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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It's hilarious this was advertised as Sci-Fi but ended up being yet another vampire/zombie hybrid escape story.
A village secured against these zombies, struggling to survive. They find a non-zombie immortal, and decide to leave their security to identify her origin, and have predictable adventures down the line. The book ends when the girl gets to the compound which bred this virus.
Not a lot of creative action scenes, close to no character development. The breeding facility for women was horrifying. It is yet again disappointing how writers think they can only make money by highlighting the worst of human tendencies in adverse situations.
A village secured against these zombies, struggling to survive. They find a non-zombie immortal, and decide to leave their security to identify her origin, and have predictable adventures down the line. The book ends when the girl gets to the compound which bred this virus.
Not a lot of creative action scenes, close to no character development. The breeding facility for women was horrifying. It is yet again disappointing how writers think they can only make money by highlighting the worst of human tendencies in adverse situations.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
I first learned about this book because I saw it on Oprah's Summer book list. I read a few reviews about it and put my name on the waiting list at the library. I didn't know what to expect when I started to read it. At first, I was really confused. Also, I wasn't sure how I felt about reading another book about vampires. Except these aren't your typical vampires. These are true monsters. But as the story goes on you find yourself engulfed in the story and trying to figure out what happened and what is going to happen.
I thought the book was wonderfully written and after reading some other reviews, I don't necessarily agree that the writing and dialogue is hard to follow. It takes some getting used to until you finally get it. It does remind me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but this has a little more development.
I really liked how he developed each of the characters. You loved them, hated them, got really frustrated with them, and were confused a lot of the time too. Besides Amy and Peter, I think my favorite character is Carter. I look forward to reading more about him...
The book is long, but it's good. Every part is necessary. What seems to be a little thing turns out to be something big. It does end a little abruptly, especially after such a long tale, but it makes more sense now that I know this is meant to be book one in a trilogy. And I'm excited by the titles of the next two books- The Twelve and The City of Mirrors. Although, it's going to suck waiting until 2012 for the next one. Also, I saw that they are already working on a screenplay. Not sure how I feel about it, but the producers linked to it give me hope. So we'll see.
Although I know not everyone is going to like this book, I highly recommend it.
I thought the book was wonderfully written and after reading some other reviews, I don't necessarily agree that the writing and dialogue is hard to follow. It takes some getting used to until you finally get it. It does remind me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, but this has a little more development.
I really liked how he developed each of the characters. You loved them, hated them, got really frustrated with them, and were confused a lot of the time too. Besides Amy and Peter, I think my favorite character is Carter. I look forward to reading more about him...
The book is long, but it's good. Every part is necessary. What seems to be a little thing turns out to be something big. It does end a little abruptly, especially after such a long tale, but it makes more sense now that I know this is meant to be book one in a trilogy. And I'm excited by the titles of the next two books- The Twelve and The City of Mirrors. Although, it's going to suck waiting until 2012 for the next one. Also, I saw that they are already working on a screenplay. Not sure how I feel about it, but the producers linked to it give me hope. So we'll see.
Although I know not everyone is going to like this book, I highly recommend it.
What a great book, the odd think is I really did not like reading it, the whole story was very unsettling to me, but it was a page turner and I found it was very hard to put the book down and go to bed. You really do not want to miss reading this breathtaking novel. The story of human triumph, courage in overwhelming odds, and perseverence when hope is but a thread will completely captivate you. It really was a 4.5 book for me but I rounded up to a 5!
I keep trying to think what to say about this that does it justice. On a basic level, it's like what you'd get if you threw half a dozen Stephen King novels in a blender and skimmed off most of the horror. Imagine The Stand meeting Firestarter meeting The Shining meeting Salem's Lot (maybe also meeting Talisman, at least in the sense of the absent beloved mother, and just possibly tossing in a little George R.R. Martin). I mean, you could cast quite a lot of The Passage out of Stephen King characters.
I loved that this took the journey far and away beyond what King did in The Stand -- less introspection and more action, even accounting for a cast of many dozens.
Full marks for awesome empowered (and disempowered in story-relevant ways) women of all varieties.
Most marks for there being multiple characters with disabilities doing things, living beyond the limits assumed of them by able-bodied characters/readers, and otherwise being important to the plot. Not full marks because of the disabled characters refusing leadership roles they could easily have possessed.
Anti-marks for totally negative GLBT awareness. One minor character is a chemical-castrato, a court-ordered parole-condition for his sentence for raping young boys. That's the only textual mention of homosexuality. However, there's some awesome same-sex friendship, and even vivid grief for same-sex best friends and siblings, but there's never a hint that healthy queer people exist in this 'verse. It is irksome.
Also, the editor gets a B- for all the really annoying tiny errors. It would be a C, but the size of this brick counts for something, too.
I do want to give it more than 3 stars, and yet I'm still stuck on this impression of it being a reinvention of many books I've read before. Well done for what it is, but it could've been better. I'm looking forward to what he writes next.
I loved that this took the journey far and away beyond what King did in The Stand -- less introspection and more action, even accounting for a cast of many dozens.
Full marks for awesome empowered (and disempowered in story-relevant ways) women of all varieties.
Most marks for there being multiple characters with disabilities doing things, living beyond the limits assumed of them by able-bodied characters/readers, and otherwise being important to the plot. Not full marks because of the disabled characters refusing leadership roles they could easily have possessed.
Anti-marks for totally negative GLBT awareness. One minor character is a chemical-castrato, a court-ordered parole-condition for his sentence for raping young boys. That's the only textual mention of homosexuality. However, there's some awesome same-sex friendship, and even vivid grief for same-sex best friends and siblings, but there's never a hint that healthy queer people exist in this 'verse. It is irksome.
Also, the editor gets a B- for all the really annoying tiny errors. It would be a C, but the size of this brick counts for something, too.
I do want to give it more than 3 stars, and yet I'm still stuck on this impression of it being a reinvention of many books I've read before. Well done for what it is, but it could've been better. I'm looking forward to what he writes next.
I thought this was well-written, but I just couldn't get into it. After the first part, I felt like the book should have been finished. There was so much detail and backgroung about every character, it was difficult to know who to care about so I found myself not caring about what happened. I tried, because I'd heard so many good things about it, but alas, it was not for me I guess.
Spoiler
and then everyone died, and then everyone died again... and a whole new cast of characters...
The book tells the story of a scientific experiment to inject humans with a virus that turns their thymus gland back on and allows them to live for a very long time. But, during the experimentation phase, the virus turns humans into mutant vampires. Of course, the mutant vampires escape and wreak havoc on the United States. And, the key to saving the world is in Amy, a little girl who was the last "test" subject before the escape. A group of people from a Colony established after the collapse of humanity finds her and returns her to Colorado to learn the truth of what happened and to try to end the "smokes" or "dracs" as they're called. This book is post-apocalyptic science fiction which is a genre I have never read. And, while I don't think it's a genre I will be returning to anytime soon. I really liked this book. The characters were so interesting and rooting for them was easy. I can understand why this book is on the best books to date in 2010.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I WON THIS ON FIRST READS!!! YAYYY! Can't wait to read it :) I'll update as soon as I get the book! Thanks!!!!
I am going to give a very straight up and honest review here. This book was sooooo very long! It took me several weeks to read (usually takes me a week to read any book). It was very intense, very well written. It was not the kind of book in which you could skip the "boring" parts and go right to the end. You had to consume every single word. And that's what I did. I want to compare this book to so many different works I've read... but in the end, it still holds its very own. With similarities to Stephen King's The Stand and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead series, this book combines all of the heart and all of the suspense, twists and turns that the before mentioned do. I would read this again which is not something I usually do, no matter how much I love a book. And I cannot wait until the sequel "The Twelve" comes out because I'm dying to read how Amy's story ends. Beautiful, haunting.. incredible. Good...no...GREAT read! Thanks Goodreads for giving me the opportunity to read this selection.
I am going to give a very straight up and honest review here. This book was sooooo very long! It took me several weeks to read (usually takes me a week to read any book). It was very intense, very well written. It was not the kind of book in which you could skip the "boring" parts and go right to the end. You had to consume every single word. And that's what I did. I want to compare this book to so many different works I've read... but in the end, it still holds its very own. With similarities to Stephen King's The Stand and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead series, this book combines all of the heart and all of the suspense, twists and turns that the before mentioned do. I would read this again which is not something I usually do, no matter how much I love a book. And I cannot wait until the sequel "The Twelve" comes out because I'm dying to read how Amy's story ends. Beautiful, haunting.. incredible. Good...no...GREAT read! Thanks Goodreads for giving me the opportunity to read this selection.
There are a lot of dystopian outbreak books out there, so it would be easy for The Passage to feel a lot like the rest of them. Instead, it stood out. Despite its length, the book moved quickly, easily transitioning from the beginning of the outbreak to almost a century later, with Amy, the central character, being the thread that ties everything together. If you like reading dystopian books, you'll love this one, and if you don't, you still may like it.