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A review by buildhergender
The City by Dean Koontz
3.0
I am going to be doing Dean Koontz reviews differently than my normal reviews.
Personal feeling to the story: A bit slow but good nonetheless with my interest growing the further I got in. I do have a major gripe. The story is based around a black boy growing up in the 60’s. He is raised, in part, by his grandfather and over and over both he and his grandfather seem to make efforts to say that there is no malice over the racism of the times. Simple request, writers, if you are white, you do not get to have your black characters in the sixties okay with racism.
From beginning to now Dean Koontz has been slowly moving from horror to life affirming, so I think his books should be gauged on a horror to life affirming measure.
With 1 being so horror filled that you end up reading on the toilet in case you crap your pants and 10 being so filled with life affirming that even water now tastes sweet.
This was about a 8 on the meter. While there is some violence at the end and a scene where the protagonist dreams of themself being buried alive with a corpse there is no real horror and the basic theme seems to be that the city loves us because the city is made of us.
Weirdness/wacky content. A book written as straight with not at least a little bit of weirdness in them would not be a Dean Koontz book. This book does have his signature weirdness including:
A protagonist with 7 middle names
The personification of a city taken to the point where it takes a literal human form.
The best friend who is OCD, won’t eat mushrooms and doesn’t read the newspaper on Tuesdays.
200 word synopsis.
Jonah, like his grandfather, has a talent for playing the piano and believes one day he will become a “piano man.” One day the city appears to him in the form of a lady who promises him a piano to practice on and also gives him two nightmares of two very bad people. He soon has access to the piano and also soon has a neighbor who looks exactly like someone in one of his dreams. Soon he finds that she is involved with the other person from his other dream and with Johah’s estranged dad. Along with a friendly neighbor Jonah investigates and suspects the group of bomb making. One day at a bank with friends he spies his father dropping off a suitcase. Rather than run, he warns everyone of a bomb. It kills one of his friends and leaves Jonah a paraplegic. He will never be the piano man he dreamed of. Instead of being destroyed he instead works on becoming a music writer and wins a lot of awards for it. Still upbeat because he has learned the lesson of the city, “Everything will be alright in the long run.”
Golden Retriever Watch:
No golden retrievers appeared in this book.
Personal feeling to the story: A bit slow but good nonetheless with my interest growing the further I got in. I do have a major gripe. The story is based around a black boy growing up in the 60’s. He is raised, in part, by his grandfather and over and over both he and his grandfather seem to make efforts to say that there is no malice over the racism of the times. Simple request, writers, if you are white, you do not get to have your black characters in the sixties okay with racism.
From beginning to now Dean Koontz has been slowly moving from horror to life affirming, so I think his books should be gauged on a horror to life affirming measure.
With 1 being so horror filled that you end up reading on the toilet in case you crap your pants and 10 being so filled with life affirming that even water now tastes sweet.
This was about a 8 on the meter. While there is some violence at the end and a scene where the protagonist dreams of themself being buried alive with a corpse there is no real horror and the basic theme seems to be that the city loves us because the city is made of us.
Weirdness/wacky content. A book written as straight with not at least a little bit of weirdness in them would not be a Dean Koontz book. This book does have his signature weirdness including:
A protagonist with 7 middle names
The personification of a city taken to the point where it takes a literal human form.
The best friend who is OCD, won’t eat mushrooms and doesn’t read the newspaper on Tuesdays.
200 word synopsis.
Jonah, like his grandfather, has a talent for playing the piano and believes one day he will become a “piano man.” One day the city appears to him in the form of a lady who promises him a piano to practice on and also gives him two nightmares of two very bad people. He soon has access to the piano and also soon has a neighbor who looks exactly like someone in one of his dreams. Soon he finds that she is involved with the other person from his other dream and with Johah’s estranged dad. Along with a friendly neighbor Jonah investigates and suspects the group of bomb making. One day at a bank with friends he spies his father dropping off a suitcase. Rather than run, he warns everyone of a bomb. It kills one of his friends and leaves Jonah a paraplegic. He will never be the piano man he dreamed of. Instead of being destroyed he instead works on becoming a music writer and wins a lot of awards for it. Still upbeat because he has learned the lesson of the city, “Everything will be alright in the long run.”
Golden Retriever Watch:
No golden retrievers appeared in this book.