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wallywest77 's review for:
The Passage
by Justin Cronin
Spoilers
And then it happened.
And then he heard it.
And then he saw it.
Ugh.
And then I couldn't take any more "and then it" 's. Sometimes it's these kinds of things that can just drive you crazy and make you want to stop reading.
I had a lot of problems with this book, other than the overuse of "and then it happened." It almost got 2 stars. It's close. But I liked it enough, and I'm a softee...
Anyway, the problems. First of all, it reminded me of shows like "the 4400." Where a non-genre/sci-fi type author thinks it must be easy to write one, and so follows the formula a little too closely. It's not BAD... and at it's core, like a show like 4400, it has a cool idea to start with. But it never surprises, it never really makes you gasp, it's never that hard to put down and sometimes you forgot what it is you were reading last night?
(and by the way, of course non-genre writers can succeed wildly in any genre; a good writer is a good writer. The Road was an amazing "genre/end-of-the-world" novel, for example.)
Second... I didn't care about anyone except Amy and Peter. When Peter was about to stake his true love, Alicia, I was like... hurry up. And I couldn't really tell any of them apart. What was the difference between Hollis and Michael? Who was who? Why did Peter have THREE potential love interests? And how random was it that sara suddenly fell for Hollis? "Hey, let's throw THESE two together!" Like Joey and Rachel.
Further, on the second point... I cared about Amy, looked forward to getting back to her story... but she was barely in the second half of the book. She was a plot device, when from the start she seemed to be the central character. Kind of like Carter. Why spend so much time on him, pre-apocolypse, and then never see him in the rest of the book? To set up "the Passage part 2?" THEN, when Wolgast (whom I did like, and did care about, and empathisized with and totally bought why he ended up passionately protecting Amy) shows up in the last few pages... why was there NEVER any hint of his presence? He's presumed dead at the end of Year Zero, and it makes sense that he would survive as a viral. But we never saw any hint of his influence on Amy. It seemed arbritary and manipulative to bring him back.
Third... I just couldn't take all the "First Day," and "Night of Blade and Stars" and that it was the 65th day of summer and "we have sign" and that pants were called gaps, etc, etc, etc, etc... on and on... It was just too cute, too "clever." Too much.
I changed my mind. 2 stars.
And then it happened.
And then he heard it.
And then he saw it.
Ugh.
And then I couldn't take any more "and then it" 's. Sometimes it's these kinds of things that can just drive you crazy and make you want to stop reading.
I had a lot of problems with this book, other than the overuse of "and then it happened." It almost got 2 stars. It's close. But I liked it enough, and I'm a softee...
Anyway, the problems. First of all, it reminded me of shows like "the 4400." Where a non-genre/sci-fi type author thinks it must be easy to write one, and so follows the formula a little too closely. It's not BAD... and at it's core, like a show like 4400, it has a cool idea to start with. But it never surprises, it never really makes you gasp, it's never that hard to put down and sometimes you forgot what it is you were reading last night?
(and by the way, of course non-genre writers can succeed wildly in any genre; a good writer is a good writer. The Road was an amazing "genre/end-of-the-world" novel, for example.)
Second... I didn't care about anyone except Amy and Peter. When Peter was about to stake his true love, Alicia, I was like... hurry up. And I couldn't really tell any of them apart. What was the difference between Hollis and Michael? Who was who? Why did Peter have THREE potential love interests? And how random was it that sara suddenly fell for Hollis? "Hey, let's throw THESE two together!" Like Joey and Rachel.
Further, on the second point... I cared about Amy, looked forward to getting back to her story... but she was barely in the second half of the book. She was a plot device, when from the start she seemed to be the central character. Kind of like Carter. Why spend so much time on him, pre-apocolypse, and then never see him in the rest of the book? To set up "the Passage part 2?" THEN, when Wolgast (whom I did like, and did care about, and empathisized with and totally bought why he ended up passionately protecting Amy) shows up in the last few pages... why was there NEVER any hint of his presence? He's presumed dead at the end of Year Zero, and it makes sense that he would survive as a viral. But we never saw any hint of his influence on Amy. It seemed arbritary and manipulative to bring him back.
Third... I just couldn't take all the "First Day," and "Night of Blade and Stars" and that it was the 65th day of summer and "we have sign" and that pants were called gaps, etc, etc, etc, etc... on and on... It was just too cute, too "clever." Too much.
I changed my mind. 2 stars.