Reviews

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

carbonneau's review

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

gdsunshine's review against another edition

3.0

Interesting. Glad I read it. A bit laggy in parts and the style can't help but reflect the era it was written in. A solid "OK".

shells_bells's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective 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? No

4.0

uppermost's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

eternalw0rm's review against another edition

3.0

I found the writing a bit shallow and all over the place. Some of the dialoge was pretty interesting.

jess_mango's review against another edition

4.0

Classic sci-fi that is at least a bit under the mainstream radar. In this tale, most of the population goes blind after a meteor shower...at the same time, a mobile, carnivorous plant species called Triffids is on the rise and takes the opportunity of humanity's blindness to go on the attack.

There were spots where this book was slow for me, but overall I am glad that I read it.

noonjinx's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

This is my second John Wyndham and I’m afraid I’m still don’t understand why everyone raves about him. The ideas are great, and this one is better than the Midwich Cuckoos, but…

Some of the writing is horribly clunky. Chapter two is just one big info dump about the history of triffids.

Inconvenient family members are simply killed off early on so the main characters are free to swan off with no consequences and there is very little emotion in the story. 

There’s a lot of philosophising and most of the time the characters are simply empty mouthpieces for Wyndham’s speculations. Again, I’d much rather see that come out of the story than have it dumped on us.

The triffids themselves are not nearly as frightening as I expected. When Torrance arrives it seems as if we’re going to find out that the real enemy is other people, but even that chance is squandered with an easy escape

pickle75936's review against another edition

adventurous dark medium-paced

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

3.0

christelisreading's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

2.5

dreadgodmatthius's review against another edition

reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0