Scan barcode
A review by obsidian_blue
Run: A Novel by Blake Crouch
2.0
Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
Trigger warning: Scenes of rape and torture.
This really didn't work for me, probably because there are plot holes and coincidences galore that just never get explained. The ending didn't really work either. I think with what came before, it strained believability.
"Run" was first released back in 2011, but with Crouch's success, it has been re-released. I can't speak to any changes between the 2011 and 2024 version, but can say that this is just a passable horror end of the world book that you can't spend much time thinking about.
"Run" starts off with a woman [unnamed] who goes to a mass grave site and we find out that it contains men, women, children who who were shot and then cut up with chainsaws. She and another man make mention of New York. Then the book follows Jack Colclough and his wife Dee, his 14 year old daughter, Naomi, and 7 year old son, Cole. We don't know what is going on, but know they are fleeing their home and trying to make a run for it. Something has caused most of the Americans to turn suddenly violent and to rape and kill anyone else that is not like them. The book follows the family as they try to get to a "safe zone" in Canada [shades of Stephen King's 'The Stand."]
I don't really have an opinion on the characters we follow. I think because of how Crouch plops into the story, we don't get to see them as a family as much as a family on the run. Some things are revealed here and there, but it's mostly us following Jack for the majority of the story and reading about the things he has seen and he and his family do to survive. I think I had a harder time for why and how the mass murdering started. I won't spoil, but I went okay this is dumb like a thousand times. I think it may have worked better if Crouch had let that part alone. But instead it becomes central and it turns into a whole us versus them thing.
The flow of the book has it's up and downs, no spoilers, but the book moved much quicker when we shifted perspectives, and then when went back again it slowed down a lot. I also can't get away from the ridiculous coincidences that crept up with one character we see at the beginning and end. It didn't even make sense with the central plot point of hey [redacted] makes us murder and kill, but not in this one case cause reasons.
The setting is America, with Jack and his family trying to get from New Mexico to Canada. I think if you drove non-stop, you can get to Canada in something like 30 hours, but of course with the U.S. becoming a wasteland, Jack and family take much longer to get there and there just seems to be stops along the way that are just...I don't know I mentioned Stephen King earlier, it felt like parts of that were trying for "The Stand" vibes and didn't work. And since so many people were the villains' in this one, you just start to feel disaffected by the whole thing.
I don't know just don't think I was in the mindset to read a book about mass murders and rape right now. Also, I think things would have been a thousand times worse with the fact that most Americans have more than one weapon. So the ending felt very fantastical to me in the end.
Trigger warning: Scenes of rape and torture.
This really didn't work for me, probably because there are plot holes and coincidences galore that just never get explained. The ending didn't really work either. I think with what came before, it strained believability.
"Run" was first released back in 2011, but with Crouch's success, it has been re-released. I can't speak to any changes between the 2011 and 2024 version, but can say that this is just a passable horror end of the world book that you can't spend much time thinking about.
"Run" starts off with a woman [unnamed] who goes to a mass grave site and we find out that it contains men, women, children who who were shot and then cut up with chainsaws. She and another man make mention of New York. Then the book follows Jack Colclough and his wife Dee, his 14 year old daughter, Naomi, and 7 year old son, Cole. We don't know what is going on, but know they are fleeing their home and trying to make a run for it. Something has caused most of the Americans to turn suddenly violent and to rape and kill anyone else that is not like them. The book follows the family as they try to get to a "safe zone" in Canada [shades of Stephen King's 'The Stand."]
I don't really have an opinion on the characters we follow. I think because of how Crouch plops into the story, we don't get to see them as a family as much as a family on the run. Some things are revealed here and there, but it's mostly us following Jack for the majority of the story and reading about the things he has seen and he and his family do to survive. I think I had a harder time for why and how the mass murdering started. I won't spoil, but I went okay this is dumb like a thousand times. I think it may have worked better if Crouch had let that part alone. But instead it becomes central and it turns into a whole us versus them thing.
The flow of the book has it's up and downs, no spoilers, but the book moved much quicker when we shifted perspectives, and then when went back again it slowed down a lot. I also can't get away from the ridiculous coincidences that crept up with one character we see at the beginning and end. It didn't even make sense with the central plot point of hey [redacted] makes us murder and kill, but not in this one case cause reasons.
The setting is America, with Jack and his family trying to get from New Mexico to Canada. I think if you drove non-stop, you can get to Canada in something like 30 hours, but of course with the U.S. becoming a wasteland, Jack and family take much longer to get there and there just seems to be stops along the way that are just...I don't know I mentioned Stephen King earlier, it felt like parts of that were trying for "The Stand" vibes and didn't work. And since so many people were the villains' in this one, you just start to feel disaffected by the whole thing.
I don't know just don't think I was in the mindset to read a book about mass murders and rape right now. Also, I think things would have been a thousand times worse with the fact that most Americans have more than one weapon. So the ending felt very fantastical to me in the end.