a page turner. I really loved the first half of the book and the mystery, wondering where the story was going. It went in a direction that doesn't really interest me, so I wasn't as fond of the second half but overall, a good story with a unique plot.
“She has a beautiful, sweet face. She has what I’d call a slow beauty, the kind you don’t really notice at first and then it knocks you back and grows on you and she gets more beautiful every time you see her and then you can’t believe that you ever thought that she was anything less than completely stunning. Whenever I see her, my entire body reacts, as though it is the first time or better.”
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I sat in the back pew and watched the only woman I would ever love marry another man.
This first line is quite the reader hook. Initially, I was concerned the story would have adultery in it (because I’ve had bad experiences of this going into a few stories), but, without spoiling this, my concerns were allayed.
Note: This review was supposed to be written and posted a while ago, but somehow I totally forgot, so forgive me if my review isn’t informative enough because of some details I’ve forgotten about.
My Review
Surprisingly, I really enjoyed this mystery thriller. The story is very well written from a 1st person narrative as Harland Coben had me mind-boggled as much as the protagonist, and as the main character pieced the confounding mystery together, it all tied together and made sense very, very nicely and handled extremely well. No events felt like scapegoats. It all felt like a natural occurrence for the progress of the plot, with a satisfying conclusion that was pretty tense.
This isn’t predominantly a character driven story, however, I think the primary and secondary characters were crafted believably, rife with motives, history and contrasting personalities. Hence, I would describe this as having a mix of plot and character focus, weighing more on the plot side of the scale. I didn’t like him as a character, but I admired how focused he was in his pursuit of the mystery. In fact, I disliked most, if not all the characters, but that’s mostly my bias towards certain characters that I’d be rooting for more. The villain of the story suited the narrative of the book, but don’t go in thinking it will be highly crafted and developed; it’s closer to a Sauron kind of villain I think, but not unrealistically.
Recommendation/Concluding Thoughts
All in all, this was a great listen and I look forward to reading more books by Harlan Coben! I’d recommend the story for mystery, thriller fans for a tense story that seriously has you questioning and wondering a lot with a protagonist who’s driving motive is the love of his life, without this turning into a romance.