melissacummings70 's review for:

The Fireman by Joe Hill

3.0

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I wanted to love this book. I was intrigued by it the entire way through. Many elements felt like they could had parallels to what is actually happening in the real world even though it is clearly fiction. A deadly disease (not out of the realm of possibility). Quarantining of the sick. Group mentality and questionable leadership. But a few things kept it in the like vs. love category. 1. It was way too long. Needed an editor to trim at least a third out. 2. I wanted to smack the main character, who supposedly was smart but kept making the dumbest decisions. 3. I was willing to suspend belief for the disease itself and some of the characters’ actions, but the longer the book went on, the more insane the plot became. Medical mystery? Supernatural? Who knows? 4. The ending was just too far-fetched. 5. Plot holes. A girl gets her face slashed but she doesn’t get stitches for days and is fine. She can fight and speak all with cut lips. Then they don’t bathe or shower for days and nothing gets infected. For any of the injuries. Please. (And this is just one example.) All in all, the concept was solid, and the book started off well, but it just got to be too much. The disease itself was intriguing enough. So many of the other elements were just unnecessary.