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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
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:
Complicated
Not sure if I'll be able to wait until December for the next book to come out!!
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
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
adventurous
dark
emotional
11 days is more than I usually spend with a book, but this is a big ole brick at ~800-900 pages, so it was necessary! This is a sprawling post-apocalyptic epic, written in a fairly literary style -- slightly in the vein of [book:Station Eleven|20170404], although the latter is more beautiful, and this one more plot-driven than thematic. Don't be distracted by the pagecount and the meandering style: this novel isn't really saying Big Things about existence, moreso just telling you a long tale. I kept reading because I love seeing people survive in a brutal and frightening world, and seeing how the human race adapts and keeps on chugging. With its large size and scope and ensemble characters, I've also heard it compared to [book:The Stand|149267], which I haven't read but intend to (finally!) tackle this year.
It's admittedly pretty over-stuffed in that it feels like three different books crammed into one; it covers everything and shifts from pre-apocalypse to post-apocalypse, the narrative literally jumping 100 years at one point. And then it keeps juggling some more genre-jumps after that, the focus sliding more to dystopian society than survival. It feels a bit like Cronin had three different stories and he wanted to find a way to tell them all: The Passage honestly could have ended after the present-day section, or it could have started with the Colony, but instead they've been spliced together.
I am being Pretty Vague because I went into this book blind and liked the experience, the sheer unexpected twists-and-turns it takes as the narrative shifts entirely. But it does require that mental restructuring, that patience and willingness to just hang on and see what happens next.
Wolgast & Amy really are the emotional heart of this, though. I grew to like the other characters, but never as much as I liked spending time with those two. With the character of Amy, I was also really really reminded of [book:The Girl With All the Gifts|17235026] -- so if you liked the first half of this book, where it's more just a man and a girl and their efforts to survive, and more character-driven, then I recommend picking up Carey's book!
It also reminded me of [book:The Strain|6065215], in terms of being a slow-paced enormous vampire novel stuffed with characters, except I hated The Strain and really liked this.
What I also find interesting is that The Passage was an alternate universe even before the vampires happen: Cronin paints a world where terrorism has ratcheted up and escalated even more than in our world. It serves as a bit of a cautionary tale, in that it's fear which leads to the army/government developing a supersoldier/superweapon and accidentally ending the world.
Anyway, it's good, as long as you're of the mindset to put up with 800 relatively slow-paced pages! I'll continue with the sequels, though not rightaway because these are very, very long books and I need to keep my numbers and gender ratios up, ahhh.
ALSO, JUST, THAT ENDING. FUCK ME UP.
[Read as the first of my Horror Aficionados "Mount TBR" reading challenge, which just entails tackling horror books that were already on your to-read.]
My last semi-spoilery quibbles/questions, some that I'm hoping the sequels will answer but I'm not sure they can/will:
-- How in the world were Amy and Lacey 'different' before the infection even happened? Why did they possess those psychic powers to begin with?
-- WHO WAS THE 'GHOST' AT THE END
-- Those two end-of-chapter fakeouts towards the end were cheap as hell. That's a Goosebumps technique, Cronin. You're above this shit.
It's admittedly pretty over-stuffed in that it feels like three different books crammed into one; it covers everything and shifts from pre-apocalypse to post-apocalypse, the narrative literally jumping 100 years at one point. And then it keeps juggling some more genre-jumps after that, the focus sliding more to dystopian society than survival. It feels a bit like Cronin had three different stories and he wanted to find a way to tell them all: The Passage honestly could have ended after the present-day section, or it could have started with the Colony, but instead they've been spliced together.
I am being Pretty Vague because I went into this book blind and liked the experience, the sheer unexpected twists-and-turns it takes as the narrative shifts entirely. But it does require that mental restructuring, that patience and willingness to just hang on and see what happens next.
Wolgast & Amy really are the emotional heart of this, though. I grew to like the other characters, but never as much as I liked spending time with those two. With the character of Amy, I was also really really reminded of [book:The Girl With All the Gifts|17235026] -- so if you liked the first half of this book, where it's more just a man and a girl and their efforts to survive, and more character-driven, then I recommend picking up Carey's book!
It also reminded me of [book:The Strain|6065215], in terms of being a slow-paced enormous vampire novel stuffed with characters, except I hated The Strain and really liked this.
What I also find interesting is that The Passage was an alternate universe even before the vampires happen: Cronin paints a world where terrorism has ratcheted up and escalated even more than in our world. It serves as a bit of a cautionary tale, in that it's fear which leads to the army/government developing a supersoldier/superweapon and accidentally ending the world.
Anyway, it's good, as long as you're of the mindset to put up with 800 relatively slow-paced pages! I'll continue with the sequels, though not rightaway because these are very, very long books and I need to keep my numbers and gender ratios up, ahhh.
ALSO, JUST, THAT ENDING. FUCK ME UP.
[Read as the first of my Horror Aficionados "Mount TBR" reading challenge, which just entails tackling horror books that were already on your to-read.]
My last semi-spoilery quibbles/questions, some that I'm hoping the sequels will answer but I'm not sure they can/will:
-- How in the world were Amy and Lacey 'different' before the infection even happened? Why did they possess those psychic powers to begin with?
-- WHO WAS THE 'GHOST' AT THE END
-- Those two end-of-chapter fakeouts towards the end were cheap as hell. That's a Goosebumps technique, Cronin. You're above this shit.
I loved the first third which is a thriller. I eventually got into second part of the book which is the building of a new society. The ending disappoints. And at 700 plus pages I wanted more. I would recommend though.