Reviews

The Passage by Justin Cronin

brea_by_the_beach's review against another edition

3.0

It is exactly six months since New Jersey instituted state wide Covid-19 shut downs to deal with a global pandemic. Things are still uncertain in the sense that schools are still mostly distance learning based, I’m still doing my legal appearances remotely, and the prospect of a vaccine for this thing seems miles away. I’ve managed to read a number of dystopian/virus themed/doomsday books the last few months, perhaps for obvious reasons. What I liked about this one was the tie in between a virus and vampirism.. which only makes sense if you consider how infection is transmitted.

This book, which is a trilogy, has some fantastically creepy moments. Particularly in the first third of the book, I was engrossed. The concept of the government being responsible for the creation of this virus, it’s unplanned spread, and potentially it’s beneficial opportunities provides all kinds of leeway for fantastical plot devices and theory and politicizing. This book doesnt do that yet. It sticks to some great narrative and character development. That was my favorite part.

BUT.. at 700 plus pages... it’s bloated and got confusing, and quite frankly, I was ready for it to be over.. and I LOVE vampire related stories.. so, I am trying to figure out where this story took a detour. I think, personally, it may have just had too many characters up front, and the arc of deciding who was the hero here, got lost in the thread.

Edited to add.. as creepy and fun a read as this was for the first third, I don’t have any desire to keep reading it through the next two books. Maybe that means editing my stars? Who knows.. but there it is.

lilyzreadz's review against another edition

adventurous dark inspiring 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

3.5

raven_morgan's review against another edition

3.0

There's a lot to like here - I like a lot of the worldbuilding, for example. But worldbuilding only gets you so far when you don't care about any of the characters. Quite frankly, I didn't care if anyone died (or if everyone did), and it's pretty hard to get emotionally invested in a book when that's the case.

I can see why a lot of people like this (especially if they're not generally genre readers, so a lot of the tropes will feel new), but I'm afraid that it just didn't hit the mark for me. May pick up the sequel at some stage if I find it cheap, but otherwise, I'm not bothering.

annevw16's review against another edition

4.0

It had kind of a slow start, probably because you most likely read the back of the book before you started reading the first chapter. In the beginning I didn't quite see the connection between the beginning of the book and the explaination on the back. Once you get sucked further into the story you understand exactly what the connection is between the two.

After a little while the story became really intense and I really did not want to quit reading this book.

bmeroski's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful tense fast-paced

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

5.0

mollyjr7's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

kieraburrows's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

Beautiful book with an amazing story line over the course of many many years. I felt quite attached to a lot of the characters, and engrossed in the world. The virals were scary and the people were amazing.

rjskitt's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-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

4.75

blurringpages's review against another edition

4.0

This felt like 3 books in one and made it a bit of slug to get through. I'd gotten attached to characters and the story, then it flipped forward so far I felt a little disorientated.
It did all end up making sense, but was a bit unsettling whilst reading.
I did however really enjoy the story and I will definitely be continuing.

malcolmvr's review against another edition

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.5