shoshana73's review against another edition
3.0
The Passage is great, if a little dated in terms of gender politics. I wish the next book had focused on The Colony.
The Twelve is not as good. I don't like the glamorization of serial killer's pov.
The City of Mirrors is even less good.
The Twelve is not as good. I don't like the glamorization of serial killer's pov.
The City of Mirrors is even less good.
kellyhager's review against another edition
5.0
I've wanted to read this since Stephen King made mention of it in his Entertainment Weekly column. And here's his blurb on the back of the book: “Every so often a novel-reader’s novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Read fifteen pages and you will find yourself captivated; read thirty and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”
The synopsis:
“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.
With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction."
Me again.
Probably you're going to read a lot of comparisons to The Stand. (And it's understandable, seeing as how that's enough brick of a book about the end of the world and how the survivors fight the evil.) But I think it's more like The Stand meets Salem's Lot, and written in the style of The Historian. (Which is to say that it's beautifully written and you sort of float along on the words until you realize all of a sudden that you're incredibly creeped out because this book is about vampires. And not sparkly, vegetarian vampires, either. These vampires are mean. Incredibly mean. Oh-crap-Angel-just-lost-his-soul mean.)
This book ends on a cliffhanger (I believe it's going to be a trilogy, ultimately), so if you're not so good with the patience, you may want to wait until book 2 comes out. But there's not a release date for that, yet, and really, if you're not a patient person, you're probably not going to want to wait anyway. (Still, I warned you. CLIFFHANGER.)
The synopsis:
“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.
As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.
With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction."
Me again.
Probably you're going to read a lot of comparisons to The Stand. (And it's understandable, seeing as how that's enough brick of a book about the end of the world and how the survivors fight the evil.) But I think it's more like The Stand meets Salem's Lot, and written in the style of The Historian. (Which is to say that it's beautifully written and you sort of float along on the words until you realize all of a sudden that you're incredibly creeped out because this book is about vampires. And not sparkly, vegetarian vampires, either. These vampires are mean. Incredibly mean. Oh-crap-Angel-just-lost-his-soul mean.)
This book ends on a cliffhanger (I believe it's going to be a trilogy, ultimately), so if you're not so good with the patience, you may want to wait until book 2 comes out. But there's not a release date for that, yet, and really, if you're not a patient person, you're probably not going to want to wait anyway. (Still, I warned you. CLIFFHANGER.)
pages_and_procrastination's review against another edition
5.0
t took me a while to make it through this book (almost as long as it did to write the review). It wasn’t because it was a bad book; it was just a huge book. The further along I’ve made it through it, the more that I realized how connected everything was. Though in the end I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I have to admit that there were moments that I found it a bit slow.
Most of the time I am able to find a character, a good guy or a bad guy, that stands out- one that I’ve really loved or really hated. I can’t say that there is one like that for me here. I would say that this story is basically about Amy and her destiny to save the world from vampire-like creatures. Yes there are other lives that intertwine with and impact hers, but none that made an overwhelming impression. At least not individually. Even from the beginning lives were connected and playing out in ways that we were not aware of. So where this story may be about Amy, and where there are lots of characters and roles to play, this is really about surviving and what it will take for a community to keep going. This does not mean that the characters lack depth. Quite the opposite, each is fleshed out with a unique back-story and a unique voice.
The Passage feels as if it is only the beginning. Yes, there is some resolution to the problems that come up in the story, but it doesn’t feel settled. This would normally be a problem for me, but it really is the beginning. I am looking forward to what happens, and I am glad that I don’t have to wait for The Twelve since it is out.
5 stars *****
Most of the time I am able to find a character, a good guy or a bad guy, that stands out- one that I’ve really loved or really hated. I can’t say that there is one like that for me here. I would say that this story is basically about Amy and her destiny to save the world from vampire-like creatures. Yes there are other lives that intertwine with and impact hers, but none that made an overwhelming impression. At least not individually. Even from the beginning lives were connected and playing out in ways that we were not aware of. So where this story may be about Amy, and where there are lots of characters and roles to play, this is really about surviving and what it will take for a community to keep going. This does not mean that the characters lack depth. Quite the opposite, each is fleshed out with a unique back-story and a unique voice.
The Passage feels as if it is only the beginning. Yes, there is some resolution to the problems that come up in the story, but it doesn’t feel settled. This would normally be a problem for me, but it really is the beginning. I am looking forward to what happens, and I am glad that I don’t have to wait for The Twelve since it is out.
5 stars *****
paulieg's review against another edition
3.0
So compulsively good! Revisits my favorite time period of The Passage, and the other stuff isn't bad, either. I *still* think Jon Hamm should totally play Wolgast in the movie!
kupoknight's review against another edition
4.0
I wouldn't be surprised if this would turn into a TV series or a movie. The Passage has everything going for it: vampires, or virals as they're called in this book, as experiments gone wrong that end up bringing about the end of the world and a group of survivors who journey to seek the truth and try to put a stop to it. Although the action scenes are intense and pretty gory, I love how the quiet moments are just as strongly felt. Of all the apocalyptic books I've read, I still couldn't get a grasp of how it would feel like to live in such a hopeless situation. This book described it well. Too well at times.
The book had a combined vibe of The Walking Dead (TV series) and Attack on Titan so if anyone enjoys that kind of action, hopeless-yet-hopeful apocalyptic drama, then give this book a shot. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, The Twelve.
The book had a combined vibe of The Walking Dead (TV series) and Attack on Titan so if anyone enjoys that kind of action, hopeless-yet-hopeful apocalyptic drama, then give this book a shot. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, The Twelve.
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