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thebeardedpoet 's review for:
Odd Interlude
by Dean Koontz
I'd say this installment of Odd Thomas falls firmly in the category of "guilty pleasure." It's a bit of a mess in terms of conception and plot, but I still enjoyed it because I'm charmed by the main narrator and hero, Odd Thomas. The "Odd one" remains the embodiment of the most orthodox Christian values: humility, self-sacrifice, and love (the kind of love that leads to gracious compassion and faithfulness). Not only that, he's got a wonderful wit and is the master of deep rumination and tangential theology. Odd's sense of humor clearly helps him cope with the insanity of his experiences. And the theological contemplations give his life or death, good vs evil adventures a meaningfulness and weight.
The wacky thing is Koontz has placed this admirable (even Christ-like) character in a B-movie plot. Odd has paranormal abilities: sees dead people, has strong intuition, and the ability to locate people. He's committed his life to using those gifts to combat evil. In this installment, the evil is a localized dictator who has mind-control over an isolated neighborhood. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into the details of the villain's backstory or Odd's assault against him. I will mention that Koontz is experimenting here by introducing a 12 year old girl who serves as a secondary narrator in the later half of the book. During her narration, I shook my head wondering why Koontz apparently couldn't see that her voice was way too similar to Odd's. She was completely unbelievable as a 12 year old girl, although Koontz did attempt to give her backstory enough reasons for her high vocabulary and adult observational skills. And at the end of the book, there is a further attempt to explain the similarity of her narrative voice to Odd's, which improved my opinion of her sections but was not entirely satisfying. (At least I felt better knowing that Kootntz was in fact aware of the similarity between her narration and Odd's.) So in a nutshell, I'd say this is a likeable read, but only for those who are diehard Odd Thomas fans.
The wacky thing is Koontz has placed this admirable (even Christ-like) character in a B-movie plot. Odd has paranormal abilities: sees dead people, has strong intuition, and the ability to locate people. He's committed his life to using those gifts to combat evil. In this installment, the evil is a localized dictator who has mind-control over an isolated neighborhood. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into the details of the villain's backstory or Odd's assault against him. I will mention that Koontz is experimenting here by introducing a 12 year old girl who serves as a secondary narrator in the later half of the book. During her narration, I shook my head wondering why Koontz apparently couldn't see that her voice was way too similar to Odd's. She was completely unbelievable as a 12 year old girl, although Koontz did attempt to give her backstory enough reasons for her high vocabulary and adult observational skills. And at the end of the book, there is a further attempt to explain the similarity of her narrative voice to Odd's, which improved my opinion of her sections but was not entirely satisfying. (At least I felt better knowing that Kootntz was in fact aware of the similarity between her narration and Odd's.) So in a nutshell, I'd say this is a likeable read, but only for those who are diehard Odd Thomas fans.