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alicetheowl 's review for:
The Passage
by Justin Cronin
This book was not worth 766 pages.
Not that it was a bad story, or anything. But most books sag in the middle a bit, and it takes a force of will for me to keep reading something I'm not as interested in as I was when the first lines sucked me in.
However, the sag went on for about 400 pages, in this book. It tells you something when you're stuck in a hospital room for a long weekend with nowhere to go and nothing else to do, and you still don't even crack the halfway point in a book. Even this brick of dead tree.
The first few chapters did intrigue me, but the narrative seemed scattered, with too much attention on people who'd soon be dead. Perhaps it was to create a mystery - just because we're seeing someone's perspective doesn't mean he survives, or that he dies. But, after the fifth shift, I was starting to get motion sick.
It occurred to me, about a third of the way through the book, that I might've liked it presented as a trilogy. But a book that jumps 92 years into the future, only to then present a 60-page flashback, failed to impress me. At the beginning of a book, a flashback can be a great way to make up for in medias res storytelling, and the mystery of what's going on can draw in a reader. But this book let all of that tension hang loose, wasted. Every single little mystery was answered, characters going on monologues just to tell you their life stories.
Overall, it seemed like Cronin was trying really hard to write The Stand with a vampire plague. But he hasn't King's writing chops, nor his experience. He has some lush and vivid language on his side, and there were even a lot of great characterizations. But parts of the story felt abrupt and forced, like even the author couldn't wait to get this over with.
So, if you have a lot of time to kill, you could do worse than this book. But I just wasn't that enamored of the size of the thing. As a trilogy, I'd probably love it. As it was published in one wrist-straining volume, it's not my favorite.
Not that it was a bad story, or anything. But most books sag in the middle a bit, and it takes a force of will for me to keep reading something I'm not as interested in as I was when the first lines sucked me in.
However, the sag went on for about 400 pages, in this book. It tells you something when you're stuck in a hospital room for a long weekend with nowhere to go and nothing else to do, and you still don't even crack the halfway point in a book. Even this brick of dead tree.
The first few chapters did intrigue me, but the narrative seemed scattered, with too much attention on people who'd soon be dead. Perhaps it was to create a mystery - just because we're seeing someone's perspective doesn't mean he survives, or that he dies. But, after the fifth shift, I was starting to get motion sick.
It occurred to me, about a third of the way through the book, that I might've liked it presented as a trilogy. But a book that jumps 92 years into the future, only to then present a 60-page flashback, failed to impress me. At the beginning of a book, a flashback can be a great way to make up for in medias res storytelling, and the mystery of what's going on can draw in a reader. But this book let all of that tension hang loose, wasted. Every single little mystery was answered, characters going on monologues just to tell you their life stories.
Overall, it seemed like Cronin was trying really hard to write The Stand with a vampire plague. But he hasn't King's writing chops, nor his experience. He has some lush and vivid language on his side, and there were even a lot of great characterizations. But parts of the story felt abrupt and forced, like even the author couldn't wait to get this over with.
So, if you have a lot of time to kill, you could do worse than this book. But I just wasn't that enamored of the size of the thing. As a trilogy, I'd probably love it. As it was published in one wrist-straining volume, it's not my favorite.