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littleneptune 's review for:

Phantoms by Dean Koontz
2.5
adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-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

This is not a bad book, but it is definitely not great either.
It started out pretty strong, with a good mystery and a creepy atmosphere, but was not able to maintain any of it until the end. The pacing felt a bit off and made it hard to stay hooked in the story. The characters also felt very shallow, without much substance. I never got attached to any of them.

The devices used in this book kind of bored me. The whole
extraterrestrial/from time immemorial being that comes up every few years to eat people
has been seen and done better, in my opinion. This felt like reading a bad retelling of It, even though It was written a few years after Phantoms. The lack of nuance also annoyed me. There was such a clear straight division between good and evil that I grew tired. It was boring knowing that
the good guys would inevitably win
, without even a moment of doubt. On top of that, the characters were shallow and boring. We knew so little about them and they were so underdeveloped that at no point did I feel any sort of emotion towards them. They felt like simple tools to advance the story.

Special mention to the weird happening at the end of the book. It was so random and out of place, that it actually kind of surprised me. Probably the only time I was ever surprised or invested in the book, even though I never truly was in the first place.

The only reason I am not giving this a 1 star review is that the book was entertaining. I finished it and never felt like I should DNF. But that’s about it.