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A review by smalljeannie
The Passage by Justin Cronin
3.0
My, this was epic. I can hardly believe it's part of a trilogy. (See, I didn't realize that when I started. How could I not know, though? Everything is a trilogy these days...)
This book is nothing if not thorough. Every character has a long backstory, and every backstory has another backstory. I'm not sure the tale needed all of that, but I got into each and every one, like each was a course to be savored. But in the end, it felt too long, because the entrees in the post-apocalypse portion of the book just weren't the same quality as the appetizers.
You see, ironically, for the length of this thing, half the characters (the ones from the Colony) were flat. Perhaps that's a function of their situation, of living the way they do. I don't know, but none seemed as nuanced as the abandoned characters of the first half. Nor did the story seem original any more. After all the build up to understanding what was behind our twelve vampires, they didn't turn out to be anything particularly interesting. I will give this the benefit of the doubt for now, though, since they exist inside a little box with maybe 100 people in their whole world, and maybe we can't expect more from them?
I liked the changes in pacing, moving from narrative to conference report to diary, and so on. I like the reminder that there's someone living in a thousand years, talking about these events.
As a side note, I live in one of the locations Cronin uses, and it's obvious that he's actually been here. How refreshing!
I'll definitely keep reading. The good was very good and memorable, and the 'bad' was simply mediocre and unoriginal. But I am sucked in now, and I'm hoping for more of the good parts.
This book is nothing if not thorough. Every character has a long backstory, and every backstory has another backstory. I'm not sure the tale needed all of that, but I got into each and every one, like each was a course to be savored. But in the end, it felt too long, because the entrees in the post-apocalypse portion of the book just weren't the same quality as the appetizers.
You see, ironically, for the length of this thing, half the characters (the ones from the Colony) were flat. Perhaps that's a function of their situation, of living the way they do. I don't know, but none seemed as nuanced as the abandoned characters of the first half. Nor did the story seem original any more. After all the build up to understanding what was behind our twelve vampires, they didn't turn out to be anything particularly interesting. I will give this the benefit of the doubt for now, though, since they exist inside a little box with maybe 100 people in their whole world, and maybe we can't expect more from them?
I liked the changes in pacing, moving from narrative to conference report to diary, and so on. I like the reminder that there's someone living in a thousand years, talking about these events.
As a side note, I live in one of the locations Cronin uses, and it's obvious that he's actually been here. How refreshing!
I'll definitely keep reading. The good was very good and memorable, and the 'bad' was simply mediocre and unoriginal. But I am sucked in now, and I'm hoping for more of the good parts.