A review by davidareyzaga
The Creeps by John Connolly

3.0

Connolly has an incredible sense of humor and I appreciate him for that. However, when a story really starts halfway through the novel, the large setup doesn't feel worth the time, especially considering the pay off. Maybe the entire story could have been told in two novels. After all, the only characters that truly matter occupy one third of this book. This is not a universe (or multiverse) that I'm particularly interested in knowing in detail. Granted, the ending is very sweet, but that could have also been obtained at the end of the second novel if they had added 100 pages more without having to deal with so many secondary characters that are hardly worth anyone's time except for the fact that they're funny. At the end of the day, this is the story of Samuel, Nord, Wormwood, Mary, the Great Malevolence, and Mrs. Abernathy. I really didn't need the rest of them to feel connected to the story. Anyway, I guess it's a good starter trilogy for teenagers who might find themselves reading one day the far superior work of David Wong in his main series (and only in that series since Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits has similar problems), or, as many people have pointed out, it's good for people who enjoy Eoin Colfer. Personally, I abandoned Atermis Fowl's adventures as well since book series tend to lack a focused story, and include many underdeveloped characters just for the sake of building a universe, when the story of the only character or characters who are fully developed can be told in a single book if you remove all the extra noise. So far, A Series of Unfortunate Events seems to be one of the only series that manages to get things right when it comes to keeping the eyes set on the goal and avoiding pointless distractions.