Reviews

The Ravaged by Norman Reedus

krytygr's review

adventurous hopeful inspiring reflective 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? Yes

4.0

Let me begin by saying: there is no end to this book.. it is so open-ended that it feels like a sequel needs to follow it. When I finished this, I still had so many questions.. mostly about Hunter. 
Secondly, I loved the philosophical details left by Hunter's father. He was a man of many secrets but he never once made Hunter feel like he wasn't loved. And he made sure to pass on some of Hunter's best qualities.
And lastly, I absolutely adore Norman Reedus.. so much so that the book my old man bought from our local bookstore is an autographed copy!! If he decides to come out with another book (sequel or not), I will most definitely read it.

jeanshorts69's review

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

dudakc's review

I read the description for this book and was excited - it sounded exactly like my kind of thing. Then I started reading, and it was like there's a rule that every other sentence must have an unnecessary simile to describe something.

I gave up after 39 pages, shortly after reading that "He has kept them bottled and sealed like small-batch Kentucky bourbon."

smahon42's review

adventurous emotional fast-paced

3.5

nitneyy_nicolee's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

I honestly just don't think I was the correct audience for this book. The overall plot idea was very interesting. I listened to the audiobook so I could do other tasks, but I know if I had tried to sit down and actually read this I would have DNF.

acpreader's review

2.0

I have very conflicted feelings about this book. I LOVE Norman reedus cause I was a huge walking dead fan and I had to grab this when I saw it at the book store. But there are three stories in this book and honestly I kept waiting for them to come together or find some kind of connection between these three characters and stories and there was just nothing. Unless I missed something, these were basically three “short” stories in one book.
So, I wanted to LOVE this book so badly but it was just ok, I wanted some more and for it all to come together and it just didn’t.

dogswithnogs's review

2.0

I started this book thinking it was a Norman Reedus bio, so my expectations were wrong going into it. It wasn’t awful, but I didn’t know what was really going on for most of the book. Near the end there is a character who basically summarized all the hard knock life events for the main male character in one paragraph and that really struck me as the author didn’t trust the reader knows if we absorbed all the emotional points, and they would be right. Writing a book is a huge accomplishment no matter who you are, I just feel like this read as ‘othering’ and didn’t have the emotional pay off I think they wanted us to have.

akaasia's review

1.0

DNF

I tried sticking with the audiobook (narrated by the author) for a few chapters but decided life is too short to wait for things to get better.

I had hard time figuring out what this boom was trying to be; DIY manual for mechanical repairs, weird pseudo gritty fan fiction or an attempt at Kerouac.

I’ll admit, I only got this book because I love Norman Reedus and I’m glad he has a day job as an amazing actor because novelist he is not. The writing was very stilted and made me feel like I was reading either someone’s to-do list or a 7-year old’s composition on what they did last summer.

Perhaps this would be better suited as a collection of short stories?

pua_aka's review

3.0

I actually really did enjoy this book. I had to give it 3 stars though only because each characters story/journey felt very repetitive. My favorite character definitely was Hunter. He reminded me a lot of Norman Reedus. As you read his story there’s so many little hints that this character was based off him and I think a lot of that has to do with why I like him so much. But by far the more interesting story is Jack. I really couldn’t get connected or engaged with Anne’s story as much as the other two. I did enjoy it just not as much. I don’t know if there are any plans for a second book but I feel as if there could after finishing this.

pio_near's review

4.0

A simple story with three points of view all running... and the story that emerges shows how connection, community and family are really all that matter in a world full of strife. I was given the opportu ity to listen to the audiobook (thanks to NetGalley), which is read by Reedus. His dry, bare bones no frills way of reading gave a great grit to the story, its prose sometimes evocative of Hemmingway's staccato style, if not always the depth of emotion. Overall, a good work I enjoyed!