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A review by dorhastings
The Twelve by Justin Cronin
5.0
I contemplated giving the book four stars, but to be honest the book kept me so enraptured in the end, in a way that few books can, that the five stars is inevitable for me. Overall a fantastic second novel to the trilogy. I preordered it and had to wait until March of this year to get around to it.
An additional thing that I found sort of annoying was the use of terms without explanation. I know it's hard when all the characters of the scene know the terms and don't need to include explanations. At least "col" was briefly explained. But there was another term (was it ex-murus?) that I didn't catch. That was a very interesting idea, the use of virals and redeyes and cols, with the redeyes in particular. What this novel focuses most on, as you'll find in other works in this genre, is the focus on what the humans do in their daily lives. I think that's so much of the appeal for a show like The Walking Dead, in which the zombies themselves play a necessary but limited role in why people absolutely love the show. (I don't watch; zombies and I do not get along.) I found the emphasis on rape to be less... appealing. I don't think it needed to be done, but at least it wasn't explicit. Just because there were female main characters didn't mean we had to go that way.
Overall there were many things that totally confused me, but I'm not sure if that's me or if that's just the way this book is. I am only vaguely understanding of the Carter/Wolgast/Amy situation. I kind of get it now. I really like Peter, as I think you are supposed to. There isn't a whole lot of emphasis on him, but this is not to say the characters are not well-developed. I think they all are, and the build-up of this novel is fantastic. You can see it all coming together as the main characters are drawn closer to one another, until the battle in the stadium.
Highly, highly recommended. Can't wait until the next book comes out.
Also, every time Wolgast came up, I think I started to cry. I'm such a sap.
Spoiler
Perhaps the thing that I found annoying was the back and forth between a past before (or running currently in) The Passage. Perhaps it's because I'm reading the Kindle edition, so the years mean nothing to me. I understand why it has to be done: you see Lila, Guilder, Vorhees, and other crucial characters who will be brought up as the novel proceeds. My focus was on the major characters in the previous book: Amy, Peter, and Alicia, and we didn't see them in this book for quite some time.An additional thing that I found sort of annoying was the use of terms without explanation. I know it's hard when all the characters of the scene know the terms and don't need to include explanations. At least "col" was briefly explained. But there was another term (was it ex-murus?) that I didn't catch. That was a very interesting idea, the use of virals and redeyes and cols, with the redeyes in particular. What this novel focuses most on, as you'll find in other works in this genre, is the focus on what the humans do in their daily lives. I think that's so much of the appeal for a show like The Walking Dead, in which the zombies themselves play a necessary but limited role in why people absolutely love the show. (I don't watch; zombies and I do not get along.) I found the emphasis on rape to be less... appealing. I don't think it needed to be done, but at least it wasn't explicit. Just because there were female main characters didn't mean we had to go that way.
Overall there were many things that totally confused me, but I'm not sure if that's me or if that's just the way this book is. I am only vaguely understanding of the Carter/Wolgast/Amy situation. I kind of get it now. I really like Peter, as I think you are supposed to. There isn't a whole lot of emphasis on him, but this is not to say the characters are not well-developed. I think they all are, and the build-up of this novel is fantastic. You can see it all coming together as the main characters are drawn closer to one another, until the battle in the stadium.
Highly, highly recommended. Can't wait until the next book comes out.
Also, every time Wolgast came up, I think I started to cry. I'm such a sap.