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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
3,5/5. Une excellente maitrise du rythme. On tourne les pages, on ressent l'angoisse et on veut savoir si la mère et son fils s'en sortiront. Cela fonctionne très bien. On ressent également bien la relation mère-fils et l'on se retrouve vraiment à leur côté. Malheureusement certains aspects le sont un peu moins. L'intrigue générale est simple et prévisible, la fin est décevante, il se passe bien peu de chose tout au long du livre et la thématique du zoo est mal exploité. Sur ce dernier point, je m'attendais à sentir le zoo, l'odeur des animaux, de la terre, les bruits, les cris (des coups de feu sont tirés à répétition dans ce livre et aucun, je dis bien aucun, animal ne hurle, ne s'énerve, ni ne proteste!?!?). Cela aurait pu se passer dans un parc, un centre commerciale, un bloc appartement, un hôtel, n'importe où. Alors quand on pense que la traduction française porte le titre Le zoo (ce n'est pas le cas du texte original) et bien... c'est un drôle de choix! Malgré cela je ne veux pas donner l'impression que le roman est mauvais, il a ses faiblesses, certes, et je m'attendais à un truc plus original, mais cela demeure un thriller prenant et efficace, qui divertit le temps d'un après-midi!
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
A solid thriller, perfect to blast through in a power outage
I found this to be quite boring. Maybe if I was a mother I would've found it to be more suspenseful, but I doubt it.
The pages flew by with this one. I think what worked for me best was the cool setting -- a zoo at night -- and the plot point that our protagonist is trying to survive with her four year old son. I'm pretty picky about my thrillers. I think a good number of them deal with people hiding and trying to escape, rather than fighting back. This is, of course, the more sensible route to take -- especially if you're a normal, everyday type of person. The problem (for me) is that if it isn't written right, the characters seem to have little agency and can be weak/whiny. Fierce Kingdom does not have this issue at all. Sure, Joan isn't a kickbutt ninja or ex-military expert or whatever, but I bet she'd have a good chance of escaping. She's smart, thinks quickly, and seems entirely capable. However, she's with her son and no matter how well behaved and charming he is, he's still a very small child who gets lost in the needs of the moment and can only understand the danger so much. I never thought child's dinnertime could create so much tension for me, but, wow. Additionally, there is also a theme of what the morally right thing to do in such a situation is... Do you help others? Or focus only on giving your child its best chance of survival?
Big thanks to Viking Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!
FIERCE KINGDOM by Gin Phillips is one of those books that was getting a lot of hype, and for good reason! This book isn't completely a thriller, but it's an emotionally charged suspense novel. As a mother, how far would you go to protect your son?
Joan and her young son Lincoln are frequent visitors to their local zoo. They know the layout and have their favorite secluded areas. She and Lincoln go to their favorite place - a shady enclosure in the woods at the edge of the zoo. As Lincoln plays, Joan is keeping an eye on the time - 4:55pm - the zoo will be closing soon.
Then an unexpected explosion happens. Joan recognizes it as gunfire. As she tries to keep calm so she doesn't send Lincoln into a panic, she picks him up and beelines it to the only exit (the front doors). As she makes her way there, she comes across the other visitors. The armed men have been on a killing spree and Joan realizes she needs to use her knowledge of the zoo to keep her and Lincoln safe.
Phillips does an incredible job bringing the readers through the emotional ringer. This book is told "in real time". We start at 4:55 pm and the book ends at 8:05 pm for an action packed and nerve wracking read. This book had me completely drawn in, I needed to find out what Joan's next move was going to be! How was she going to avoid being caught by the gunmen? We even got a glimpse inside the mind of the killer which only improved upon the eeriness of the book.
While this was incredibly suspenseful, I wouldn't categorize it as a cat and mouse thriller. I definitely enjoyed this one and for a shorter story, it really packs an emotional punch! If you want a good suspenseful, character driven, and emotional read, then this needs to be on your list!
I give this a solid 4/5 stars!
FIERCE KINGDOM by Gin Phillips is one of those books that was getting a lot of hype, and for good reason! This book isn't completely a thriller, but it's an emotionally charged suspense novel. As a mother, how far would you go to protect your son?
Joan and her young son Lincoln are frequent visitors to their local zoo. They know the layout and have their favorite secluded areas. She and Lincoln go to their favorite place - a shady enclosure in the woods at the edge of the zoo. As Lincoln plays, Joan is keeping an eye on the time - 4:55pm - the zoo will be closing soon.
Then an unexpected explosion happens. Joan recognizes it as gunfire. As she tries to keep calm so she doesn't send Lincoln into a panic, she picks him up and beelines it to the only exit (the front doors). As she makes her way there, she comes across the other visitors. The armed men have been on a killing spree and Joan realizes she needs to use her knowledge of the zoo to keep her and Lincoln safe.
Phillips does an incredible job bringing the readers through the emotional ringer. This book is told "in real time". We start at 4:55 pm and the book ends at 8:05 pm for an action packed and nerve wracking read. This book had me completely drawn in, I needed to find out what Joan's next move was going to be! How was she going to avoid being caught by the gunmen? We even got a glimpse inside the mind of the killer which only improved upon the eeriness of the book.
While this was incredibly suspenseful, I wouldn't categorize it as a cat and mouse thriller. I definitely enjoyed this one and for a shorter story, it really packs an emotional punch! If you want a good suspenseful, character driven, and emotional read, then this needs to be on your list!
I give this a solid 4/5 stars!
OK so as you can see it took me a while to finish this book but that's beyond the point I was in a reading slump. This book had my anxiety levels through the roof first of all but this book was very difficult for me to read sometimes because I feel like a lot of it was unnecessary sometimes and boring. there was 2 to 3 pages of unnecessary information throughout the book but I guess that is Gin Phillips way of developing characters. But the book probably could've been shorter if you didn't have that unnecessary information. also it seems to go back-and-forth between other people's points of views during this situation in the book which is nice to know what the other characters or people involved were feeling during this hard time. I strongly dislike the ending because it just was not satisfying enough for me I still have many questions and I feel like standalones shouldn't leave me with any questions but I guess that's how it is. I think this book is considered a thriller if it is it definitely lived up to that genre because my heart was pounding through out a couple of moments in the book and it was really suspenseful at times and I did appreciated that. I rated this three stars because of the unnecessary pages of information that board me maybe others would like it but I unfortunately really wanted it to cut to the chase and I felt like it was being dragged on because of that unnecessary information about the characters I am assuming that the author was trying to develop the characters as well as tell a story, this book wasn't very long and I read half of it in one sitting. If I didn't enter a reading slump after that I probably would've finished the book in a day or two.
3.5 Stars
I've never read a book like this! It was intense and felt very much like watching a thriller. That said, all over the book it says it will "appeal to your maternal instincts." I'm not particularly maternal. I don't really like kids and have no desire to have any of my own, so this book didn't appeal to me on that level by any means. I'm sure it's impactful for others, but for myself? Meh.
I've never read a book like this! It was intense and felt very much like watching a thriller. That said, all over the book it says it will "appeal to your maternal instincts." I'm not particularly maternal. I don't really like kids and have no desire to have any of my own, so this book didn't appeal to me on that level by any means. I'm sure it's impactful for others, but for myself? Meh.