A review by womaninwinter
I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

1.0

Recently, I bought dinner at McDonalds for the first time in about 10 years. It was gross but I finished it anyway out of a pigheaded determination not to waste it, and then of course I felt sick afterwards. My experience with this book was almost identical. I knew damn well I wasn't going to like it, but I read it anyway because I had started it and ended up feeling queasy and frustrated. There are so many things wrong with I Am Pilgrim – graphic, gratuitous violence, clumsy, clunky plotting that relied heavily on insane coincidences, flat-as-a-pancake characterisation, nasty authorial prejudices leaking through all over the place and a complete damp squib of an ending – that I'd be here all day if I tried to go into any detail on them, and I've already wasted enough time on this enormous slab of paper. There was one bit that entertained me though: after I'd ploughed through all 891 pages of Pilgrim, I found a letter from Terry Hayes to the reader, congratulating himself on what a great main character he'd created. Incredible! You've got to laugh at brass neck like that.