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sealsea88's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I will preface this by saying this made my Worst Book List - of which I think there's been maybe 5 in my 30+ years of life. This book tried to be too many things and because it tried to be too much, it failed to be the most important thing which is good. I typically would have given up on a book of this length but it held promise up until the last 250ish pages. If you're reading this and aren't at that threshold yet, bail out now.
I did enjoy that this was a twist on the traditional zombie trope, the characters in the novel are referred to as the Walkers, and they appear to be sleepwalking. Things begin small, just a few walkers, but as they begin walking westward more and more Walkers join and our character list begins to swell.
If you're looking for an end of the world kind of book, Justin Cronin's The Passage does end of the world way better, and leaves you with characters that you actually care about. I barely remember the names of the main characters in this novel because the cast list was so swollen by the end.
This book tried to be a commentary on the Trump Presidency (for perspective I read this in March of 2021), a pandemic story/mystery of the start of the disease, a HAL 2001: A Space Odyssey-machine-takes-over robot horror story, and the world ends and we start over all in one book that wasn't 1,000 pages. You cannot do justice to all of those storylines in just 782 pages (paperback version). This book also included a rape scene which I feel was used solely for shock value (in the story it is used as a means of torture, degradation, and control) which would have been enough to make my WBL.(/spoiler>
I did enjoy that this was a twist on the traditional zombie trope, the characters in the novel are referred to as the Walkers, and they appear to be sleepwalking. Things begin small, just a few walkers, but as they begin walking westward more and more Walkers join and our character list begins to swell.
If you're looking for an end of the world kind of book, Justin Cronin's The Passage does end of the world way better, and leaves you with characters that you actually care about. I barely remember the names of the main characters in this novel because the cast list was so swollen by the end.
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Violence
jenny_d's review
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
Man... this book could have been a LOT shorter. Lots of repetitive phrases. A few characters that could have been entirely left out, like Pete, without changing the story at all. I feel like the rape scene in the bunker could have been a fade-to-black kind of thing instead. There were parts of the story that were pretty good, but by the time I was two thirds of the way through I had lost a lot of interest in the story. It felt like a slog after that. Plus there were so many things about it that were way too squicky for me .
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Dementia, Gun violence, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Vomit, and Xenophobia
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
demiwriter's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Sexual assault, Torture, and Rape
Moderate: Blood, Racial slurs, Violence, Gun violence, and Gore
Minor: Suicide and Animal death
thejessleigh's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I've seen this novel billed online as "The Stand for the Trump Era" and while I usually roll my eyes at the "X but Y" formula for markeeting books, this one pretty well nails it. I loved this book. Sometimes I'm not totally sold on books that have a ton of different perspectives since some come out less well developed than others, but the length of the novel is an advantage here, since each perspective character is given a lot of breathing room. I really grew to care about the cast, and I genuinely did not see some of the twists coming, which is pretty rare for me.
Graphic: Sexual assault
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