3.72 AVERAGE

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This is not a bad book, but it is definitely not great either.
It started out pretty strong, with a good mystery and a creepy atmosphere, but was not able to maintain any of it until the end. The pacing felt a bit off and made it hard to stay hooked in the story. The characters also felt very shallow, without much substance. I never got attached to any of them.

The devices used in this book kind of bored me. The whole
extraterrestrial/from time immemorial being that comes up every few years to eat people
has been seen and done better, in my opinion. This felt like reading a bad retelling of It, even though It was written a few years after Phantoms. The lack of nuance also annoyed me. There was such a clear straight division between good and evil that I grew tired. It was boring knowing that
the good guys would inevitably win
, without even a moment of doubt. On top of that, the characters were shallow and boring. We knew so little about them and they were so underdeveloped that at no point did I feel any sort of emotion towards them. They felt like simple tools to advance the story.

Special mention to the weird happening at the end of the book. It was so random and out of place, that it actually kind of surprised me. Probably the only time I was ever surprised or invested in the book, even though I never truly was in the first place.

The only reason I am not giving this a 1 star review is that the book was entertaining. I finished it and never felt like I should DNF. But that’s about it.
mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
dark 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: No

One of my favorite books I’ve ever read

To preface, I fear that I am in a little book slump and that I did not do this book any favors by simultaneously beginning my Twilight reread… That being said, I found Phantoms kinda difficult to get through.

I’ll start with the positives: The writing was eerily suspenseful and created the perfect spooky season vibe. The descriptions were pretty gory and disturbing. I wouldn’t say that I was ever scared? but I didn’t want to read this book alone at night. I would describe it as a combination of Stranger Things and Bird Box.

The theories at the end were my favorite part—who came first, humanity or the devil? Did one inspire the other? Interesting!! I loved how this theory tied into mass disappearances like Roanoke. I’ve always been fascinated by this, and I found Flyte’s chapters a welcome break from the monotony.

This leads us to my main issue: it was extremely repetitive. Jenny & Lisa first explore the town, then they bring the cops to re-explore the town, then the specialists come to re-re-explore the town. If that sentence felt repetitive to you, imagine reading 300+ pages of it. The same could be said about encounters with the monster. Each time it made an appearance, someone was killed. After a while I started to wonder what the point was.

I stopped being scared of the monster when the characters chatted with it online. Let me just include a few quotes: “Jesus fucks dogs”, “Clarify my cock, you boring bitch”, “Stupid slut”. Tell me why it sounds like a middle schooler trolling (or Sam (ily)). At this point the whole book started to feel like a joke.

I would maybe recommend if you like Stranger Things but I don’t know.
dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I'm a bit on the fence with this one. It's not the first time I've read it. I did so years ago and decided to give it another go. Now, in my first reading, I had loved it! Now, years later, I'm more mixed about it.

The story is good, the narration rendered well. The suspense makes it interesting as is the creepy atmosphere of the setting.

That said, the pace of the action lags and seems to drag along after a while. There are also too many different PoVs and though they are well voiced, in some cases I had no idea who the character was nor how he/she was tied to the story, honestly.

The romance aspect had been something I had really liked years ago. Now though, I'm a bit more jaded, with a bit more life experience and it just got on my nerve, really. If it was me in that sort of situation, the last thing I would be is making starry eyes at another person.

Still, this is Dean Koontz and, as such, the novel is good... just not as good as I remembered it though.
adventurous 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

I really enjoyed this book. Then, in the Author's note he cited it as one of the biggest mistakes he's made in his career

Something is amiss in the town of Snowfield. Five hundred people are either dead or missing within a day. The ominous silence and terror of the unknown are amplified by Koontz's vivid description. This book will make you feel uneasy from the very start. Highly recommend it to Koontz's fans.

This was a really fun book to read! There were a few things I found in the book to be sort of pointless but still a pretty good little horror book