Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Passage by Justin Cronin

13 reviews

paguroidea's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

Flyers, what a letdown. Strong start and a lot of character introductions with backstories that dead ends over and over. The whole book felt at the end like it’s just setting up the rest of the series. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Gore

Moderate: Torture, Animal death, and Pregnancy

Minor: Suicide

teabex's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-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

4.5

A fascinating story with interesting characters, unpredictable twists, and epic journeys. It covers a vast set of plot lines and times, in would could have been three separate books itself. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing, Rape, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, and Torture

Minor: Confinement, Kidnapping, Animal death, Cancer, Medical content, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, and Suicide

eliencostermans's review

The author abandons plot lines and the story seems to go nowhere. There are way too many characters that stay quite flat. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Pandemic/Epidemic

katiecentabar's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.75

I tore through this trying to finish in 2023 but came up short, so it’s my first of the new year. This book is cinematic and fascinating. Though overlong and with coincidences that made me go “really?” I enjoyed it a lot. I’ll probably finish the series 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Gore, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Suicide, Pregnancy, Animal death, War, and Miscarriage

cryosphinx's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be reborn.

My mom got the series for me for Christmas and DEMANDED I read it because I like me some post-apocalyptic novels, not so much vampires but I rolled with it.

What I did like is that this book gives you the moments that led up to the end of the world before jumping forward ~100 years after the fallout. I didn't mind the time skip that much, or the even larger one that comes and goes (because it still makes sense) but the book really slogs when that time skip happens. I understand that Cronin needed to world build the colony but it was hard to keep track of all the new characters, who they were, and who was important. It's just jarring because the pre-apocalypse does the same thing: a ton of characters and who is important and who does what. Then we time skip, dump all those characters, and do it all over.

The book itself could have probably been edited down shorter. Some of sections where the POV changes to one of the other characters spends more time than necessary building a character who ultimately isn't a plot critical character.

I did enjoy the ending sections where the POV changes and gives insight into some the mysteries, but ultimately, some mysteries are left unsolved like

Amy is special but WHY is she special?

Which I hope get answered in the next book or I'll be big mad. 

So yes, it gets real slow and boring in some parts but I think it was worth plowing throigh to get some of.the more exciting parts and a lot of the prose IS really good.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

Moderate: War, Murder, and Pregnancy

Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Miscarriage

tealightfultomes's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Death, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Pregnancy

minanonim's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

While the start is a bit slow, the story picks up pace halfway in. It was definitely a good choice on my part to go with the audiobook, and turn up the speed (I did this from the beginning). However, I must say, this book has ALL OF THE TRIGGER WARNINGS, like any trigger warning you can think of is probably in there somewhere. Please be careful if you, unlike me, have a heart.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gore, Torture, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Body horror, Grief, Pregnancy, Racism, Rape, Torture, Sexual assault, Blood, Child death, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Suicide, and Violence

Minor: Vomit, Terminal illness, and Cancer

lupitabaeyongo's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Gore, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Racism, and Violence

meganpbennett's review against another edition

The Passage is a fascinating book, but it got far too post-apocalyptic for me. And that doesn't include all of the ethical and moral issues with the first 25%. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Vomit, Animal death, Bullying, Confinement, and Suicide

caughtbetweenpages's review

adventurous emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

I think I would have enjoyed this book more if Cronin had picked one storyline and stuck to it. Is this a book about the events leading up to a bio-apocalypse or is it an aftermath/rebuilding story? The passage attempts to be both, and for me, that didn't quite work. 
Don't get me wrong, it certainly was entertaining--Cronin's writing style lends itself to fast paced action scenes--but the character work just wasn't there for me. In part because the women characters suffered from an abundance of "written by a man" syndrome (women either get to be nurturing mothers or Action Gals, and all of them are pretty/sexualized by at least one man. Plus, if their suffering doesn't include at least some sexual violence, then how do you even know they're women??), but also because, to make room for so much Theme and Plot, the character work is a lot more "told" than demonstrated. The sort-of exceptions to this are Agent Wolgast and Carter/one of the Twelve, and they're gone by page 200ish/900ish.
I did enjoy getting to know the backstory of the Twelve; it made them more rounded as antagonists, and while Amy was more a plot device and a stereotype of girlhood than a character (and certainly not the protagonist Cronin has stated he wanted her to be), I still enjoyed seeing a girl be a Messianic figure of sorts, even though her Trump Card Nature made the ending feel pretty anticlimactic and abrupt. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Racism, Cannibalism, Rape, Violence, and Gore

also TW Military Violence