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trina_reads's review against another edition
4.0
What happened to the end?
I liked it, but I felt quite unresolved. I want to know what happened to Sara and Maus and Theo and Amy! The way it ended just has me assuming that they all died very shortly after, that nothing came of them returning to the colony and going to Roswell. And what was the deal with the excerpts having the date of 1000-ish years after the viral take over (I assume A.V. means after-virals)? Too much confusion to be a nicely wound up book!
I liked it, but I felt quite unresolved. I want to know what happened to Sara and Maus and Theo and Amy! The way it ended just has me assuming that they all died very shortly after, that nothing came of them returning to the colony and going to Roswell. And what was the deal with the excerpts having the date of 1000-ish years after the viral take over (I assume A.V. means after-virals)? Too much confusion to be a nicely wound up book!
tates1965's review against another edition
4.0
This book is not what I thought it was but I'm okay with that. It's a slow, slow build but you get us attached to the character. I loved it. Already have the next two queue up.
summerpo's review against another edition
3.0
Like two books in one, and only the first one was able to keep my interest …
I picked this book up after reading another by the same author that I really enjoyed. This one… it was long. And convoluted. I cared about the characters in the first third of the book. But then we shifted to a whole different cast of characters and it felt like the rug was ripped out from under me.
It reminded me a LOT of the Walking Dead (and not just because of the zombies). For a while there, I thought it was never going to end. This is one that I will not be reading the subsequent installments of.
I picked this book up after reading another by the same author that I really enjoyed. This one… it was long. And convoluted. I cared about the characters in the first third of the book. But then we shifted to a whole different cast of characters and it felt like the rug was ripped out from under me.
It reminded me a LOT of the Walking Dead (and not just because of the zombies). For a while there, I thought it was never going to end. This is one that I will not be reading the subsequent installments of.
lyricsninja's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best comments I could give for “The Passage” is what my friend Brad said, “Its like an apocalyptic vampire novel written by a person with actual literary ability”. Yes. This times a thousand. In fact make that times two thousand. The book is creepy, compelling, mysterious, and just god damned bloody brilliant. The characters are vivid and well formed, with a lot of depth to their personalities. And Justin Cronin does an absolutely masterful job with really making you care for each of them in differing ways. Some people you love, others you hate… but no matter what you have a visceral reaction where one is warranted. From the first page to the last, this was a really outstanding book and im looking forward to taking on the second book of the series. Unlike some of the other… uh… flimsy vampire novels out there – this one is more than worth the time and money.
raeallic's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this! It was such an epic tale! Took me forever but every disc was worth it. Absolutely the best narration I've ever heard period.
jade_ls_lee's review against another edition
4.0
Saglabāšu 4 zvaigžņu vērtējumu, kāds jau bija ielikts pirmās lasīšanas reizē. Lai gan te ir daudz lietas, kas episki norauj jumtu un neļauj izlaist grāmatu no rokām pat tad, kad ir jau divi naktī, tikpat daudz lietas arī pa drusciņai velk to visu parādi uz leju.
Aptuveni pēc 500lpp konstatēju, ka šeit jau notiek daudzi sižeta pavērsieni, kurus maldīgi domāju esam no "Divpadsmit". :D Secinājumā nonākam līdz tam, ka es ne velna neatceros no otrās daļas - tikai,ka sākumā bija Denveras pēdējais cietoksnis un šo to no beigu repulsive slaktiņiem.
Bet kopumā tikai priecājos, ka izlēmu par labu pārlasīšanai. Beidzot laiks novest šo triloģiju līdz galam.
P.S. Eh, kā šīs a la Gredzenu pavēlnieka garo ceļojumu apraksti uzsit vēlmi doties 1000km pārgājienā pa neatklātām zemēm, kur ceļš vienā virzienā vien prasa gadu. :D
Aptuveni pēc 500lpp konstatēju, ka šeit jau notiek daudzi sižeta pavērsieni, kurus maldīgi domāju esam no "Divpadsmit". :D Secinājumā nonākam līdz tam, ka es ne velna neatceros no otrās daļas - tikai,ka sākumā bija Denveras pēdējais cietoksnis un šo to no beigu repulsive slaktiņiem.
Bet kopumā tikai priecājos, ka izlēmu par labu pārlasīšanai. Beidzot laiks novest šo triloģiju līdz galam.
P.S. Eh, kā šīs a la Gredzenu pavēlnieka garo ceļojumu apraksti uzsit vēlmi doties 1000km pārgājienā pa neatklātām zemēm, kur ceļš vienā virzienā vien prasa gadu. :D
winewalknbooktok's review against another edition
1.0
I tried to read this book but it got too weird for me. It was more science fiction than I thought and difficult to follow in parts. It was intriguing at the beginning but when the one character was talking to himself and having weird visions and dead animals it lost me.
emtees's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book is just a lot of book. I loved it, but it didn’t feel like the experience of reading a book so much as a seemingly endless journey through a story that kept changing focus, always staying engaging, but getting further and further from where it started, so that by the time the plot looped around back to the beginning it felt like it had been nearly as long for me as for the characters since those original events played out. And considering the book features a time jump of nearly a full century, that’s saying something.
The first section of the book takes place in a near future - though a near future written from the perspective of about 2010 that now feels a bit dated (Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 style terrorism are cultural obsessions). Even in these early chapters, the world is already sliding towards dystopia - New Orleans has been destroyed by floods and the country is covered in checkpoints that make any kind of anonymous travel impossible. In this version of a dark US, Brad Wolgast, an FBI agent on the verge of retirement, and his partner travel from one prison to another, recruiting men sentenced to death row into a secret government project that is using a virus discovered in the jungles of South America to attempt to cure… death, basically, or at least aging. The build up of this first section is really well done - there’s Brad’s story, which includes his personal tragedies, only slowly spooled out; a series of emails from a scientist detailing the dramatic situation under which the virus was discovered; and the story of Amy, a young girl from a mundanely sad background who, due to a series of coincidences (maybe? The role of coincidence in this story isn’t always clear and there always appears to be a hint that some sort of destiny in in play) is selected to become the latest victim of the project. Cronin sells the cynicism and conflicting goals of the various scientific, military and intelligence figures behind Project Noah so well that you actually believe such an obviously dumb project could go forward, and that the fall out from it that destroys civilization as we know it is inevitable. When the collapse comes, Wolgast ends up on the run with Amy, hiding out as the dystopia around them reaches them only in rumors.
And then the story jumps forward a hundred years and we meet the real hero, Peter, a young man living in an isolated community of human survivors who is sure that his life is meant to contain more than it does. Peter gets the opportunity to prove that when a mysterious girl arrives in his community, mute and yet able to communicate, bearing a military chip that seems to be sending a signal to a distant location. A girl named Amy.
The story here is so massive, with tons of side characters and their internal and external journeys, that it got hard to keep track of it all at times, but Cronin masterfully ties it all together in the end. In the beginning I was often unsure what I was supposed to focus on - did the time jump mean that all the characters from the first section were just gone and I didn’t need to remember anything about them? Does it matter that we know one of the death row inmates who participated in the project wasn’t actually guilty of anything but kindness to a lonely woman? What about the backstory of Lacey, a nun who tries to help Amy, or the journal entries of a young girl who survived the initial chaos of the apocalypse? The answer is yes, Cronin makes it all matter (well, maybe not the death row inmate, but I expect that to come into play in later books.) I don’t just mean that he ties the plot up neatly, little hints you could almost miss fitting together at just the right moment, although he does do that in brilliant form, but that the emotional struggles of the characters, their relationships with each other and their experiences of despair and faith, all matter. Themes reoccur in a way that feels literary, whether that’s the importance of remembering our stories, hinted at through the sections told in journal form that are being read a thousand years in the future, or even the changed meaning of Project Noah, from a reference to the long life of the biblical figure to a hint at the way humanity will survive. For all that this is an adventure story, an apocalyptic journey, a horror novel, it is also a deeply emotional and soulful book about survival. I cannot wait to pick up the next one.
The first section of the book takes place in a near future - though a near future written from the perspective of about 2010 that now feels a bit dated (Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 style terrorism are cultural obsessions). Even in these early chapters, the world is already sliding towards dystopia - New Orleans has been destroyed by floods and the country is covered in checkpoints that make any kind of anonymous travel impossible. In this version of a dark US, Brad Wolgast, an FBI agent on the verge of retirement, and his partner travel from one prison to another, recruiting men sentenced to death row into a secret government project that is using a virus discovered in the jungles of South America to attempt to cure… death, basically, or at least aging. The build up of this first section is really well done - there’s Brad’s story, which includes his personal tragedies, only slowly spooled out; a series of emails from a scientist detailing the dramatic situation under which the virus was discovered; and the story of Amy, a young girl from a mundanely sad background who, due to a series of coincidences (maybe? The role of coincidence in this story isn’t always clear and there always appears to be a hint that some sort of destiny in in play) is selected to become the latest victim of the project. Cronin sells the cynicism and conflicting goals of the various scientific, military and intelligence figures behind Project Noah so well that you actually believe such an obviously dumb project could go forward, and that the fall out from it that destroys civilization as we know it is inevitable. When the collapse comes, Wolgast ends up on the run with Amy, hiding out as the dystopia around them reaches them only in rumors.
And then the story jumps forward a hundred years and we meet the real hero, Peter, a young man living in an isolated community of human survivors who is sure that his life is meant to contain more than it does. Peter gets the opportunity to prove that when a mysterious girl arrives in his community, mute and yet able to communicate, bearing a military chip that seems to be sending a signal to a distant location. A girl named Amy.
The story here is so massive, with tons of side characters and their internal and external journeys, that it got hard to keep track of it all at times, but Cronin masterfully ties it all together in the end. In the beginning I was often unsure what I was supposed to focus on - did the time jump mean that all the characters from the first section were just gone and I didn’t need to remember anything about them? Does it matter that we know one of the death row inmates who participated in the project wasn’t actually guilty of anything but kindness to a lonely woman? What about the backstory of Lacey, a nun who tries to help Amy, or the journal entries of a young girl who survived the initial chaos of the apocalypse? The answer is yes, Cronin makes it all matter (well, maybe not the death row inmate, but I expect that to come into play in later books.) I don’t just mean that he ties the plot up neatly, little hints you could almost miss fitting together at just the right moment, although he does do that in brilliant form, but that the emotional struggles of the characters, their relationships with each other and their experiences of despair and faith, all matter. Themes reoccur in a way that feels literary, whether that’s the importance of remembering our stories, hinted at through the sections told in journal form that are being read a thousand years in the future, or even the changed meaning of Project Noah, from a reference to the long life of the biblical figure to a hint at the way humanity will survive. For all that this is an adventure story, an apocalyptic journey, a horror novel, it is also a deeply emotional and soulful book about survival. I cannot wait to pick up the next one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror and Death
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Suicide
Lots of body horror and death by vampires. A main character is pregnant through the book and has a difficult, though successful, child birth scene near the end. There is a brief mention of suicide.bookeliina's review against another edition
3.0
Kaut kā tā pa vidu 2,5/5
Bez īpašām emocijām. Plauktā stāv arī otrā daļa, bet nevaru izlemt vai turpināt. Pieņemu, ka otrajā grāmatā ir vairāk aktivitātes īsākā laika posmā un ļoti ceru, ka mazāk galveno varoņu tiks nogalināti.
Bez īpašām emocijām. Plauktā stāv arī otrā daļa, bet nevaru izlemt vai turpināt. Pieņemu, ka otrajā grāmatā ir vairāk aktivitātes īsākā laika posmā un ļoti ceru, ka mazāk galveno varoņu tiks nogalināti.
anjanettew13's review against another edition
3.0
Good but it seemed like it could have been shorter... Not sure I'm on board with the 2nd and 3rd