You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

714 reviews for:

Abandon

Blake Crouch

3.37 AVERAGE

shanajade's profile picture

shanajade's review

3.5

Definitely not his best work in my opinion, but be the end of it i was hooked. It wasn't as exciting as his sci-fi that I've read. But, man, he writes some terrible characters. I was so mad at so many of these people. A story of greed greed greed and maybe a little crazy. lol. It was pretty sad by the end, probably why i was so committed by that point. I didnt want to put it down. 

This book just struggled to hold my attention, so it has taken me forever to get through it. I usually enjoy a story by Blake Crouch, but I found this one a bit boring and not very compelling. The parallels between 1893 and 2009 Abandon just didn't work for me.

On the other hand, it was good to see a story like this have a fairly believable ending. There was no grand, heroic outcome in which our plucky heroine lives happily ever after.

Good grief - tedious. I finally started skipping all the chapters set in the past; they seem to have no relation to the present day story. Skip the whole thing and read something with a plot.
adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I would’ve given this book a higher rating if it wasn’t for the ending. fast paced with enough mystery to keep you going throughout the whole book except the ending was very uneventful. I thought there would be more closure or something crazy to happen, but unfortunately, it did not and I did not enjoy it. 
mysterious tense slow-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
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Like some other reviewers, I ended up dnf-ing this book mostly because it didn't do 'what it said on the box'. The marketing and blurb very much positions this as a horror novel, possibly with supernatural elements, when in fact it is closer to action-heavy historical fiction, or even Western in genre. It's hyper-violent and yes, horrific, but not in the way one would hope. Once I clued in to the 'horror' all being of a banal, realistic human kind, I couldn't continue because the mystery was much less intriguing. That said, I enjoyed the exposition and the time-jumps, just expected something very different from this author.
dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes