A review by hannaws
Year One by Nora Roberts

adventurous dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

 Schools closed, countless businesses locked their doors as people were urged to limit contact with others. The sale of surgical masks, gloves, over-the-counter and prescription flu remedies, bleach and disinfectants soared.

Sound familiar to anyone? To be honest, I nearly DNFd this book just because I'm so full of the big C. I was like "nope, I am not going to read a book that was published three year prior the big C, yet still very much takes me back to the starting dates". But really, this plaque is far more deadly than what we have. Far more. And I continued to read. Nora Roberts is after all the first author I ever seriously read anything from ever.

The book is kind of written in multiple POVs that sometimes get confused by one another. By that I mean the way those change. You might be in the middle of a chapter, reading person ones POV, when suddenly the next paragraph is from person two's POV. That threw me off a little because it made me go back for more than one time, just to check when and what happened now.
To keep on going with the multiple POVs, those pretty much seem somewhat pointless to me. Yes, as the synopsis says, their paths cross etc so there is some point at the start, but in the end, they all are forgotten. I don't think they really would have needed that much page time in their own point of views.

That brings me to characters. So many amazing characters are introduced here and brought together. You'd think that this is the posse who will take over the world, however that's possible during a deadly plaque, I don't know. You pick favorites and really try to get into those different persons, just to not hear about them anymore. I really don't know what is the point in all of this. I mean yes, I do, but at the same time I really don't think all of it was necessary.
The main character, I think that's what she is, became kind of whatever to me. At the end of the book she was just words written on a paper. Not much connection there at all, really not much of anything to take a hold of with her.

The story itself is nice. I think it could have been better. I'm trying to get a hold of my words here and find the right ones. Because I did really like this book, I finished it. I do want to continue with this series also, I need to know what comes out of this Chosen One. Are they going to be like every single Chosen One? Or will this turn out differently?
Back to the story. I don't much care about The Chose One trope and with Year One it's no different. I kinda laughed when I read that, sorry. It was expected though. The whole book is very predictable. That might be the biggest reason for it to get to the meh-category. There just isn't much to look forward to. Everything just happens and it's done with. Like "oh, my neighbor just fell from a tree. Well, I better move on with my life" you know?

All in all I liked this one and am curious enough to continue with this series. It is just a little hasty book. Like a snowplow just going forward until it's done for the days work. I'm hoping for more character and story building for the next book. A little bit more depth to the characters. And I really hope to see some of them again! I mean I did spent half a book with a lot of people. 
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