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A review by buildhergender
Innocence by Dean Koontz
3.0
I am going to be doing Dean Koontz reviews differently than my normal reviews.
Personal feeling to the story:
.I’m split on this one. I really liked where the story led, and the build up to the conclusion. It had a pretty interesting plot and despite multiple guesses I did not figure out the protagonist's true nature before the reveal. On the bad side I honestly feel that if the protagonist had been replaced by a video camera on a wheeled table it would not have changed the story. He did nothing in the story but be dragged from place to place. And although Gwyneth is not written as a manic pixie dream girl, instead she’s a goth with a lot of intelligence, she feels very much like one. A manic pixie dream girl is supposed to be there for the protagonist and fix his life and oftentimes you have to wonder what the girl gets out of it.
From beginning to now Dean Koontz has been slowly moving from horror to life affirming, so I think his books should be gauged on a horror to life affirming measure.
With 1 being as horror filled as Carrie with a bucket of pigs blood on her in the new IT and 10 being as life affirming as having a pet cloud that follows you and lets you take naps on it.
This was about a 9 on the meter. Despite having probably the most body count of any book he’s written. (Spoiler, 0.9999999993281376% of humanity dies.) A scene where a father is beaten in front of his son and a person dying of a terrible disease this book is full of hope for humanity, or at least a very very very small part of it.
Weirdness/wacky content. A book written as straight with not at least a little bit of weirdness in them would not be a Dean Koontz book. This book had some but not much. Most of it centering around some puppets created by an artist who killed his family and himself.
500 word synopsis.
Addisson was born with a face only a mother could love, and in this case not even her. From a young age he is told that when people see his face they have an instinctual urge to violently kill him. Because of this his mother keeps him isolated in the middle of the forest. As he grows even his mother finds his face too much and sends him off into the forest, sometimes for days at a time. Eventually his mother tells him to leave and she kills herself and Addisson makes his way to a city. Almost killed by some street thugs he is taken in by another man who has the same facial features. They live underground in a long forgotten set of rooms spending most of their days reading. Eventually one day during a snowstorm Addison and his father are confronted by the police who shoot and beat Addison’s father to death. This leaves Addison alone for years until one night while sneaking through the library he sees a woman chased by a man. Eventually she evades the chaser and Addison introduces himself, while keeping to the shadows. She says that she has a social fear and can not touch people and he explains his condition and he agrees not to touch and she not to look. From there it is a whirlwind ride as Addison helps Gwyneth avenge her fathers death, survive a worldwide plague and find out what he really is. It is here we learn that he, and Gwyneth and a few other people are people who despite being born of man and woman are not tainted Adam's sin. When people look at them they see their own sin reflected and this drives them into a rage. With all of humanity dead the couple find themselves living in a literal new garden of Eden.
Golden Retriever Watch:
At least one Golden Retriever appeared in this book quite possibly more as at one point the protagonist is surrounded by 50 dogs.
Personal feeling to the story:
.I’m split on this one. I really liked where the story led, and the build up to the conclusion. It had a pretty interesting plot and despite multiple guesses I did not figure out the protagonist's true nature before the reveal. On the bad side I honestly feel that if the protagonist had been replaced by a video camera on a wheeled table it would not have changed the story. He did nothing in the story but be dragged from place to place. And although Gwyneth is not written as a manic pixie dream girl, instead she’s a goth with a lot of intelligence, she feels very much like one. A manic pixie dream girl is supposed to be there for the protagonist and fix his life and oftentimes you have to wonder what the girl gets out of it.
From beginning to now Dean Koontz has been slowly moving from horror to life affirming, so I think his books should be gauged on a horror to life affirming measure.
With 1 being as horror filled as Carrie with a bucket of pigs blood on her in the new IT and 10 being as life affirming as having a pet cloud that follows you and lets you take naps on it.
This was about a 9 on the meter. Despite having probably the most body count of any book he’s written. (Spoiler, 0.9999999993281376% of humanity dies.) A scene where a father is beaten in front of his son and a person dying of a terrible disease this book is full of hope for humanity, or at least a very very very small part of it.
Weirdness/wacky content. A book written as straight with not at least a little bit of weirdness in them would not be a Dean Koontz book. This book had some but not much. Most of it centering around some puppets created by an artist who killed his family and himself.
500 word synopsis.
Addisson was born with a face only a mother could love, and in this case not even her. From a young age he is told that when people see his face they have an instinctual urge to violently kill him. Because of this his mother keeps him isolated in the middle of the forest. As he grows even his mother finds his face too much and sends him off into the forest, sometimes for days at a time. Eventually his mother tells him to leave and she kills herself and Addisson makes his way to a city. Almost killed by some street thugs he is taken in by another man who has the same facial features. They live underground in a long forgotten set of rooms spending most of their days reading. Eventually one day during a snowstorm Addison and his father are confronted by the police who shoot and beat Addison’s father to death. This leaves Addison alone for years until one night while sneaking through the library he sees a woman chased by a man. Eventually she evades the chaser and Addison introduces himself, while keeping to the shadows. She says that she has a social fear and can not touch people and he explains his condition and he agrees not to touch and she not to look. From there it is a whirlwind ride as Addison helps Gwyneth avenge her fathers death, survive a worldwide plague and find out what he really is. It is here we learn that he, and Gwyneth and a few other people are people who despite being born of man and woman are not tainted Adam's sin. When people look at them they see their own sin reflected and this drives them into a rage. With all of humanity dead the couple find themselves living in a literal new garden of Eden.
Golden Retriever Watch:
At least one Golden Retriever appeared in this book quite possibly more as at one point the protagonist is surrounded by 50 dogs.