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712 reviews for:

Abandon

Blake Crouch

3.37 AVERAGE

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: N/A
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

not great writing, not great fleshing out of characters, some crazy plot armor - but I was riveted to find out what happened the entire time, so do with that what you will

Originally posted on the book blog Creature From the Book Lagoon.

The mystery of what happened to the town really had me hooked. Part of the book takes place in the present day, the other part takes place back in 1893 on the day of the town disappearance. Both stories were interesting. I was very curious about the town vanishing AND what happened to the treasure. This is a very entertaining thriller. Abandon has a great premise and there are plenty of surprises throughout the whole book.

BUT….

The book blurb on the back of the book totally makes it sound like a supernatural horror story! If you go into this book waiting for ghosts, you will feel like it was a bait and switch situation. You will be disappointed. Abandon is a treasure seeking thriller. If you go in expecting a thriller, you will not be disappointed. I will admit, I went in thinking it was going to be supernatural and it took me a very long time to let go of being angry / disappointed, and just enjoy the thriller side of the story.

There are, however, a few other small problems I had with Abandon. First, it felt very long. I mean… it felt LOOOOONG. Much longer then 11 hours 22 mins. A long story isn’t bad, but this felt like some parts of the story were getting dragged out for too long.

The other problem is that there are a lot of characters to follow. I don’t know if it was because I had the audio, or if it was how it was written, but sometimes – especially in the 1893 chapters- it felt a little confusing as to who was talking. It seemed to take a few minutes to realize which characters were part of the conversation.

Problems aside, this was a very fascinating tale of greed. Past, present, doesn’t matter. Greed is timeless. Abandon does a great job of showcasing this. You can’t help but feel curious yourself about the treasure of gold. What happened to it? Where is it now?

The big reveal at the end (the reason why the people of Abandon disappeared) was a little bit confusing. Why exactly? I’m not 100% sure…. but I thought it was a interesting route to go and one I didn’t see coming. It was also a little bit confusing about how the people had remained hidden for so long. I mean…. why did nobody check THERE… and if they did check that location, how did they not find them? :/ I’m not 100% sure about this either…

I don’t think Abandon was a bad book. I do wish I had known ahead of time it was a thriller instead of a supernatural horror. There is enough mystery here to have you hooked and curious about what exactly is going on. I wish the ending was a little bit clearer.
adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No
annieliz's profile picture

annieliz's review

DID NOT FINISH: 25%

Not into it. 
dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

I listened to the audiobook, which took me a while to really understand the points to view with so many narrators. The book also seemed to go on for an eternity - often times I asked myself ‘how much more can happen?’

At the end I did enjoy the storyline and how Blake Crouch connected the stories from 1893 to Present Day. It is not as suspenseful as some of his other novels, but still a deep and twisted story to read.
adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes