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A review by willoughbyreads
Blackout by Marc Elsberg
2.0
Great concept for a novel: hackers taking over and shutting down electrical plants all over Europe and the United States. Mass chaos ensues. Money shortages. Food shortages. Nuclear meltdowns. Gas is inaccessible without electricity. National governments are wiped out by anarchy and military coups. And all of this is happening within just a few days.
Probably too many characters in the story for the protagonist to truly stand out and for the reader to maintain any significant interest in what was happening. Also, too many locations throughout Europe, each with their own subplots and storylines. Too much jumping around, as most of the "scenes" in the story were 1-2 pages long and then the story jumped to another location / character for a couple of pages. I finished the book but it was long after I felt compelled to keep turning the pages, therefore I'm not sure I would classify this as a thriller. Cutting out just a couple of the locations and characters would have gone a long way toward improving the quality of the book... and/or maybe making each scene a bit longer (maybe 4-5 pages each) so it didn't feel so rushed going from country to country and character to character and crisis to crisis.
Probably too many characters in the story for the protagonist to truly stand out and for the reader to maintain any significant interest in what was happening. Also, too many locations throughout Europe, each with their own subplots and storylines. Too much jumping around, as most of the "scenes" in the story were 1-2 pages long and then the story jumped to another location / character for a couple of pages. I finished the book but it was long after I felt compelled to keep turning the pages, therefore I'm not sure I would classify this as a thriller. Cutting out just a couple of the locations and characters would have gone a long way toward improving the quality of the book... and/or maybe making each scene a bit longer (maybe 4-5 pages each) so it didn't feel so rushed going from country to country and character to character and crisis to crisis.