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kevington's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this, though it took me longer than I expected to get through it. Really interesting concept.
chibishichan1x2's review against another edition
1.0
*WARNING* 77 Shadow Street may make you hate reading.
This book was chose by my BFF as a part of our two person book club. I almost quit the 2 person book club. It was that boring.
It started off alright at a decent pace I guess. I started by listening to the audiobook while cooking and I liked the narration well enough but then the character dumping started. There was almost no character development just character dumping, by 1/2 way into the book I didn't care one way or the other if they all died
If there was one redeeming factor it was the audiobook, It did not make the book good by any means but it wasn't horrible to listen to while cleaner/painting my nails/cooking ect.
Perhaps at the beginning it was better than listening to nothing but eventually I think the book just got so boring I completely failed to care about it. That is when I started to READ the book as opposed to listening it went downhill so fast. I hated the reading style, so slow and so much had nothing to do with the book. This book threw me back into highschool era before I learned to love to read. It was like pulling teeth. I eventually had to speed read the remainder just to say I finished it.
On the other hand my Friend that initially chose our months reading liked the book quite a bit. I can't say 77 Shadow Street made me a Koontz fan, this was my second time reading him and first time finishing a book of his. If anything it has solidified my "I will never read this guy again" mentality.
Womp womp womp, after being on a long no reading for 2 months kick this book was not what I needed for getting back into the swing of things.
This book was chose by my BFF as a part of our two person book club. I almost quit the 2 person book club. It was that boring.
It started off alright at a decent pace I guess. I started by listening to the audiobook while cooking and I liked the narration well enough but then the character dumping started. There was almost no character development just character dumping, by 1/2 way into the book I didn't care one way or the other if they all died
If there was one redeeming factor it was the audiobook, It did not make the book good by any means but it wasn't horrible to listen to while cleaner/painting my nails/cooking ect.
Perhaps at the beginning it was better than listening to nothing but eventually I think the book just got so boring I completely failed to care about it. That is when I started to READ the book as opposed to listening it went downhill so fast. I hated the reading style, so slow and so much had nothing to do with the book. This book threw me back into highschool era before I learned to love to read. It was like pulling teeth. I eventually had to speed read the remainder just to say I finished it.
On the other hand my Friend that initially chose our months reading liked the book quite a bit. I can't say 77 Shadow Street made me a Koontz fan, this was my second time reading him and first time finishing a book of his. If anything it has solidified my "I will never read this guy again" mentality.
Womp womp womp, after being on a long no reading for 2 months kick this book was not what I needed for getting back into the swing of things.
obsidian_blue's review against another edition
1.0
I don't even know what to say. I was tempted to DNF but I really wanted something to get crossed off of my second bingo card so struggled through to the end with this one.
I don't know guys, I think that Koontz has flashes of brilliance in his books, but his later stuff is just him preaching via his characters about whatever he currently has a bug about. This one is just about how advances in technology can lead to the world being wiped out via our scientific advances.
I will say the initial part of the book (the horrific events that occurred at a Gilded Age home over the years) was great. When Koontz got into the characters and dialogue it just fell apart. What's wrong with just writing a straight haunted house mystery? I don't know why Koontz went from that to what this turned into.
"77 Shadow Street" follows a former home eventually turned into condos that every 37 or maybe it was 38 years an event occurs there that leaves all of the inhabitants dead. Now it's about to go through its cycle again. Now called the Pendleton, it is a home for it seems fairly well off people.
I don't know what to say about the characters. We have a former Marine (of course we do) who is now an investment banker of some sort. Two elderly rich sisters living together, a former U.S. Senator, a country music writer and her son, and a woman and her autistic daughter. There is also a retired lawyer, a scientist, and shoot I know I am blanking on at least 4 more people here, but I can't even recall people's names at this point.
I can't even point to a favorite character since we spend so little time with everyone. You maybe get a paragraph or two before Koontz blithely skips to the next character. We also get an info dump via the retired attorney about the history of the Pendleton. I really hate info dumps and this one made no sense to me since who moves into a place where it seems murders keeps happening?
If Koontz could have limited himself to a first person POV and just had that character introduce us to the other characters it could have worked. When I started reading the one kid's point of view I was just over everything. It doesn't help that we get some bad science via characters too when the happenings at the Pendleton start getting explained.
Readers quickly find out though that Shadow Street is not what it seems. It appears to also connect to a man calling himself "Witness" and a narrator calling themselves "The One." It takes a while for all of this to sync up so you can figure out what is going on. However, the reveal to me was disappointing.
The flow started off okay and than just got increasingly worse. The writing was atrocious (dialogue wise) too. I just kept going to myself, who the heck talks like this while I was reading. Everyone sounded like a bad fortune cookie. At one point I thought I was reading an Odd Thomas book since everyone in this book managed to sound like that character at one point or the other.
The setting of the Pendleton at first was creepy. But when things got explained I found myself in disbelief about how this all got explained. It was overly explained and I called BS on what actions one of the characters did. I think it would have caused some paradox consequences, but I really didn't care at that point cause at least I had finished this book.
FYI, I skipped reading the novella included since it was a prequel of "77 Shadow Street" called "The Moonlit Mind" and honestly should have maybe been put up front before you get into the longer book. Either way, I was glad to be done and refused to read that. This book ended around the 75 percent mark because of my skipping that read.
I don't know guys, I think that Koontz has flashes of brilliance in his books, but his later stuff is just him preaching via his characters about whatever he currently has a bug about. This one is just about how advances in technology can lead to the world being wiped out via our scientific advances.
I will say the initial part of the book (the horrific events that occurred at a Gilded Age home over the years) was great. When Koontz got into the characters and dialogue it just fell apart. What's wrong with just writing a straight haunted house mystery? I don't know why Koontz went from that to what this turned into.
"77 Shadow Street" follows a former home eventually turned into condos that every 37 or maybe it was 38 years an event occurs there that leaves all of the inhabitants dead. Now it's about to go through its cycle again. Now called the Pendleton, it is a home for it seems fairly well off people.
I don't know what to say about the characters. We have a former Marine (of course we do) who is now an investment banker of some sort. Two elderly rich sisters living together, a former U.S. Senator, a country music writer and her son, and a woman and her autistic daughter. There is also a retired lawyer, a scientist, and shoot I know I am blanking on at least 4 more people here, but I can't even recall people's names at this point.
I can't even point to a favorite character since we spend so little time with everyone. You maybe get a paragraph or two before Koontz blithely skips to the next character. We also get an info dump via the retired attorney about the history of the Pendleton. I really hate info dumps and this one made no sense to me since who moves into a place where it seems murders keeps happening?
If Koontz could have limited himself to a first person POV and just had that character introduce us to the other characters it could have worked. When I started reading the one kid's point of view I was just over everything. It doesn't help that we get some bad science via characters too when the happenings at the Pendleton start getting explained.
Readers quickly find out though that Shadow Street is not what it seems. It appears to also connect to a man calling himself "Witness" and a narrator calling themselves "The One." It takes a while for all of this to sync up so you can figure out what is going on. However, the reveal to me was disappointing.
The flow started off okay and than just got increasingly worse. The writing was atrocious (dialogue wise) too. I just kept going to myself, who the heck talks like this while I was reading. Everyone sounded like a bad fortune cookie. At one point I thought I was reading an Odd Thomas book since everyone in this book managed to sound like that character at one point or the other.
The setting of the Pendleton at first was creepy. But when things got explained I found myself in disbelief about how this all got explained. It was overly explained and I called BS on what actions one of the characters did. I think it would have caused some paradox consequences, but I really didn't care at that point cause at least I had finished this book.
FYI, I skipped reading the novella included since it was a prequel of "77 Shadow Street" called "The Moonlit Mind" and honestly should have maybe been put up front before you get into the longer book. Either way, I was glad to be done and refused to read that. This book ended around the 75 percent mark because of my skipping that read.
samantha_engel's review against another edition
3.0
This book started REALLY slow for me. There was a lot of back story, character development and detail that was hard to push through. I just couldn't really get into it. The last 1/3 of the book really sold it for me, although it wasn't really the answer I wanted or expected. That probably makes no sense, but to say anymore would give it away.
thomas_edmund's review against another edition
4.0
77 Shadow Street is by far the best Koontz I've read (even given the psychology bias towards Odd Thomas [guess what the T in my name is...]) and I'm not a fan. Koontz shows exceptional skill at quickly building attachable characters and establishing the 'rose red' haunted house setting.
Of course the genre is so hastily established, one suspects some theme-bending twists and Koontz does not disappoint. After all the blurb says it all (look yourself I don't want to spoil anything.)
Despite this I find an old complaint of mine resurfacing. Despite his best efforts Koontz can't seem to keep his own personal opinions out of his writing - I guess half the motivation of being a famous author is to get your point of view some page-time, but it doesn't serve the story when towards the end of the book when the big reveal happens you feel like Glenn Beck wrote the part of the 'bad-guy' and I find myself wanting to correspond with Koontz just to tell him that science isn't quite as bad as he makes out.
Diverting from hypocrisy I also have a reviewerly reason for not giving 77 S.S. 5 stars - Koontz weighs his story down with an overdose of characters. The book is probably a good 100 pages too long, due to needing to flesh out each introduced person, which also makes the plot a little repeditive as we have to see each person's first experience of the 'supernatural' and ultimately only a few of the characters are vital as P.O.V.'s the rest could have be demoted to minor, as an unfortunate side effect of over-populating your narrative is a sense of pleasure each time someone dies so you don't have so many people to keep track of. This is particularly obvious when Koontz switches from having a P.O.V. per chapter to labelling paragraphs with the central character's names, much slowing the pace and reducing the empathy.
That all said, 77 Shadow Street was an epic ride, and a highly original piece (a rare find these days!)
Of course the genre is so hastily established, one suspects some theme-bending twists and Koontz does not disappoint. After all the blurb says it all (look yourself I don't want to spoil anything.)
Despite this I find an old complaint of mine resurfacing. Despite his best efforts Koontz can't seem to keep his own personal opinions out of his writing - I guess half the motivation of being a famous author is to get your point of view some page-time, but it doesn't serve the story when towards the end of the book when the big reveal happens you feel like Glenn Beck wrote the part of the 'bad-guy' and I find myself wanting to correspond with Koontz just to tell him that science isn't quite as bad as he makes out.
Diverting from hypocrisy I also have a reviewerly reason for not giving 77 S.S. 5 stars - Koontz weighs his story down with an overdose of characters. The book is probably a good 100 pages too long, due to needing to flesh out each introduced person, which also makes the plot a little repeditive as we have to see each person's first experience of the 'supernatural' and ultimately only a few of the characters are vital as P.O.V.'s the rest could have be demoted to minor, as an unfortunate side effect of over-populating your narrative is a sense of pleasure each time someone dies so you don't have so many people to keep track of. This is particularly obvious when Koontz switches from having a P.O.V. per chapter to labelling paragraphs with the central character's names, much slowing the pace and reducing the empathy.
That all said, 77 Shadow Street was an epic ride, and a highly original piece (a rare find these days!)
bex_inada's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
cnapple's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Now 0/2 on my search to find a genuinely scary October read. This novel just dragged. The prose is overly descriptive and repetitive. There's only so many pages-long rhapsodic descriptions of fungus that can be supported by one novel.
Same goes for the characters. The cast is way too crowded and none of them are developed enough to understand their motivations or even care if they survive the plot. It also feels like Koontz just threw a bunch of ethnic backgrounds in a bag and drew at random for the cast. Maybe one of his editors told him that white male authors needto add some diversity to their stories these days, but it didn't feel genuine. Their ethnicities and backgrounds don't bring anything to the story or change their behavior in a meaningful way and it just feels hollow. Same for the children, they essentially speak and act the same as every other character rather than feeling like real children. Everyone is either brave, reasonable and heroic, or nonsensically foolish or evil. Not to mention the characters that were thrown into the mix at random intervals only to be gruesomely killed shortly thereafter.
As for the plot, there seemed to be some potential for an interesting mystery at first, but about halfway through the novel most of what's going on is revealed without any fanfare by a narrative POV that seems totally unnecessary and even detrimental to the storytelling.There's one final "twist" that's clearly meant to be shocking, but falls flat as there's no build up to it whatsoever. It felt like Koontz got to the end and decided he needed a villain and just threw a dart at a list of names. Don't make the same mistake as the editors, and give this one a pass.
Same goes for the characters. The cast is way too crowded and none of them are developed enough to understand their motivations or even care if they survive the plot. It also feels like Koontz just threw a bunch of ethnic backgrounds in a bag and drew at random for the cast. Maybe one of his editors told him that white male authors needto add some diversity to their stories these days, but it didn't feel genuine. Their ethnicities and backgrounds don't bring anything to the story or change their behavior in a meaningful way and it just feels hollow. Same for the children, they essentially speak and act the same as every other character rather than feeling like real children. Everyone is either brave, reasonable and heroic, or nonsensically foolish or evil. Not to mention the characters that were thrown into the mix at random intervals only to be gruesomely killed shortly thereafter.
As for the plot, there seemed to be some potential for an interesting mystery at first, but about halfway through the novel most of what's going on is revealed without any fanfare by a narrative POV that seems totally unnecessary and even detrimental to the storytelling.There's one final "twist" that's clearly meant to be shocking, but falls flat as there's no build up to it whatsoever. It felt like Koontz got to the end and decided he needed a villain and just threw a dart at a list of names. Don't make the same mistake as the editors, and give this one a pass.
alextwatts's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
dancingyoshi's review against another edition
I’ve tried multiple times and it just isn’t for me