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A review by hadeanstars
The Passage by Justin Cronin
1.0
Abysmal.
In fairness, the first few chapters were readable, and felt like old school Stephen King, but that only served to hoodwink me into persevering long past the point where it was worth the investment.
About a third of the way through, the story changed entirely. We zoom ahead many years and find ourselves among a whole new cast of characters.
But I use the term characters very loosely, because they had none. There are an awful lot of them, and they become really difficult to distinguish, because they have no personality. The only way you can tell them apart is by name. There are no quirks or idiosyncrasies, no expression of feeling, they just seem to be cardboard cutouts, like the cast of an action movie. And that would be fine, if there were any action.
Nothing happens. I didn’t care about any of the two dimensional nobodies, the horror was pedestrian, the apocalypse had no explanation or meaning, the writing was bland and mediocre, and I was bored out of my mind. Just terrible. Two thirds of the way through, I gave up. I almost never give up.
The only sense of intrigue about this so called novel is how it managed to garner so many five star reviews, and how anyone managed to finish it, never mind two equally overlong sequels.
A complete waste of time and money.
In fairness, the first few chapters were readable, and felt like old school Stephen King, but that only served to hoodwink me into persevering long past the point where it was worth the investment.
About a third of the way through, the story changed entirely. We zoom ahead many years and find ourselves among a whole new cast of characters.
But I use the term characters very loosely, because they had none. There are an awful lot of them, and they become really difficult to distinguish, because they have no personality. The only way you can tell them apart is by name. There are no quirks or idiosyncrasies, no expression of feeling, they just seem to be cardboard cutouts, like the cast of an action movie. And that would be fine, if there were any action.
Nothing happens. I didn’t care about any of the two dimensional nobodies, the horror was pedestrian, the apocalypse had no explanation or meaning, the writing was bland and mediocre, and I was bored out of my mind. Just terrible. Two thirds of the way through, I gave up. I almost never give up.
The only sense of intrigue about this so called novel is how it managed to garner so many five star reviews, and how anyone managed to finish it, never mind two equally overlong sequels.
A complete waste of time and money.