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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
This was my least favorite Peter Clines book to date😞. I loved 14 and The Fold. They were the ultimate sci-fi, horror genre that I'm obsessed with. This book definitely has sci-fi elements. [There's a ghost of a special ops guy that lives in a little girls mind] but it just wasn't as suspenseful as I'm used to with this author.
Natalie, crossed the border into the U.S. over two years ago and ended up in a cage, as so many children had in actual reality. Eventually Natalie and many other kids end up at "The Project." At this government facility the kids are experimented on in disgusting and horrifying ways. I was truly sickened at the doctors and staffs behavior. They treated the children like they were completely worthless, not even human, but I digress.
In the "Broken Room" the kids are exposed to a horrifying evil. Many children lose their minds and become "feral" or possessed. Natalie escapes with the help of Tim, a dead special ops guy, who talks to her in her head. He directs her to an old friend he worked with in the field named Hector. Hector is very reluctant to help Natalie, but he did owe Tim a favor.
As the duo travels together and escaping the people trying to return Natalie to the project they bond and develop deep affection for eachother. The first half of the book was pretty exciting and suspenseful, because they were on the run and always in danger. But that got old fast, after a repeat of found and escape 30 times. The last part of the book was the most boring 😴 I just wasn't invested and I felt like I was reading the same chapters over and over again. I think most thriller/sci-fi fans will enjoy the book, but I'd personally recommend 14 or The Fold, much more entertaining.
Natalie, crossed the border into the U.S. over two years ago and ended up in a cage, as so many children had in actual reality. Eventually Natalie and many other kids end up at "The Project." At this government facility the kids are experimented on in disgusting and horrifying ways. I was truly sickened at the doctors and staffs behavior. They treated the children like they were completely worthless, not even human, but I digress.
In the "Broken Room" the kids are exposed to a horrifying evil. Many children lose their minds and become "feral" or possessed. Natalie escapes with the help of Tim, a dead special ops guy, who talks to her in her head. He directs her to an old friend he worked with in the field named Hector. Hector is very reluctant to help Natalie, but he did owe Tim a favor.
As the duo travels together and escaping the people trying to return Natalie to the project they bond and develop deep affection for eachother. The first half of the book was pretty exciting and suspenseful, because they were on the run and always in danger. But that got old fast, after a repeat of found and escape 30 times. The last part of the book was the most boring 😴 I just wasn't invested and I felt like I was reading the same chapters over and over again. I think most thriller/sci-fi fans will enjoy the book, but I'd personally recommend 14 or The Fold, much more entertaining.
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As I was reading The Broken Room, I saw somewhere an elevator pitch describing this book as Stranger Things meets Jack Reacher, and it's certainly an apt comparison. I'd add, too, that it has a vintage, pre-dog worshipping Dean Koontz feel to it, a dash of Blake Crouch, and, in some ways, just a dab of Brian Keene's The Rising for good measure.
Hector is a familiar archetype - a former soldier who's lost those closest to him to tragedy and has spent the last two years slowly drinking himself to oblivion. He's sucking down booze when a girl, Natalie, finds him in a bar and tells him he's going to help her. She reminds him that he owes his friend Tim big-time, but Tim is dead and she's calling in that marker because his ghost told her to. She's also an escaped lab rat from a shady organization known only as The Project, and hot on her heels are a pair of suits with phony badges looking to bring her back.
Peter Clines doesn't waste any time throwing us into the thick of it all, and readers would do well to buckle up prior to cracking this one open, and maybe even cracking open a cold one for added enjoyment! This fast-paced narrative is routinely peppered with frenetic action scenes, and The Broken Room is basically one long, extended chase scene with Hector and Natalie on the run and pursued by mercenaries, hitmen, and cops. The most potent danger just might be Natalie herself, though, especially once the sci-fi horror elements rear their gross, ugly heads and the nature of The Project, and what they've done to her, is slowly and carefully revealed.
While The Broken Room is a crackling cross-genre thriller, what I found even more intriguing was the subtext surrounding these characters and their circumstances. Following the election of Donald Trump, the US-Mexico border crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hope that the children will save us has become a rather common refrain in response to the actions and behaviors of the stupid and ignorant who gave rise to the Trump presidency, antivaxxers, and mask scofflaws. The roots of The Broken Room are inescapably twisted around Trump's cruel border policies, and the shadow cast by that repugnant creature looms large over this narrative like the dark stain it is, with the demand that migrant children be torn apart from their families, and the repugnant, disgusting treatment the imprisoned were subjected to.
Natalie is one such hostage, taken from her family and lost within the system, given to The Project to be tortured and experimented upon, along with a number of other migrant children. Her only hope for survival is Hector, a hardened Mexican-American, allowing Clines to spare us from the tired white savior trope that's unfortunately still prevalent in so many other works. Along the way, we're also given an exploration of found family as Hector and Natalie's bond deepens and they're forced to fight their way through corrupt cops, a gas station Karen, and Blackwater-esque contract killers. Ahhh, good, old America! All in all, it's pretty compelling stuff and gives a welcome bit of depth to what would otherwise be little more than a standard run-and-gun story in less capable hands.
As for the titular broken room? It's creepy, man. Creepy AF.
Hector is a familiar archetype - a former soldier who's lost those closest to him to tragedy and has spent the last two years slowly drinking himself to oblivion. He's sucking down booze when a girl, Natalie, finds him in a bar and tells him he's going to help her. She reminds him that he owes his friend Tim big-time, but Tim is dead and she's calling in that marker because his ghost told her to. She's also an escaped lab rat from a shady organization known only as The Project, and hot on her heels are a pair of suits with phony badges looking to bring her back.
Peter Clines doesn't waste any time throwing us into the thick of it all, and readers would do well to buckle up prior to cracking this one open, and maybe even cracking open a cold one for added enjoyment! This fast-paced narrative is routinely peppered with frenetic action scenes, and The Broken Room is basically one long, extended chase scene with Hector and Natalie on the run and pursued by mercenaries, hitmen, and cops. The most potent danger just might be Natalie herself, though, especially once the sci-fi horror elements rear their gross, ugly heads and the nature of The Project, and what they've done to her, is slowly and carefully revealed.
While The Broken Room is a crackling cross-genre thriller, what I found even more intriguing was the subtext surrounding these characters and their circumstances. Following the election of Donald Trump, the US-Mexico border crisis, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hope that the children will save us has become a rather common refrain in response to the actions and behaviors of the stupid and ignorant who gave rise to the Trump presidency, antivaxxers, and mask scofflaws. The roots of The Broken Room are inescapably twisted around Trump's cruel border policies, and the shadow cast by that repugnant creature looms large over this narrative like the dark stain it is, with the demand that migrant children be torn apart from their families, and the repugnant, disgusting treatment the imprisoned were subjected to.
Natalie is one such hostage, taken from her family and lost within the system, given to The Project to be tortured and experimented upon, along with a number of other migrant children. Her only hope for survival is Hector, a hardened Mexican-American, allowing Clines to spare us from the tired white savior trope that's unfortunately still prevalent in so many other works. Along the way, we're also given an exploration of found family as Hector and Natalie's bond deepens and they're forced to fight their way through corrupt cops, a gas station Karen, and Blackwater-esque contract killers. Ahhh, good, old America! All in all, it's pretty compelling stuff and gives a welcome bit of depth to what would otherwise be little more than a standard run-and-gun story in less capable hands.
As for the titular broken room? It's creepy, man. Creepy AF.
predictable, bland, just really dry and poorly paced writing.
I was a fan of this author's other works so this was a real disappointment.
I guess its an action type of scifi but its just not that fun. its very one note, not much of an ark for plot or characters, and I just can't get over the crappy narration/writing.
this is the kind of long winded that I hate, it just seems like page fillers.
and the note of doing research from the author I just don't know how I feel....you needed extensive research to say "he hotwired a car"?
idk. I think I just watched the same movies he was...........inspired by. so I've already seen this book.
I was a fan of this author's other works so this was a real disappointment.
I guess its an action type of scifi but its just not that fun. its very one note, not much of an ark for plot or characters, and I just can't get over the crappy narration/writing.
this is the kind of long winded that I hate, it just seems like page fillers.
and the note of doing research from the author I just don't know how I feel....you needed extensive research to say "he hotwired a car"?
idk. I think I just watched the same movies he was...........inspired by. so I've already seen this book.
This is possibly the best Peter Clines I've read since The Fold. I am unlikely to keep reading his works because...his version of creepy always involves a form of cockroaches. Shudder.
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Not a Threshold book as I expected, but weird enough to look like one.
While there were some interesting concepts and ideas the execution read too much like an action movie with lots of empty and repetitive scenes just for action factor.
I was hoping for more so why the rating wasn't higher...
While there were some interesting concepts and ideas the execution read too much like an action movie with lots of empty and repetitive scenes just for action factor.
I was hoping for more so why the rating wasn't higher...
adventurous
fast-paced