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A review by kenderwolf
12.21 by Dustin Thomason
2.0
Okay, so this wound up being a hot mess in the end, which is too bad. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. This actually isn't a preferred genre of mine, but this was recommended to me because of the prion disease, which I am fascinated by. Coupling that with the Mayan end of the world seemed a little wacky to me, but I like apocalyptic stuff so I gave it a go.
In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. Characters were a little stock, but I'm used to that, especially in mystery/thriller type books. Thomason appears to have done his research regarding both prions and Mayan culture, so those parts were interesting to me. The writing was faster than I thought at first -- at one point I suddenly realized I was 1/3 of the way through the book. I stumbled a bit in the cardiac arrest scene early on as it wasn't medically accurate; I actually flipped to the author bio and was surprised to see he's an M.D. I enjoyed the Venice Beach scenes as I have been there many times and, again, really liked all the Mayan stuff. The story was a touch far-fetched (so many coincidences!) but it wasn't until the end, especially once they're in the jungle, when the medical professional in me began to weep. I won't get into spoilers, but it gets SO inaccurate and unrealistic, both plot-wise and medically, that I cringed. A lot. A lot a lot.
Can't recommend this one and, unfortunately, Thomason has only managed to make me hesitant to read anything else by him.
In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. Characters were a little stock, but I'm used to that, especially in mystery/thriller type books. Thomason appears to have done his research regarding both prions and Mayan culture, so those parts were interesting to me. The writing was faster than I thought at first -- at one point I suddenly realized I was 1/3 of the way through the book. I stumbled a bit in the cardiac arrest scene early on as it wasn't medically accurate; I actually flipped to the author bio and was surprised to see he's an M.D. I enjoyed the Venice Beach scenes as I have been there many times and, again, really liked all the Mayan stuff. The story was a touch far-fetched (so many coincidences!) but it wasn't until the end, especially once they're in the jungle, when the medical professional in me began to weep. I won't get into spoilers, but it gets SO inaccurate and unrealistic, both plot-wise and medically, that I cringed. A lot. A lot a lot.
Can't recommend this one and, unfortunately, Thomason has only managed to make me hesitant to read anything else by him.